The Observer

Sitting

Drinking, laying down like washed up men who fall asleep on dirty, grimy couches and wake up only to yell at you for changing the channel, ignoring the fact that they clearly weren’t watching their stupid game through their eyelids and obnoxious snores.  Walking nowhere in particular besides the next five feet in front of me, or how far my vision carries me, like a nomad, a loner, a drug addict caught in his own mindless fantasies in which no other is invited.  Slipping down, deep down, into my favorite reveries, those that give me hope for my ever dwindling creativity; creativity that attempts and wins and fails to fight through social interaction, impressions of their laughter and smiling faces, general laziness, gluttony, dark eyes judging onward, groping hands that touch my body with passionate distance.  All these things, my creativity must fight for attention, for my mind is split between many realms of thought.  There is the social butterfly.  The disgusting witty extrovert who smooths his way into the minds of others, particularly females.  There is the angry distant stranger, he who attempts to write, to open his soul, to find his muse, but is far too shaky and distracted, throwing shredded pieces of paper away from himself in a rage as if they were people.  Then, there is the brooder, the thinker, the poet.  The man who spies a leaf and notices its ridges as if they were a profound message from some other world of gods.  This man refuses promptly the life of sloth, the washed up man asleep on grimy couch cushions.  This man’s words pour straight from his soul.  This man loses track of time while his words continue; as the hours tick by, this man writes his life story, his feelings, his essence: into poetry, into prose, and into the actions of new characters and souls that he creates with a great many cross outs and smudges and black drips of enlightening ink.  This man is that mindset that I search for, that mindset that I lose in the midst of hundreds of voices, of friends and family, screaming my name.  I invite this man back into my mind, wondering if he will ever return, and praying he will.

The Observer.

I wish

Dear Reader,

I wish I could write like I beg you to.  I wish I could think like I encourage all of the people around me to.  I can’t.  Not always.  I don’t claim to be all knowing or a step ahead anyone else.  I only claim to be conscious of the fact that my mind needs cultivation.  It needs an environment in which it can grow.  It needs practice and care, and the scary part is how specific your outcomes may be depending on the kind of practice or the kind of care that you give your mind.  It’s shapable, moldable, impressionable, and yet you have the power to be the biggest impression of all, to black out the outside forces, the minds that attempt to magnetize, to find similarities in their own minds, only to lead yours astray.  Don’t fall for it, and check your thoughts daily.  Make sure they’re your own.  Question yourself.  Doubt.  Only through trial may you find truth.

The Observer

Change

Don’t be afraid to make a change in your life.  Even a drastic one.  If you’re not satisfied with the way your life is going or who you are, find the things that are making you unhappy and change them.  Attack them as if they were disease within your body.  Your body attacks diseases, and your mind should attack those things in your life that make you unhappy.  The only difference is your mind can’t begin automatically.  This isn’t breathing or the beating of your heart.  This is a conscious attempt at change.  If you are truly against change, you’ll simply have to find a way to be content with the life you have at the moment.  I recommend pursuing the arts.  Despite the lack of attention that society puts into beauty these days, involving yourself in the creation of something beautiful can truly change your outlook on life.  Learn a musical instrument, attempt to draw, paint, be a writer.  Above all else, contentedness is the goal of our lives.

Mystery

“A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”

