If God was egg, if six were nine… If time was never measured, only
killed in pleasure gardens of our making. If we’d never taken anything,
but only given… If we could forgive, forget and rearrange the patterns.
If you’d never thrown a stone or split the atom – ate the apple… if…
If I’d stayed alone in shackles feeling nothing, seeing nothing in my
head… If we’d shared instead of just collecting. If we’d never lived…
If… If we’d ever… If we never never, never land but fly without a
destination, cry without a cause, and lose ourselves for just a second at
the beauty of it all… Then maybe in the next life we’d be dolphins.
The Legendary Pink Dots – Evolution
I was up until 3 am – thinking. I woke up at 7:30 am – thinking. At times, I think a lot, I think all the time and my thoughts are not all that productive, because I am overthinking. It turns out, I am quite happy when I act; when I do, when I take charge, when I decide and when I am I feel the most powerful.
The thought should be the catalyst for the action. The thought should not be the sword that cuts deep into our psyche and heart, doubting each step of the way and waiting for more magical thoughts to pour out of the brain. When all we do is think without acting and without deciding, we go back. We stop evolving and we literally regress.
Oh, we want the magic bullet that just makes it better. We seek within our relationships, friendships, jobs, spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof), religion, philosophy and science for that moment of clarity, when we can say that we have figured it out. We devour books, pills and any substance that promises the quiet peace of mind we so desperately long for and find – it never comes.
I could go into the benefits of meditation and how we truly do find answers within stillness, but I’m not going to. It’s stillness we struggle with and we have such a hard time obtaining. So why would I say that something can be achieved in a state we so desperately attempt to reach? Yes, stillness works, but for a fire brain like mine it’s a bit hard at times to achieve said quiet peace. So when I cannot be still (like this morning at 3 am), I have found something that works just as well – I DO!
I can be up all night and day thinking about what ifs and watch all the scary scenarios I conjure up in my head – and trust me, the more I think, the scarier it gets! – but nothing beats the clarity I achieve by first, making a decision and second, acting on that decision. I don’t worry if I make the right decision, because anything beats the indecisive state of wobbling about, unsure what to do and creating terror and misery with outcomes we paint in the bleakest colors.
Some of our greatest qualities lie within the ability to think, feel, sense and decide. When I decide something there is a feeling attached to that. It tends to be a feeling of relief and joy from which I can move forward, even if the decision was difficult. I am proud to report that I feel a lot more joy than misery these days, because I make decisions and I act on them. It’s the baby step thing, you know? You wake up and each day you make a new decision to maybe do something you haven’t done before. The slate is wiped clean and maybe you’ve gotten it all wrong the day before, but today is a new day and you can act once again, maybe getting it right.
We don’t live in our heads. We live in the world by doing and partaking in life. We do not experience living while standing on the sidelines, thinking about how the water may feel like. We take a deep breath, and we jump. You know what? The water is just fine, now go swimming and guess what happens when you dive? There, under the water, it is, your stillness!
