++++ Thinking

"He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law."

                        -Pablo Picasso

What happens to your thoughts after you think them? We all regurgitate the "positive thinking" rhetoric, but I really wonder if people know just how true it is.Your thoughts can kill you. OR they can allow you to live a healthy relatively happy life. Once we know and understand the power our minds hold everything would change.

I hate it when people constantly complain about their "bad" situation. They dwell on all the crappy things that keep happening to them. They incessantly recap their pains and sorrows, and never fail to remind you how much bad luck they have, or how they would never find a mate, or a job. Just Stop!

Think of your thoughts as seeds that can grow and blossom or infect and fester. Negativity is cancerous, it attaches itself to your surroundings and grows and attracts more negativity,what you think influences how you live.

 I believe that our thoughts and words hang over our heads like stars or a cloud that follows us around all day. They soak into our walls and into our furniture; they cling to our belongings and even to our very selves. They occupy our spiritual space, and they are catalysts for the events in our lives. It’s a simple equation really. Thoughts turn into words that turn into action, (it is a cycle) and the one rule that will forever hold true in our universe is Newtons Third Law of Motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

No force means no acceleration, nothing is random there is always a reason, and the fuel that pushes us through our lives is often our thoughts. 

It is the reason why the pen is mightier that the sword, why the spoken word is so dangerous, because they can plant thoughts that blossom and grow ……. or fester. We must be careful of the thoughts that we harbor about ourselves and about the people around us. Thinking positively is not a meaningless cliche. It could be the difference between happiness and despair. What your college professor said is really true “Attitude IS everything”, and perspective makes all the difference.

Control your thoughts and you can, for the most part, control your life. And I admit, IT IS  easier said than done, it takes practice and a certain level of spiritual discipline and consciousness where you are always aware of who you are, where you are, of who is around you and of what they bring with them, because poison can come in many forms.

This awareness isn't something that we have to learn, but rather something we have to awaken and tap into, because it’s already there. You can put it like this; there are taunt strings attached to us and when we think, and when we do, the vibrations go out into the universe. They certainly have an effect on our lives and the greater the thoughts (i.e; the more you think them), the greater the force, the greater the influence.

I say let us influence positively our own existence and the lives of others. But we must start with our thoughts.

DESCENDING MOUNT DOOM

LIFE IS REALLY A TRIP. I'VE BEEN GONE FOR A MINUTE, BUT NOW I'M BACK WITH THE JUMP OFF. READY TO BLOG ONCE MORE. THINGS HAVE TAKEN MANY UNEXPECTED TURNS FOR ME DURING THE LAST FEW MONTHS. I WOULD BE LYING IF I SAID THAT IT'S ALL GOOD, BUT I HAVE LEARNT SO VERY MUCH, ABOUT MYSELF, ABOUT THE WORLD AND ABOUT HUMAN NATURE IN GENERAL; THAT PERHAPS I CAN SAY THAT IT'S MUCH BETTER, BETTER THAT IT WAS BEFORE [PLAYING POLLYANA'S GLAD GAME :) ].


EVEN SO, THE STRUGGLE IS ALWAYS WELCOME AFTER IT HAS LEFT. ONLY THEN CAN WE REALLY APPRECIATE IT'S MANY LESSONS, AND TAKE THE TIME TO CONVERT THE PAIN INTO GROWTH. SOMETIMES GOING IN THE DIRECTION THAT WE NEED TO GO IS DIFFICULT AND SOMETIMES THE ROAD IS FILLED WITH SHARP STONES AND BRIERS, BUT TRUE AND SIGNIFICANT GROWTH HAPPENS DURING THESE PERILOUS JOURNEYS. YOU JUST ASK FRODO, MOUNT DOOM WAS TRULY A BITCH, AND MAYBE HE WAS NEVER THE SAME AGAIN, BUT SOME PAIN IS NECESSARY AND GOES BEYOND SELF. THE WISDOM AND STRENGTH GAINED AT THE END OF IT ALL, MAKES THE WHOLE TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE SOMEHOW WORTH IT. (ALTHOUGH I'M PRETTY SURE FRODO WOULD DISAGREE WITH ME)


AND YET, ON THE ROAD OF LIFE THERE ARE NO DEAD ENDS,  WHERE ONE STORY ENDS ANOTHER BEGINS, AND THE FIGHT EVER ONGOING, SO GAME FACE ON, LIGHT FOOTED AND SMILING HEART I AM READY TO TAKE ON THE WORLD.

TEMEL NOSCE

“Know thy self, and to man and God be true”

-Imhotep-

I've recently watched the golden globe winner 'Slum Dog Millionaire' a Danny Boyle film, director of another favorite of mine 'trinspotting'. It was a superbly directed movie (duh) although it's low budget was obvious, this didn't seem to make it look cheap. The story was complete and the characters were clearly defined yet there was some ambiguity about them that had to do with their life situation. If you haven't seen it yet I wont spoil it for you, all I would say is that it was as deserving of its golden globes as Heath Ledger was of his Oscar (!YEAH!!!).