-Charles Dickens

Dear Reader,

If for nothing else, this is a reason for interaction.  Every human being is a mystery.  It’s difficult to escape the view of other human beings as being one conglomerated mass like a sea of people who have no purpose but to move like shadows in your own life.  Every person you see in passing, every person who is rude to you, who hurts you or brings you down in any way, every person who dies or can’t remember their own name is an individual.  Inside their mind, there are ideas that you may agree with, and beliefs you may denounce, but most important of all, there are thoughts.  There are secrets.  There’s a history of memories and experiences of every kind inside the minds of these people.  Why not learn from them?  A human being is like a book that opens to reveal trap doors and portals within its pages.  In traversing across the pages, exploring the codes, deciphering colors and pop up folds and fingering your way through the maze of words and sentences, you discover the thoughts, the secrets, the insight of another.  For many of us, there is such a strong desire to be the tortured soul who strays from the path commonly followed, the hermit who keeps to the shadows of his own consciousness, the blanketing verse of his books, his studies.  For many of us, there is fascination with solitude, for solitude begets insight into one’s own mind.  Solitude is mysterious and powerful.  In the individual who views himself as misunderstood, there is a sense of immortality, looking down at social creatures through the piercing eyes of a critic.  However, to truly enhance our minds, to make full use of them, we must view others as always having something within them that has the power to teach us, to enhance our thoughts and widen our view.  Despite the arrogance of my mind that keeps me from seeking help, I realize the need for companionship.  I realize the need to unravel the secret thoughts of others in order to learn more about myself.  I realize that the insight of my own mind is perhaps not enough to achieve contentedness or even true intelligence.  Take interest in other human beings as equals.  As teachers.

-The observer

Oblivious

Dear Reader,

The ability to think and reason is a gift to mankind, but most of us don’t use it properly.  We jump on bandwagon causes that we know nothing about, shirking from any sort of research because we associate it with school.  Learning is frowned upon and awareness of anything, whether it be problems in our own country or issues abroad, is reduced to information through flashy pictures, videos, and marketing campaigns designed for attention and money.  Even the statistics we so rely on while proposing action, while citing a source for a particular argument, are twisted into circumstantial evidence that can many times be misleading.  How do we think?  How do we act if all the information fed to us is misleading, or has potential to be so?  We must resist the media, for being slaves to them is rendering yourself unthinking, useless.  Not to say one should jump to conspiracies and lose trust in everything around them.  When coming upon a news article or any other form of media that urges action, read criticism of the idea as well.  Even if at first, you support it wholeheartedly, educate yourself on the opposite belief.  This goes for research in any subject, whether it be fitness, what you should and shouldn’t eat, political positions, etc.  Know the opposition well, and truly listen to what it has to say before jumping onto a belief or idea.

The observer

Dear Reader

I urge you, as I have before, to surround yourself with nature, to get away from the stress of everyday life and hear the birds chirping and listen to the wind rustle the leaves around you.  It’s so beautiful when you just listen.  Just watch.  Last night, I was driving and I saw a shadow out of the corner of my eye.  I pulled into a cul de sac and turned on my brights and saw them: a family of deer, walking aimlessly through the field in front of me, staring at my lights as if it was some sign from their creator.  Their eyes inspire me.  Animals show such wonder and curiosity in everything around them.  Everything is right in the animal kingdom, in nature.  All is balanced.  We must come to the realization that despite our technological advances, despite our ability to reason, the animal is of serenity, of calm that only nature can provide.  Immerse yourself in it and get dirty.  Climb trees and get dead leaves stuck in your hair, because at the end of the day, as you climb into bed, you’ll only want more.

“…look at an animal, a cat, a dog, or a bird, or one of those beautiful great beasts at the zoo, a puma or a giraffe. You can’t help seeing that all of them are right. They’re never un any embarrassment. They always know what to do and how to behave themselves. They don’t flatter and they don’t intrude. They don’t pretend. They are as they are, like stones or flowers or stars in the sky.”

-Steppenwolf

dearest reader

If you are like me, you may see yourself in dark times of mental instability, an outcast.  You may see yourself as the Steppenwolf, who separates himself from the others, those humans, those beings who move and talk as you, but remain only shadows to your mind.  I apologize for my recent absence.  My lack of writing is affected by some circumstances you may be familiar with.  I can feel my mind at times slipping away from me.  Perhaps not my mind, but least of all, my insight, my ability to explain my feelings, my inspiration.  For upon being surrounded by my superiors, there is little room for study of my own, study of passion, of literature that brings an enthralling sense of ecstasy into my entire being, of observation of the natural world.  I am surrounded by studies, of language, of literature, and yet, I am forced to look at them through the blurry lens of a professor, a more learned person who sacrifices creativity for mere analytical thought, who fails to understand an author’s work as a collaborative effort between the author and the reader in order to construe meaning.  In this oppressive state of mind, I find myself giving into sloth inconsistency, lack of motivation where the overbearing thought that resides in my head is one that whispers the damnable,”Your words mean nothing.”  I entreat you not to fall for the view of another.  Refuse to look through the close minded lens of a superior.  There is a way to complete their studies while remaining individual in your response.  Give into your passions and follow them, for human passion, the entrance of emotion, is a catalyst to productivity.  Your thoughts are unique, and they are your own.  This alone gives you great power in that no one else can know your discoveries.  No one else can read a passage of literature or observe the world around them, and come to the exact same conclusions as you have.  For this simple fact, we are valuable.

