Tag: mind

082a – happy and jittery

“Everything is real” is my new cope to life instead of the earlier cope that was “everything is fake”. Well, it’s more like when you find the things you actually like and resonate with it’s easier to say that everything is real. Or maybe it comes back to the connected detachment theory that is “everything should be honoured but nothing matters”. So this would be somewhat equivalent to “everything is real but also everything is fake”. 

I’m really happy these days and I know that happiness comes with a lot of vulnerability (such is the nature of happiness) but something I’ve learned is that nothing lasts forever so now I really make it a point to enjoy the happiness while it lasts, and be grateful for it for as long as I can be. 

The universe and life will of course continue to ebb and flow but we gotta really enjoy the good stuff, it’ll be hard to cope with the bad stuff otherwise. 

I want to take some time out to find and join dance classes soon because I really feel called to it and I’ve been delaying (procrastinating) for a while now. 

I also discovered a superb spirituality treasure trove which I’m excited to explore more, especially as it also has a bunch of stuff on relating art and spirituality, which is something I’ve been thinking about anyway. 

Admin tasks are still very tedious to do but I don’t know if there is a way to get around to doing them, since we do live in a society after all. Maybe the trick is to do them as soon as possible, so they don’t linger on my head and creative negative feelings. I’d like to work on this a bit so I can reduce the tediousness. 

Being consistent with a meditation practice is still something that I need to incorporate because I can keep thinking and talking about spirituality but it’s only when I engage (or not engage) with the thoughts am I truly attempting to practice it. I cannot keep talking about the thing if I truly want to access any of it. (Related)

My mind is still active though, and I need to go back to cutting caffeine a little bit because I definitely find myself getting affecting by that a bunch. 

The main thing on my mind right now is still “how do you do tasks that do not feed your soul”? Like really, how do you do them? I sometimes feel such visceral resistance to them that it becomes almost impossible to do them. Maybe I need to sit with the resistance. Or maybe I just haven’t accepted that some of them are really, actually important. 

I made a list though, at least that’s some progress. 

Okay, that’s all for now. I’ll be back soon! xx 

058a – must I write?

I was reading “Letters to a Young Poet” once again (after almost a couple years) since I was going through a pretty strong “I’ve no idea what I’m doing” week and I’ve been meaning to come back to it for a while now. 

At the very beginning, Rilke asks the young poet (and I suppose all poets, in general) to ask themselves a very basic question — must you write? And only if the answer is a resounding yes (a “fuck yes”, if you will), should you continue. Only if “you can’t not”, should you continue. And if you really must, then you should give everything into designing a life for yourself that allows you to write. 

For the longest time now, I’ve been very clear about the fact that I do need to write to feel happier. I like to write (in various forms) and I know that I’m more at peace when I regularly get to do so. Yet, when I asked myself this question again, for the last few days, I’ve been doubtful. Must I— really— write? Can I survive without it? Even if I could, would I like to? I don’t know. 

I know that I see things more clearly when I write. Whether it’s events that are happening inside me, or outside me, writing is the one tool that allows me more perspective. Of course, words can only takes us so far, and they’re not a substitute for the lived experience or the event itself, but they’re the next best thing, for me at least.

And now that I’m here, actually writing, I think.. yeah, I can’t really live without writing. I mean, I can go without it for a few days, but I can’t imagine not writing at all for a whole week, definitely not for a whole month. I’d probably go crazy.  Maybe I shouldn’t second-guess this. Socrates supposedly said that the unexamined life isn’t worth living. And I think I believe that. And I think writing allows me to do that the best. 

Speaking of, I’ve been sick almost for a week now and it’s really taken a toll on my mental health too. Recovering now, though, although I do have some hard questions to return to once I fully recover. There are a lot of parts of my life that I feel aren’t working, or that I’m not very satisfied with, and I’m at the point where changes do need to be made, otherwise the frustrations might just get unmanageable. 

Hope your week has been better than mine!