Original Thinking

I came across this today as I was reading an older Ode Magazine. Inspiring and should be shared.


Here is an amazing excerpt on writing, thinking and living from Ludwig Borne's "The Art of Becoming an Original Writer in Three Days" written in 1823, from the May/June Ode magazine:

“There are people and writings that provide instruction on how to learn Latin, Greek and French in three days, or accounting in just three hours. However, nobody has yet demonstrated how one can become a good original writer in three days. And yet it so simple! You have nothing to learn, just a great deal to unlearn; nothing to experience, but quite a lot to forget. With the world as it is now, the minds of scholars—and therefore their works—resemble the old manuscripts from which you first have to scrape the boring arguments of a Church father or the blather of monk before getting to a Roman classic.
“Thoughts beautiful and—since the world is re-created with each human—new are innate to each human mind. But life and education overwrite them with useless stuff.

“You acquire quite an accurate picture of this state of things if you consider the following: an animal, a piece of fruit, a flower, which we recognize from their true shapes. What they are is what they appear to us. But would we have a true concept of the nature of a partridge pie, raspberry juice, or rose oil? So it is with the sciences, with all things we perceive with the mind and not through the senses. They are put before us prepared and changed, and in their ran and naked shape we do not know them.
“Opinion is the kitchen in which all truths are slaughtered, plucked, chopped, stewed and seasoned. There is no larger lack than of books without sense/reason/wit; namely which contain things and not opinions.
“Only a small number of original writers exist, and the best differ much less from the less skilled than one would think upon superficial comparison. One creeps, one runs, one limps, one dances, one drives, one rides to one’s goal. Yet a destination and way is what they all have in common. Treat and novel thoughts can be won only in solitude. But how do you achieve solitude?
“You can flee humankind but then you stand on the noisy market of books; you can throw away the books, but how do you throw from your mind all the common knowledge with which education fills it? In the art of making oneself ignorant, the true art of self-education is the most necessary, most beautiful art yet the least often and least skillfully exercised. Just as there are only a thousand thinkers among a million people, there is only one original thinker among a thousand thinkers.
True scientific endeavor is not a journey of discovery like that of Columbus but a voyage like that of Ulysses. Man is born in strange lands; living means looking for home, and thinking means living. But the fatherland of thoughts is the hear; he who wants drink afresh must draw from this spring. The mind is nothing but a stream; thousands have camped along its side and cloud the water by wishing, bathing and performing other dirty tasks in it.
“The mind is the brawn, the heart the will. You can acquire brawn, you can increase it, train it. But what good is all that brawn without the will to use it? A fear of thinking is keeping us back. More oppressing than the censure of governments is the censure that public opinion exerts over the works of our minds. He who listens to the voice of his heart instead of to the clamor of the market will always be original. Sincerity is the source of all genius; man would be more ingenious if he were more moral.
“And here is the promised practical application. Take some sheets of paper and, for three consecutive days, write down anything that goes through your head without guile or dissimulation. Write what you think of yourself, of your spouse, of Goethe, of the Last Judgment, of your boss—and, when the three days are over, you will be ecstatic with amazement at the new unheard-of-thoughts you have had. That is the art of becoming an original writer in three days!”


Reblogged from Shift Now!- http://shiftnow1.blogspot.com/2012/06/original-thinking.html

Feeling Free and Feeling Trapped Part 1

Throughout my life, I have been better than most at controlling my emotions and what I show to any given person. That's in part where my tendency to be vague comes from; if I don't want you to see it, you wont. I've experienced a few moments in my life when all that was ripped away from me, but they've been very few and very far between. And none worse I think, than this past weekend.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Not everything has been bad, but it's all been slow and these 2 weeks have felt more like a month in themselves than the entirety of August.

A helpful piece of information here is this; when I feel deeply unsatisfied or disparate, I don't stick around. I sell what I can, pack up what I need, and take an adventure to a new place. This has, in the past, included leaving a relationship or two.
Naturally in this context, breakups are rather sudden and decisive. There's no lingering and each is left to handle their own and move on. I'm a smart girl with feet that go all the way down to the floor and if something doesn't make me happy, I use them. I've had my fair share of heartbreaks, I've always preferred the "quick and clean" nature of such departures.

