Thoughts

Thoughts on life, happiness, and existence.

I Want To Be a Writer

Luckily, it’s not very hard — I’m doing it right now! Each second passes with a rhythm of fingertips tapping these keys. Fingers wiggling as they transcribe one thought to the next, processing each one into a series of characters. In this moment, I am creating something new. Constructing a universe from the reaction of my mind on blank paper.

Who knows where these words will lead me? For one, I rarely do. I rarely know what the next line will be before completing the sentence I’m already on. Sure, sometimes I come up with lines out of sequence. Yet even then, it becomes an experiment in finding the link between two impactful components. How can I arrange these words such that it evokes emotion in my heart? What would reach me?

And then I answer. I speak from the perspective not of one wishing to be saved, but of the one who is saving. I write the advice that I’ve always been looking for. Because, it makes sense. I remember the most important thing: that all my hesitation to act has been caused from an illusion in how I view my own mind. It is because at times, I envision myself to be someone who wants to be a writer. Instead of simply being a writer. I unwittingly distance my cognitive perception of my own self through replacing I am a with I want to be a.

I dream of what it means to be a successful writer:

  • Publish books
  • Have consistent blog posts
  • Write every day
  • People who want signed books

Then I think of myself:

  • No books
  • Inconsistent writing posts
  • In the last 6 months, I’ve written long-form like this less than 15 times.
  • No books to sign

And at this point, I start producing the thought: I am not a writer. Once on the scene, this thought sparks a mental struggle which needs only but one distraction to be placated. In fact, I was just on Facebook for ~15 minutes since writing the last line. It’s uncomfortable for a mind to feel itself divided. So much so the next option is to just think of something else.

Often that something else is not writing! It’s browsing the internet, watching shows and movies, or playing video games. Then 6 months go by and bam! I’m no longer a writer. Through wanting to become a writer, I further push myself away from it. The solution instead, is to simply write. There is no want, there is no desire other than the impulse to write. To create a string of words able to convey something worth sharing. A melody of symbols. A moment both to reflect and to stumble across something new.

How to Change Your Life

A part of me is completely conflicted about desiring to write an inspirational post. This isn’t about the 3 Ways To Easily Lose Weight or The Secret Preventing Your Happiness. It’s about identifying the elements in personal growth.

Generally, these are long term changes. This entails a combination of:

  • time
  • discipline
  • consistency

With the nearly infinite amount of positivity blogs, inspiration hype, and self-help hoopla to go around, they nearly always revolve around these concepts.

Kind of like how all these lose-weight-fast ads come with an asterisk that say, “Regular exercise and proper diet for maximum results”. Well, if you worked out and ate healthy already, you probably wouldn’t need the quick-fix!
Ok sure, there are some problems where it’s necessary but I’m specifically talking about the “do it quick” type of things.

The funny thing is, this isn’t anything magical. We already know what to do! We just get lost in the games we play in our head. Turns out, some things are fairly simple. Getting a salad instead of fries is easy. All it takes is a simple sentence. Hitting the gym instead of being lazy  is easy. All it takes is a bit of effort.

The problem with reading all this inspiration-porn is that reading is incredibly fast. Just this sentence took you less than 10 seconds to read. On the other hand, committing to change your habits can take a month to kick in. That’s helluva lot more time than the 5 minutes to read this piece. So to truly benefit from this writing you must do more than play along idealizing your own self-growth. The entire point of this piece is to remind you those dreams don’t need to stay in your head. They don’t end after my last word. You carry your dreams forward.

To truly benefit from this piece of writing you must internalize and resonate with these ideas and follow through.

FOLLOW THROUGH.

Don’t just fantasize, actualize! Make it happen. Do it. Do it before your excuses make sense. Do it before your day ended. Do it before problems get so bad you hate yourself for not handling them earlier.

We all know you can do it — so why are you hesitating?

Blip

The ability to inspire is much more than saying and writing motivating and uplifting thoughts. An ability to inspire requires the capability to affect the environment of those in your presence.

