Reflections

As I move on in life, I constantly sense myself changing.  I don't mean this in the physical sense so much, but more mentally and emotionally.  Call it maturation if you wish.  I prefer to call it discovery.  It's as if every so often I look back at myself and my actions and realize who I am now is not the person I was in the recent past.  The most startling realization is that recent past does not mean 3 years ago or even 1 year.  I can trace a significant change in composure or thought down to months ago.  It's as if I'm standing in a room with mirrors on both sides of the wall, creating a never-ending cascade of pseudo-me's that carry my physical appearance yet have different individual assessments of this world and my place in it.

I think one of the first times I felt this way was during my transition from Christianity to atheism.  I had encountered a new way of thinking about the world and was excited to share it with my friends and anyone who would listen.  Boundaries had fallen that were kept in place by my acceptance that a god was necessary for this world to exist, such an idea I had never thought of questioning until then.  I could now view the world through glasses that were not smeared by a layer of fog that had been my religion.  However, I was still wearing glasses.

Not these kind of filters....

And I didn't know it then.  I didn't know that my perception of the world was still being obstructed by my thoughts and other beliefs that I held.  Well, hold on a second.  Of course I understood that these "filters" probably existed, but I didn't know what they were or how to tackle them.  Cue life.  It didn't take long for these filters to become apparent.  One by one they appeared, each having a unique impact on me.  The way I handled each of them was unique too, ranging from indifference to fear to acceptance.  Although, that's not to say that I've succeed in defeating all of my known filters and apprehensions.  In fact, I readily admit that I am still plagued by them.  They pop up everywhere in my life and some are harder to get rid of than others.  And I'm still discovering more of them!

So where does that leave me?  Am I to accept that I am forever doomed to drown in a sea of my apprehensions.  Nope. So, I've decided to swim.  What would life be like without any struggles?  Certainly nothing that could elicit the emotions that we've come to let define our human existence.  But enough of that.  The weights that try to pull me down into the abyss are not what I wanted to write this post about.  I want to write about the gasps of air, the uplifting moments of realization, that I have experienced.

Most of you will have experienced them too.  The intense feelings associated with friendship and with loss.  The embrace of a lover and the consumption that is lust.  The rush of accomplishment and the drag of laziness.  Wondering if you'll make it to the end of the year with crushing finances and ominous deadlines.

Indeed, over the past year I have gone through many moments of realization and I've let them consume my life.  In fact, many of them became my life for various amounts of time.  Perhaps that is what it means to live; to let people and ideas become a part of you.  A process so fluid and seamless that I didn't even realize it till now.  And yes, it seems obvious as I write this.  Many of you will think it is obvious and you are justified in saying so.  But I think that we often forget this as we go through our lives, performing the daily activities that constitute our existence.  Those daily actions often become our existence and we forget what it means to actually live.  That is what this previous year has shown me.

While I could write about my individual episodes of realization, I am currently consumed by another idea and would much rather share that with you instead.  It's a simple idea really.  Though it takes the right frame of mind to truly understand it and implement it in your life.  What is it you say?  Well, you'll have to read my next post to find out.

It feels good to be back at the blog.  I know I've let it sit idle for a long time, but hopefully this will mark the beginning of more to come.