I believe communication is a very important part of good relationships, so I've always made sure to use it in mine. But instead of leaving when my attempts to fix things didn't work, I stayed. For a lot of different reasons, really, but I stayed. I care about the man very much and this has been by far, the best relationship I've ever had. Understandably, I wanted to try and make it work for as long as I could. So I stayed.

That is not to say however, that I never felt the urge to leave. That deep need to get out has been squashed a bit by the current realities I let myself get into. For the first time in my life, I was dealing with a lingering ending. Not only am I outstandingly unequipped to handle such a situation, I know no one else that has ever dealt with a mutual, deeply sad, drawn-out break. No one that is, save for one person that, I really, really  did not want to ask. Among a few other reasons for my reluctance, was the fact that he's a friend to us both, so I didn't want to put him in a strange, awkward, uncomfortable, or really any unpleasant adjective-type position. So to avoid it, I asked the few people I'm comfortable opening up to, but I already knew the answer.

Shortly after my last post, I caved and asked for his story. He's a good friend, so sweet as ever, he instantly got back to me and told me his story - what happened, how he dealt with it, and all that jazz. And it did help, in a way. It mostly told me what I already suspected and that this was going to get harder before it gets easier.
At this point, the decision had been reached that we can take a break from the relationship and I can look forward to the things I've wanted to move forward to. 4 months to step away and be preoccupied with me and what I want to do, while he focuses on him, and if we end, then we end.

As cruel as it may sound, I am looking forward to this more than I have anything else in a long time. My best friend will be living with me and doing much the same self-improvement things with her time as I am with mine.

It really can't get here fast enough.

And that's where the problem lies.

Ready or not

I've been putting this whole blog idea in the back of my head, stashed with all the other 'seemed like a good idea at the time' notions that languish. It's not that there's been nothing to write about; in fact, by any standard, it's quite the opposite. But true to form - and despite the fact that this was originally intended to keep updates on my life - I've been avoiding that exact thing.

While I like the idea of looking back on my life from a more solid standard than my own memories, I can sometimes have the tendency to be incredibly vague about myself and what's going on in my life. It's easy to get a straight answer from me about something I don't consider important enough to misdirect for. While the things I choose to be open about sometimes surprise people, I'm not entirely sure it's always the best way to not be alone.

No one wants to be truly lonely, especially when they are.

There are a lot of things in my life I've been considering and reconsidering. A few short years ago, I never would have stepped out of the world for so long. I dreaded ever leaving myself in a vulnerable position and I would not have once considered not leaving myself a way out.
It's an interesting feeling to look at yourself and realize you are so many things you never wanted to be. How does one miss those changes as their happening? I haven't the slightest. It happened so gradually that I didn't know pieces of myself were missing until I went looking for them.

And oh, how I was looking for them. I was looking for myself and I couldn't think of where to start. I'd looked at myself and my choices in so many ways, yet couldn't find any lasting answers.

One day I looked up and saw myself through other people's eyes for a change, a perspective I hadn't seen in years. I remembered, and felt struck down. Unlike any other sensation I've had, this was most bittersweet, and hardest to describe.
It was fantastic, at first. I had my fire and zeal for life back. I really could do anything and saw that I never stopped going. My passion was back, and I had found myself again.
Then, upon further reflection, I couldn't for the life of me recall why I had ever slowed down. Sometimes it just takes asking the right questions.
I don't regret the past 3 years of my life, but I do understand that continuing the way I am now will never make me happy.

It seems I've learned the hard way that you just can't force anything, no matter how much you truly wish you could. Sometimes all you have left are the memories of what you had and move forward as best you can. Sometimes all you have are lessons. Maybe if you're lucky, or if you're on the right track, it will work out for the better and you'll be just as glad of that pain as you ever were for the joys that led up to it.

In any case, you find out what works for your life and what doesn't. Usually that's just a place or a job, but it can be people too. I think that's the hardest part of all, really. When I started searching for myself again, I never considered it would affect anyone other than me, and if it did hurt, I would be the only one to feel it. I've always been more willing to hurt myself than others. I think most people are.
Every once in awhile, we're reminded that our happiness matters too, and in some cases, we must be happy with ourselves before we can bring that to anyone else.


Of course, this could all be complete crap. I think if anyone truly had all the answers, it would all be just a bit too easy. But you either run with life or it leaves you behind.
I know where I stand a little bit better than I did before and I know where I want to be. Don't know why I ever thought that would make things easier.

But knowing is half the battle, yeah?

