C'mon THINK!

I am a firm believer in living the holistic life. We are more than just our bodies, more than just our minds, more than just our spirits, in fact, we are all three, simultaneously attempting to understand our own existence. We spend most of our lives focusing on attaining happiness for just one part of us. There are some who will study study study so that their minds are completely saturated with knowledge in hopes of finding happiness for their minds. Others will live hedonistically in order to attain happiness for their bodies. And still there are some who spend their entire lives trying to reach some spiritual nirvana in hopes of finding happiness for their spirits. We search and search for something or someone or some state of being that will give us happiness and peace and comfort. I believe that having a balanced life is a combination of all three. Recognizing that the mind can be expanded and our knowledge can increase while realizing that to deny the body pleasure is to deny a very important part of being human. Searching for meaning and purpose in our lives opens the door for the spiritual world to come in and transform us bringing us closer to the divine that gives us life and breath. I believe it is of the utmost importance to recognize these aspects of the human and try and balance them in your life.

Now that I have explained my core belief about all parts of the human soul, I want to now just focus on the mind. The 1990's drug commercial echos in my ear "the mind is a terrible thing to waste" and "this is your brain" an egg is cracked open on a skillet that has not been heated, "this is your brain on drugs" the skillet is lit and the egg begins to fry, "any questions?" Yes, what if I like my eggs scrambled? The point is we have these powerful mega computers available at least 16 hours a day and for some strange reason we refuse to use them. Computers work primarily with logic, if you add two plus two you will get 4, its simple. Anything put in the computer will react with a logical response. If you press the power button the computer will respond either by turning on or turning off. If you are using a word processor and your hit the backspace button the cursor will move back a space. The computer reacts logically with your commands. Often times if there is a problem I have come to realize that its most the operator, not the computer. Also if your computer is not working properly (mostly dell computers) its because it has caught a virus of some sort which is usually because of the operator who was careless with his or her downloading. The movie "AI" is about a boy robot who wants to become real. The whole movie the little robotic boy is looking for the blue fairy from Pinocchio to turn him into a real boy. The creator of the little robotic boy tells him that he is as close to real as possible for a robot but the boy does not believe it. The difference between computers and humans is the fact that humans have emotions. Often times these emotions block the logical expressions from being completed.

I have been accused of not having any emotions. I have emotions but I rarely express them. I guess the reality is I will often reject my own emotional response because it does not conform to logic. This at times comes across as cold, hard hearted, and mean. To be honest, it is sometimes and I have often asked myself, "are you a sociopath?" "Do you and Dexter really have something in common?" The answer is no. I came to realize that although I don't express my emotions immediately in the moment, its not as if I don't have them but its more like I need to process them through my computer in order to accept whether or not they conform to reality. Its like sitting in a big room with a hundred other people. Across the room there is this guy who is sitting about forty feet away and as you are scanning the room you notice he is giving you dirty looks. It seems that he is staring at you and eyeing you up and down. You begin to get angry and indignant. You start to say to yourself, "Who is this guy eyeing me up and down?" Your anger begins to grow you start to get emotional and you get up and start charging at this guy. Before you know it your in a screaming match with some strange guy because you thought he was giving you dirty looks.

Now lets look at the scenario using logic. Your in this room and as your scanning the room you notice a guy looking in your direction. You don't know who he is, you have never seen him before. He is forty feet away so its difficult to really see what expression he has on his face but you can tell that he is looking in your direction. Instead of getting mad you think about the situation and look around you. You notice this beautiful woman sitting right behind you at a table. As you look at the guy you realize that it is not you he is looking at but this woman sitting behind you.

Looking at these two reactions to the same situation is, or at least should be, very revealing. So many times in life our emotions cloud our ability to think through a situation. We immediately allow our emotions to dictate our response to a specific circumstance and so many times this has caused our lives great pain and stress. If we would have taken a moment to actually use that powerful computer we call the mind we may have avoided an embarrassing and unnecessary moment.

