Stop Thinking, Start Being

Do you know how, when you repeat a word over and over again, it begins to sound strange? Today I was sitting and thinking heavily and at great lengths and depths when I started to feel odd. Soon I realized that it felt weird to sit and think repeatedly, to be consumed only with the act of thinking. I began to feel a little unsettled as my thoughts started sounding more and more strange, like the odd waving vibration you feel when two notes are almost in tune. It occurred to me, then, that I was on to something, that epiphany might make an appearance amidst the tangle of oddity and thought.

Eventually it did. I realized that thought itself is a removal from experience. It is an abstraction of occurrences and abstractions are intangible and do not contain the reality of truth, beauty or any other aspect; it only contains itself.

After this realization, I decided that I think too much. By thinking at great depths for long periods of time I am removing myself from experience, and this does not coincide with my personality:

I feel like I have a young soul. I feel a perpetual will and energy of unparalleled strength and vigor. I need motion and action. I am burning when still, and living in a fully engaged manner only partially quells my fire. Because of this, I am especially excited that in a few months I will be hiking for almost an entire cycle of the seasons. I will fill myself with life and burn comfortably in the immense simplicity of the wilderness. I can no longer feel content with "disinterested contemplation". I do not wish to be disinterested, I want to be perpetually engaged. I do not care for abstractions, I prefer reality. Why think about things when you can embody them? Why contemplate art when you could make it? Why think about sex when you could actually fuck?

Sometimes, I think my personal philosophy dictates that I forget about philosophy; that I need to stop thinking and start being.

Meditation

I try to meditate often, but the imagery provided by the recording in the in-class meditation was incredibly illuminating and really enhanced the meditative experience past the bounds of my usual meditations. The imagery, it seemed, functioned as a stream of analogies for the state of being. The ebb and flow through the opening and closing of the pores and the blooming and wilting of the lotus flower described the perpetual fluctuation that we are permanently engulfed in. However, fluctuation and flow require the future and past, and I think that the two inhibit the examination of the state of being, also referred to as the human condition or, more simply, experience. We only are, we only exist, in a stream of instances, of heres and nows. If things are as fluctuating as they seem, how would each here and now account for the constant interchanging of lows and highs, ins and outs, lightness and darkness?

Well, after a few days of reflection, I think that each here and now is potentiality, or rather, is everything at once, as opposed to a particular thing at a particular time. This way, there can be no constancy in our successions of here's and now's (time), as the fundamental component of these successions is a single, uncertain, infinite instance. Across the expanse of time, things that are high become low, things that are good become bad (Nietzsche- Genealogy of Morals); everything becomes its opposite because each instance exists as everything, making it pure possibility.

This meditation allowed me to consider each here and now (not that there is a calculable, tangible quantity of heres and nows) and whenever I embrace the experience of the present I find myself steeped in paradox and duality. Even as I sit typing these words, my heart is expanding and contracting. I'm letting in breath, and letting it out. My muscle cells die in order to regrow. Human beings, and all things experienced are beautifully contradicting; everything gives way to it's opposite because, at its most basic, each thing is its opposite. Life seems very cyclical, and I love cyclicality.

Wall.E and the Axiom

The Axiom, in Wall.E, may be described as a "utopia"and I would understand the reasoning behind such a description. However, I could only honestly say that the Axiom possesses utopic qualities. It is entirely stable and peaceful. There is no suffering, only entertainment and hedonistic consumption.

However, the Axiom is missing something. It is missing sorrow and pain. It is missing toil and turmoil. It is missing failure, it is missing mourning and death, uncontrollable outside forces and the Unknown. Moreover, it is missing the tears that burn cheeks and the pressures that break backs, bones, hearts and minds. These are the aspects that make humanity so incredible; only through the lens of suffering can we see happiness. It is all too evident that, in our fear of the Unknown and the Negative, we seek stability and ease, and I believe these lack the importance we assign them without existing in congruence with their opposites.

I'll take upheaval and struggle over the Axiom any day. Only then, in intense moments of pain and suffering could I truly be happy. Negative forces are no different than positive ones. And sorrow is just as beautiful as happiness.