This text is much like a blip on your radar. Here for this moment, capturing your attention. Soon gone, unless you’ve chosen to keep it in your memory.

Inspiration is the by-product of leading a motivating life. Make no mistake that motivation alone can not be created merely for motivation’s sake. It comes as the consequence of a pursuit in something. A dream or a wish accompanied by the strength and support to bring it to life. To create in the midst of silence.

This writing is a blip.

Something so short and barely graspable, but still a blip.

In these seconds that you spend reading and listening to these dreams of mine, I’m ever so slightly affecting your environment.

If your stream of thought is like a train, let this be the message to derail it and lay a new set of tracks.

Let these words become part of the later version of you who remembers this.

Blip.

—

Riccardo Cuppini – Submarine

 

Loveglasses

We wear sunglasses to protect our eyes from the sun.

It also makes it easier to be outside.

Don’t have to squint.
Don’t have to feel the uncomfortable brightness.

How many of us wear sunglasses on our hearts?

Making the lows not hurt as much,
But also limiting the power of the highs.

What do sunglasses of the heart look like?

I’d call them loveglasses.

Ways to make things more of the same by putting a dark shade over everything.

I always feel a little different when I wear sunglasses.

It changes the dynamic of how I feel while interacting with people.

Eye contact is broken. It doesn’t feel as connection-like.

Same with loveglasses.

I wonder how I’d act if I could take my loveglasses off.

Guess what —

Love is as bright as the sun.

You can either embrace it and squint,

Or it can be dulled.

The choice, as it’s always been, is yours.

We are Stars

I needed a new way to see my soul. To see your soul. A new way to feel human. A new way to feel united. This is an imaginative rationality for our existence. So here we go:

[Prefaced by Art is the Answer, and My Most Important Question]

I’ll open with one of my favorite short tales of wisdom:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.

“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”.

I’ve rationalized much of my problems in life as a result of letting my evil wolf take the reigns of my soul. In that, I was comfortable with an understanding of my mind which split itself into multiple entities in order to put blame on one. In order to relieve my current consciousness from the matter. Blame is relieving. But how many times have I handed the reigns to my life over to the darker wolf? How is it that both sides always survive? How come at my best, I can feel the capacity for the worst? And during even my darkest times, there still existed a light to draw me away from falling inward into infinite solitude. What are we?

We are Stars

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My Most Important Question

In my last post, Art is the Answer, I promised to answer these questions:

  • Why do I exist?
  • Who am I?
  • What should I do?

Though these are important questions and ones that I would LOVE to know, they weren’t the most pressing thing on my mind. They failed to truly make me get worked up over. Easily silenced by a shrug of the shoulder. But there was one question I couldn’t give up on:

  • Why should I care?

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Art is the Answer

There exist questions which drive us all. Questions that fuel our actions and our decisions each and every day. Questions whose answers fundamentally change how we both view ourselves as individuals and as a piece of an overly complex system. The answers we hold in our hearts to these questions define how we choose to spend our lives. They define how we affect the world we are a part of. They define who we are. And often the most painful times in our lives are when these questions feel the most impossible to answer.

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A New Coin

I’ve heard and often thought that happiness and sadness are both two sides of a single coin. One only exists because of the other. The drop of a coin has the power to sway emotions and fool logic. At times in our lives, elements of luck and chance have a louder presence in our minds than our souls and our hearts. Heads or tails — win or lose. Happiness or Sadness.

But this is only one mindset.

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We are the World

I feel as if I can never comprehend the power of the mind. The difference between feeling lost in despair vs overwhelmed in impossible courage is but a slight difference in the state of your mind. I wish I knew how to control it. To let go of that which brings me down and focus on what it means to pave my own path. We have this one chance to do something amazing. We wait for the courage to move, but its already there in our souls. The magic surrounds us. All we have to do is keep learning, exploring and growing. Let us discover our passions – those things that truly excite us. Let us discover who we are and what we can do. To my friends, we are a new generation. We are designers, developers, politicians, and teachers. We are the new world. So lets not give up trying to make it better.