Using the mind (logic) and experience is also a helpful way to live our lives. So many times I have heard that so and so is lying. I ask, "have they ever lied to you before?" "No!" "Have they ever given you a reason to think that they are lying?" "No!" "So why do you suspect that they are lying now?" "I don't know." Its like we have lost the ability to put the pieces together. In life we are given a giant puzzle and asked to use your minds and examine the pieces and see which ones actually fit together. So often in life we close our eyes and try to feel the sides of the pieces and put the puzzle together that way. It is difficult and unnecessary. Why dismiss a vital part of putting a puzzle together by forgetting to use our eyes? Why go through life operating with only one tool to put the puzzle together. I believe it is time we start to think. I believe it is time we start to recognize that our emotions are beautiful but dangerous. I believe it is time we learn to regulate our emotions by using our minds (logic) to recognize when our emotions are lying to us about reality.

Still Looking for That Perfect Mirror

Reading... Thinking... Reading... Thinking...

My reading's lately have led me to think about a time about 25 years ago where my thinking began. About two weeks ago my father and I drove down to Florida to make my final move to the Sunshine State. It was a great ride. Although long and tiresome I have made that drive with my father so many times and each time and deeper bond is formed with him. My father has not only been my father but a real friend to me over the years. We communicate (as typical father and son) well together and we are not afraid to say whats on our minds. He critiques me, I critique him, he praises me, I praise him. He has taught me a lot of things and I believe that I have taught him some things. Well during this last drive to Florida we talked about contemplation and I can remember the first time I ever really contemplated things. It was when I was about 5 or 6 and we were driving down to Florida as a family to visit relatives. I was sitting in the backseat and looking out the window. In a car driving next to us I saw a woman crying. At that moment my mind started to contemplate why she was crying and I realized something, I realized that I have no idea why she is crying and I will never know. I realized that there was an entire world out there that I would have no knowledge or information about. I realized that my little world that included close family and some friends was not the center of the world just a part of it. Ever since then I have been asking these questions for better or worse.

My close friends are the same way. I have a handful of people that I would consider not just friends but family and each of them share this problem. I call it a problem because it creates a lot noise in the mind. It is difficult to look around you without thinking about all the problems all the issues that are going unsolved and unnoticed. When I was in college and working on the student development team my boss always called me a critical realist. He said that I was cynical and I often saw the problems with everything. Even within the different companies that I have worked I was called upon to make things better to see what the issues were and fix them. In some places I have been successful and in others I have not. The one place where I see failure all the times is in my own life and spiritual quests. I have a hard time seeing the problem and when the problem is pointed out I have an even harder time trying to fix it.

I was listening to a children's book the other day called A King Without a Shadow and in the book this King tries to understand where shadows come from and so he asks the wise men in his court about them and they talk to him about mirrors. They tell him that although he can see his reflection thats all that it is and it is imperfect. Actually, they say, you can never see yourself perfectly and you can never see yourself as other people see you. So when you are trying to change something about yourself, it seems to be best to ask for help.

King David wrote, "Search me oh God and know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me to the way of everlasting."

These last couple weeks of just moving to Florida and spending my mornings reading that thinking has led me back to this place. I want to be stretched in my life, I want to move forward I want to be better than I was yesterday and tomorrow I want to be better than I was today. I need help. I need the help of God and I need the help of others, I need to stay thinking and contemplating my life and the world around me. I need to notice things and keep my eyes open instead of walking around half asleep to others and myself.

I am thankful for my wife and the friends that I have, I am thankful for my father and the rest of my family who are so open with me and willing (sometimes a little to willing) to let me know what they see in me. I am thankful that God has a relationship with me and treats me as my friends and family treat me. He is willing to show me what I am to blind to see. Even though I consider myself a thinker and one who is willing to contemplate the big picture, I am still in need of others.