The Color Blue

Expanding your horizons can be a great thing to do. It can also be disastrous. This is true of many tasks, decisions, and adventures we undertake in our lives, which most people have, by their early 20s, figured out. One of the few things I can say with confidence at the young age of 24 is that I, too, have this concept down. At least some of the time. And even if, on a particular day, it turns out I have no grasp on this concept whatsoever, or perhaps reality in general, I can confidently say I at least appear to have a handle on it most times.

Skipping over further speculation of justification in those wild claims, I submit that I am not the only one who handles such a handy trick, at least at times, quite deftly. So at moments like these when I feel particularly down about this and that, it is comforting to think that despite appearances, there are a great deal many more people in the same or worse situations as you or I that give no indications of such.
It's an odd idea that misery loves company, but when miserable we tend to think we're alone and there could not possibly be anyone that is as messed up, has messed up as much, or any variant thereof, as ourselves. Which is interesting on it's own because when given negative feedback from others, a great deal many of us take it far more to heart than positive feedback, making others therefore reticent to tell us things we need to hear that may or may not be quite the best.
I am not a fan of second guessing. All in all, I rather prefer honesty to sugar and it is frustrating to know you aren't getting what you ask for.

I have found I am much better at the superficial than I am at any deeper form of relationships. Reconciling a long term relationship with this tendency, it at times and as you may imagine, often a difficult thing to do. It turns out, I am much better at living life in general this way. Getting to deeper meanings of myself may be an obstacle course for others to be sure, but it can be a surprising battle for me as well. To this day, this is an incredibly ridiculous notion to me. How could I possibly not know the answers to things about myself? Isn't that the foundation you use to steady yourself against the uncertainties life tends to hurl at you faster than you can see?

I've been struggling with this for some time and I haven't really been going about it the best ways. I tend to think about it the most early in the morning, which oddly enough, is the same time I feel most like writing. In these times of wild thought and abandon, it occurred to me how truly infinite the concept of self is. How could I, or you, or anyone else possibly expect to really know everything we need to know about ourselves at the comparative beginning of the journey? I have seen there are things you learn at the end, and so why should the middle be any different? Instead of waiting impatiently on the sidelines (the only form of standing still I seem to be capable of), it's always been my nature to dive right in.

Except in this, in life, in the most important thing I will ever do. Life's forever seemed so monumentally big that I think, - have been trained to think -  well of course I have to figure it out first! Of course decisions have to be made! Better to stand on the sidelines until you figure things, and then wade around until you find your stride. Ha! There is no worse thing I have done than believing I could not do it. Believing that the world or I could ever be better off without me in it.
I have been the girl sitting there, fading on the sidelines, watching and waiting for an unknown sign that might just tell me I'm ready to go. As if I ever needed permission for anything. Being outside the change is never any fun and oh, how I love the fun bits. The only things I want in this world are true and sublime sensations, those only to be had by jumping in. Life is boring when you sit it out and I am tired of being bored.

So now my hair is blue.
Or most of it. It's a work in progress, like so many other wonderful things. And all of this was just a long winded way to say, welcome to the color blue. It will at the very least, be a fascinating thing.

Start in the Middle

Coffee experiments at 0400 result in increased blurriness of outcome; so wired I'm tired or so tired I'm wired?

New blog, new goals, but let's start in the middle. I've always started at the beginning and never got anywhere. What little we would have if the world started anew each day.

I need to write! I find the urge to bring words to a page so fiercely it ceases to be single-minded. I need to get rid of the background noise though - no over-analyzing, no stress, but clear and calm.

It starts in the middle, in midst of something else you see, like jogging. Jogging at first is hard as you try to make all your energy into momentum, but after a time it's autopilot and your drive shifts gears to the simple things. Serenity is almost effortlessly attainable, clarity rises with each breath. What you want is here, in this space, for here you already have what you need.
So many dreams here, unabridged, as if you're too fast for doubts, stress, reality to catch you. It can be real if you make it and you can make anything here. Mind of matter, so to speak.

Don't ever slow down. When you slow down, you forget all you can do and feel only that which holds you back. You have to forget again if you want to soar.

So - thoughts whilst soaring above reality;

Write everyday: must do this. Perhaps not here, but in someplace every single day.
Gardening: Bring life to something new and learn what it gives in return
Exercise: both mind and body. what do I know today that I didn't know yesterday and what can I do that I've not done the day before?

Start slowly and remember where to go when your vision clouds again.