The Observer

Dear Reader,

It is times such as these that I must offer to you no explanation or cure for my current state.  A lack of motivation is all that I can say to describe my mind at the moment.  Your guess is as good as mine in attempting to discern what brings this about, but it happens to all of us.  The question is, how to overcome it.  How does one overcome the challenges of a weary mind, the mind that refuses writing and reading for relaxation and sloth?  How does one overcome his mind that suffers through the bare minimum of tasks, forgetting the fervor of previous mindsets, those crowded with exciting new possibilities for self improvement?  I’m at a loss for words.

Dearest Reader

We are, me and you, the man who steps into Plato’s cave in order to speak truth to those who live within, staring with blinded eyes at shadows of perceived reality.  We are the philosopher, for we sat within the cave and saw the shadows on the wall, but unlike our peers, we are inspired to question what is outside.  We have broken the chains of captivity and stepped with weary eyes out of the cave, brushing past bemused men holding artifacts of lies.  The truth does not hurt us; in fact, it excited us with its beauty.  We run back into the cave in order to share the truth, hoping that they will see it as we can…

But let me warn you.  There are some who, when their eyes see the sun and gaze upon the truth of questioning, will denounce truth, the light hurting their eyes.  They will cower and run back to the safety of their mimesis of a cave and sit upon the wall, chaining themselves back into the captivity of stubborn acceptance.  They will not listen to our mode of thinking, content instead not to think; however, if we can inspire three or four, five or six to truly engage in thought and see the beauty in the truth revealed, our mission is complete.

Keep thinking, friends, and do not let the unthinking majority drag you down.

Dear Reader

A wise mentor of mine told me today to resist the urge to see others as “stupid robotic inferiors” and to learn from them, to make a conscious attempt to view the world through different perspectives.

This is difficult for me to do.  I know that in some of my writings, I may come off as arrogant, encouraging you to put conscious thought above all else, urging you to resist becoming the unthinking human, the robot who follows and does not listen, the one who watches with blind eyes the happenings of the world but refuses to analyze them…

 These people that I urge you not to be are part of your journey, and you can learn from them.  After all, they are human, and as much as you may not like to admit it, so are you.  And so am I.  i can tell you, I don’t like to admit it.  Watch them.  Place yourself in a position where you can see the people around you through an enlightened perspective.  This is a place where you aren’t hurt easily; a place where you are armed with the knowledge of who you are.  In watching others, in observation, we can learn from them.  We can learn who not to be, we can learn new modes of thinking that may very well change our lives, we can learn more about our own minds, for there are things within our minds that we may not have discovered yet.

Many see my words and claim I urge you to be like me, but by no means am I a final product, or even something to model oneself after.  I want to stress to you that I’m in the same place you may be.  I struggle with myself.  I wage war inside my head, between different philosophies, between what is and is not my self.  I’m on a journey of discovery, just as many of you may be.  I’m discovering my mind as I go, creating new ideas, throwing out old ones to replace them with those sturdier, fortified with beliefs and truths I’ve come upon.  The mind is in a constant state of motion: changing, transforming, and hopefully becoming more and more beautiful, being closer to identifying its vessel.

Our lives are dependent on healthy self improvement, on making oneself all he or she can be.  To be completely distant, to avoid observing your fellow human beings, to avoid empathy and compassion for those who want it is dooming yourself to learn from only yourself.  With your own mind as the only source of knowledge, you will never reach your full potential.  It is only by observing the world around us that we are able to grow.  For upon realizing what we are not, we can come to the educated and enlightening conclusion of what we are.