New Life

I find the world today through eyes of my own. This simple truth is all that I own. It is all that I am, all that I will be and all I have been.  

Time stops, as it begins. In the game I've played, the loser wins. 

My castle walls, pushed from within, fall and reveal my cardinal sin. A beauty I knew, but fought to forget, something proving I could be happy yet. Without change, without answers, that I'd be my rhythm's dancer. 

Experience the world but keep in your thoughts,  the person you are instead of the one you "ought".

Gentle Horizon

There is no glory in victory in the battle with the self. No trumpets, or fanfare. Silence hangs in the air like ice on the deck of a boat - a boat littered with parts of you that had to be removed. Growths that constrained you, nearly consumed you, limitations of your own creation. And as you, the sole survivor, sit on the deck of that ship at dawn you feel a gentle light creep over the horizon, touching your face as if bringing color to a statue. You gaze at it knowingly, stoic. And then you get up, and you keep rowing. Because there is no break, there never will be. Not until you're dead. So keep those eyes locked dead ahead and go. through. the. motions. Move into resistance, do what you know you should do, and when you reach calm waters you will be strong. Don't bother thinking, you already know what to do. The mind fears progress as much as regress, as change is change.

So remember that you will die, and that the ultimate change is real, it's guaranteed. Make peace with it now, and count down from 5.

Compass

Ground zero. I sit, looking at the sky, with the wiry tops of the trees around me forming a border in my vision. I imagine a hawk, circling me as I sit on the desert rocks, the wind occasionally whipping across the exposed surface. The sun rides overhead, hovering there as if expecting an answer. I give none.

From this point I can see all around me. Hundreds of miles pour into the distance like waterfalls of stone. I yearn to move with them, cascade with them, but my eyes cannot discern the direction of my path. As I squint I struggle against, but then let myself drift into a current. With my eyes shut I feel a pull of my body and my soul, like a feather taken by the wind that dances against my skin. For now I align, with the truth that resides within.

The answer we seek cannot be found, no matter how long or how far our eyes dart around. To uncover it with thought would simply imply, that it came from a choice, with a reason why. We don't choose who we are and may never know why, so I choose to follow my compass and see where it leads, before I become dust and die.

The desert plants crumple under my feet, I feel my form moving under the sun's noon heat. A shape, a shadow, yet far more real, and far less hollow. No thought could contend with the silence that follows, consumed by the movement, the hunger I've borrowed. I become a symbol, a rider in the sky. This compass points me to something eternal, something that cannot die.

Close your eyes and Trust.

Our society is hallmarked by labels. Having generalized and predetermined attitudes save mental energy and are often harmless. Labels aren't just words, they're attitudes, pictures in our mind of what the labeled object or person is. Emotional centers of the brain are immediately recruited with a generic response to the label, heading off questioning thoughts or situational distinction that could otherwise occur. This saves us from some mental burden, but at what cost?

Labeling enhances our already held dispositions toward things, constantly reinforcing them without question and engraving them into us. When we are successful this can affirm our prowess, but ultimately leads us to rest on our laurels, fall to hubris and ultimately label ourselves as the polar opposite, a complete failure, when we fall. It leads to tribalism in the political setting and keeps people defensive rather than open to conversation. 

Labels do well to keep us within well-defined boxes. Even the successful businessman who labels himself as such avoids opportunities where he could fail and damage his reputation, making him eventually fade from relevance. The student who was always told he was a failure will likely not seek to disprove it. The juvenile delinquent who feels destined to be in and out of jail will find this prophecy fulfilled. Victims of abuse will continue to fall into the hands of abusers. The crazy thing, we're all aware of this. We know we don't want things to continue as they have, we yearn for change with all our heart. We break, we cry, we pray and we die by our own hands when we finally give in. These invisible walls that we put into place feel indestructible, even when their builder wishes to strongly to take them down. These walls are not something we can easily address and remove, because they aren't real. We can't take a sledgehammer to them and no matter how much directed anger we put toward them, relief is only temporary - as if we can push the walls apart slightly only to have them slide back in and crush us to size, exhausted. 

These walls represent how we currently assess our progress, where we stand - are they really invalid? Or is the real issue that we can't seem to move them? Where we stand is fluid - we can meet great success or failure in a short period of time. And yet these walls stay frozen as if rooted in an ocean frozen over. This ice keeps us trapped but also protects us from having to swim. This tradeoff can provide stability, but if the ice is allowed to run too deep it becomes difficult to break from its grasp, as the cold drains the life from us.

If we are unwilling to swim, we will choose the prison of our own making. If for countless years we choose to stay within those walls, we soon believe we are incapable of escaping them. This thought alone is the gate, the self-fulfilling prophecy that keeps us prisoner. 

So seek to remove the "in-between" thoughts. Use the 5-second rule and live in action. The thoughts that seek to associate the subject of your thoughts with some predetermined judgement. A great way to do this is by paying attention to your facial expressions and notice how twisted in anger or begrudging it can get with no apparent prompt. Become a blank slate - avoid assumptions and stay observant. You'll find yourself mobile and able to maintain balance and flow with whatever life throws at you. Practice deciding to do something and then doing it - not in entirety but in segments. These small "wins" of 15 minute segments of work give you the feeling of tangible progress and is very much the "eat the elephant one bite at a time" approach. Too often we view the problem we seek to overcome as a whole, which given its size makes it feel insurmountable. We then avoid it then judge ourselves later and avoid that as well! 