Anyway after we turned off the computer and snuggled in to bed I couldn't fall asleep. Something about the movie was picking at my brain. You see earlier that evening I was reading a book by H.D Lawrence called the 'Plumed Serpent'. I hadn't gotten very far, chapter 3 to be exact, but it was obvious that a central theme in the novel was identity. This book tackled the strange dark ambiguity of Mexico and Mexicans and their seemingly lack and search of an identity.

You see you wouldn't quite get it unless you've lived there, but Mexicans are a very strange and contradicting people. They are complacent yet always against something, always protesting an “injustice”. They are lazy but most of them work 6 days a week sun up to sun down. Their favorite saying is !Viva Mexico! But here there is so much death not just of the body but also of the soul. They do not know who they are, and thus can never be congruent in their actions.

There seemed to be a slightly similar thing happening in 'Slum Dog Millionaire'. There is a struggle with identity that equally is not so much on a personal basis

but on a national level. The whole of India is caught up with the implications of identity, caught up in the web of labels and stereotypes so much that people do not even know who they are, only who they are supposed to be.

I began to think about my own identity, about where I came from, my roots. My thoughts drifted to my ancestors. To who they were before they were sold into slavery, what their names were, what they did for a living, where they had lived. I thought about their forced journey, their lives as slaves and how they lived after 1833. I wondered about how their blood came down through time to reach to me, and if they were in some place looking down on me.

It made me think in my father, a Rastaman whose dream it is to reach the shores of the land of his ancestors. And for the first time I truly understood how he feels. That night I had a hole inside me that I felt could not be filled unless I had something more to hold on to than a history of slavery and vague stories of a great civilizations. I understood then the drive Alex Heley had to find out where he had come from. It seemed to be the only thing that could complete me.

Deep down I think we all need that sense of connection to something that could define us, that could give us a sense of origin and identity. Marcus Garvey once said; “For man to know himself is for him to feel that for him there is no human master” I supposed that being dominated for so many centuries by others had taken away my identity. I felt no bitterness nor hate, just an insatiable need to know.

Nothing is Random

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
- Jean Cocteau

Are there random events? This philosophical, religious, scientific and spiritual debate has given us many logical and magical answers to the enigma of chance and randomness. As you may well imagine, scientist can prove with their equations that there are indeed random events. The decay of radioactive material and other sub atomic processes are random, although governed by statistical laws there are no clear evidence of action and reaction. That is: what cannot be seen under a microscope or explained using numbers, symbols and jargon normal people will never understand or find interesting, will be considered as random until further notice. I say until further notice because we all know that science (the great gift to humanity that it is) is not infallible.

On the other hand, for less lineal thinkers, science will never be able to explain the substance of the universe, how beautiful blue days end in golden dimness, or at what hour the milk man decides to get up. It is unable to explain free will or examine and measure the hearts and thoughts of men. Science is unable to explain meaning. In a spiritual universe there is constant action and reaction, where is there room for randomness?

Every thing happens because something made it happen. From a religious perspective the reason for all is an almighty creator, Allah, Buddha, the Christian God, his Son Jesus and their mortal enemy Lucifer, the Jewish God, Selassie, Brahma, Zeus, etc. Here faith gives meaning to everything.

From the perspective of reason, one can deduce that if the universe was created from energy (the source yet scientifically unknown), that would imply cause and effect, and thus an absence of randomness. It is known that the universe was in a far hotter and denser state than it is now. The current state is the result of constant expansion due to cooling, again action and reaction. Now holding in mind that the definition of the universe is “everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them, or in a slightly different contextual sense, denoting such concepts as the cosmos, the world or Nature;” i.e. everything. There fore it is reasonable to assume that everything in existence is the result of something else and thus is not random. The question of scientific proof is strictly another.

In a magical universe, very similar to a religious one, there are things that exist that are beyond our reason, beyond science and even beyond the tangible -ness of our world. From this perspective the explanation is even less relevant. Things just are and every thing from the sands of the ocean to the dreams that you have at night are connected. The act of existence is the explanation. Luck and randomness are just simply terms used to cover huge gray gaps in human understanding. The factors involved are numerous and largely unknown, but never random.

The question of luck or chance or randomness is an old one, and one I believe will never be reduced to one universal explanation. But the above was my take on it all, and in a nutshell, to make my opinion clear, I do not believe in luck or randomness. My reason is neither religious nor scientific, it’s just how I feel. I suppose that that would qualify as magical. I can't have lived the life that I have, and not believe that there is a connection between all things physical and intangible,nor can i believe that everything can be explained by us, humans who only know and use a small part of our own physical and mental resources.

.:HAVE A TASTY DAY:.