You used to procrastinate, avoiding the "insurmountable" obstacle and only addressing it at the deadline by putting your self-worth on the line. You would make it through, with a sub-par product that was "just good-enough" to not completely shatter your image of who you are. You feel exhausted, disgusted at yourself, but you also made it through so you don't change. This is why it often takes someone hitting rock-bottom to change.

Putting your self-worth on the line isn't worth the consequences. Your new motivation will be a trust. A trust that if you are diligent, observant, and make the choices "you know you should" that you will receive the best outcome possible in the time that you have here. There will always be losses and there are things we can never hope to overcome. But every moment that you waste doubting yourself, waiting for the "right moment", is a moment that your life slips slowly from your control. So act now, even if you're scared, because by the time you feel ready you won't have the time or strength to do it. And you will wish, with every fiber of your being that you could go back in time and Just. Take. One.  Step. Look in your heart and see yourself old with this regret, and let that wish be the fire that lights you today.

Jericho

Deep in my mask, 

embedded in bone.

A face that I wear, 

 I claimed was my own. 

Where did it come from?

  and what could I be.

If from different eyes,

 I could myself see?

With force could I break it,

 Find a face of my own?

Or would I just shatter?

made but from brittle stone.

Could it wash from my face,

 like the mask of a clown?

Or would I follow down the drain,

 run together, and drown?

Does it have roots, 

 an end I can find?

Or will I discover, 

 a mask that is mine.

Will I remember,

 can I recover?

My face once my own, 

 now replaced by another.

A mask that I wear,

 one that I've grown into,

yet a mask, somehow,

 You manage to see through.

I stand still and stripped,

Made naked by your stare,

 I feel for a mask - but find nothing there.

A mask I thought needed,

 a life under their stares.

You place no such mask here,

and I'll place none such there.

Will I have courage,

when you wake me from sleep?

Or will I not risk it,

and will this mask I keep?

I yearn for your freedom,

 a face of my own,

but I fear I'll lose footing,

 and stumble, laid out prone.

Prime for the picking,

 my eyes for the crows,

you came to save me,

 but they brought their bows.

The arrows all pierce me,

they run me through,

but they're like the mask,

 and they aren't real like you.

I imagine the archers,

Notching arrow anew,

but when my eyes open,                         I only find you.

Quote

We are children of the stars, dreaming to one day go home. To burn bright for all to see, and to never be alone. But as we look for this place in the sky and carefully comb, we realize it is not a destination, but instead a direction, that is our home.

Don't be a Sisyphus: To end relapse, once and for all.

Recently I hit my lowest low, and something snapped. I had an insight that was life-changing. One that completely altered my perspective. And I had several of the most productive days in a long time.

Then I relapsed. And all I could do was ask myself: "How?" How did I experience such a profound lesson, such a profound shift - only to slide backward like nothing happened? 

Imagine you're on a ship. Your habits and choices are your food - they determine how you feel, your mental nourishment or poisoning. Your command of the wheel is your mindset - it's your direction, guide through the seas. You promise to change your "diet" and have a grand direction to take the ship, but you've forgotten something.

The ship. Your direction is too ambitious for the carcass of wood you ride upon, and as you crank the wheel to the right your ship breaks apart - leaving you drifting in the same direction you were heading, able only to stare longingly at the direction you wished to go as the remnants of your vessel sink to the ocean floor.

Ambitions are without bounds because they are not reality, but dreams of what reality could be. And if they are too large, our soul cannot carry them. We will be predisposed to make it partway, only to stagger and fall. And we lie there, exhausted from our efforts. Aiming to climb the whole mountain at once, we spat in the face of smaller, consistent steps that give respect to the gravity of the task at hand. Because we thought we could do it in one step, that we could change reality in an instant - riding the silver bullet to instant perfection. And here we see that even as we make breakthroughs, as we stride toward change, our ego is alive enough to reach out and trip us one last time. 


We only have so many moments in our lives to change. Our own willingness is only one of the many circumstances that must be met for real change to happen, and you might not have another chance once this one is gone. Take the time to change your mindset, to change your habits - but take your time. Practice what you already learned until you have mastered it. Accept yourself for your current stage of progress, even if it is short of your destination. Strengthen your hull so that the waves of stress will not break you. Test the ice before you step.

Think of it like taking a cold shower. If you go straight to the coldest temperature, the shock itself will cause you to jump back and retreat. Too rapid of change will do the same. You may reply, "But this is change I want, why would I react with retreat?" It's because "You" aren't the one making the decisions - a much deeper, primal and addicted part of you is.  It's job is to survive, to fight against the feeling of rapid change - a feeling we know innately to be associated with peril, and even death. Guide this poor creature into the light, but do it slowly. Let the eyes adjust. For the light in the world you will take it is one-million times brighter than from whence it came.

Be a teacher, a parent, and a friend to the piece of you that has been so neglected all these years. You don't need to avoid the change, but you need to take it more slowly - be realistic about what you can get done. If you don't, you'll only set yourself up for failure. 

If you're having trouble filling up the extra time when taking it more slowly, do more planning and execution, instead of blind effort. Take some time to do a little bit every day on tasks like cleaning your room or starting an assignment that isn't due for several weeks. You don't have to change the world instantaneously, and you shouldn't seek to immediately run the moment you can stand. Life isn't a race to the end either, so if you still have some extra time on your hands, maybe use it to think about how beautiful this world is, how wonderful is can be. Just appreciate it, That feeling alone may serve as the your anchor once you finally reach dry land. Replace your resentment with kindness and change the fuel for your fire. Though your fire may burn more calmly, it will also burn cleaner, and consume less of you in the process.