Showing posts with label nostalgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nostalgia. Show all posts

Merging Two Worlds



 
I realized long ago that my interests, my devotions and my heart exist almost exactly in equal depth for two discrete places—Kansas City, the place I currently call home and where my family is and all of my current investments such as school and work are rooted, and Cheyenne, Wyoming, the place I used to call home and where so many of my closest friendly bonds still reside where I grew up during my most formative early teenage years. Each place has more than its own fair share of positive considerations and factors to keep each set of emotions, interests, devotions and investments powerfully tied to them. I take a lot of comfort in this, but for that reason I find myself stuck in a perpetually awkward state of longing for whichever place I’m not currently breathing in the sweet air of at each passing moment.

So there is a kind of distance which always separates me from both places simultaneously…because this distance isn’t just the obvious physical one, for however many actual miles are between myself and one of these beautiful places, that same number of miles, manifested emotionally, always works to separate me from the other. If there was some way that I could merge the two worlds, and have forever all of the cherished variables that I so long to be a part of, all of them combined in the most wonderful way, I would tear apart the fabric of space-time with my bare hands to bring them together and I don’t think I could ever ask for anything more.

There are almost 700 torturous miles separating these two worlds. And each one has its own intense well of gravity, always mercilessly tugging me away from the other. Only periodically do I get the opportunity to cut the chains keeping me rooted here in Kansas City and let myself drift that way, over to Cheyenne. The largest of these chains are those of school and work—because only with the blessing of each of these can I make time to temporarily break free from their otherwise unrelenting grip on my focus. I can always still keep in touch and communicate in ways not so different from what is usually taking place anyway, so it’s not so much a matter of separating myself from the people I’m surrounded by here as it is a matter of separating myself from the career-oriented lifestyle I’m surrounded by. And so the beautiful fairy tale setting I can’t shake from my mind (if I even wanted to) is the one in which all of the people I so often find myself dreaming about, together in equal parts both here in Kansas City and there in Cheyenne, are here with me together at once. I absolutely cannot think of a better world than one which incorporates all of the best attributes of both of these, seamlessly combined into a true fairy tale setting if there ever was one.

For obvious reasons my most immediate concerns are those of school and work, and so there really is no question about where I need to be now…at least for the time being, in this moment. And being closer to family, both immediate here in town and slightly less immediate only a couple hours away, is a very nice thing. But on the other hand, in the place that I used to call home (and still do for a fleeting two weeks out of the year), I have some of my longest and deepest-held friendships and the physical surroundings which never fail to provide intensely treasured nostalgic feelings of their own. And although this woefully short amount of time I’m able to take advantage of each year is so relatively brief, separated by about twenty-five times this amount of time, in which I must remain devoted to more productive pursuits here at “home”, all of this time and distance that seems so daunting all the while I’m away seems to just dissolve and fade away the moment I arrive and see all the familiar faces I’ve been missing for so long. And then it’s almost as if I was never even gone at all. It’s a feeling of belonging simply without compare.

If there is ever any doubt in my mind about whether I should really be utilizing my entire vacation time to travel out there and mingle into the ongoing social network, whether I’m still going to fit in and be appreciated, it is utterly demolished almost immediately as I never fail to seamlessly blend back into the scene. It's funny, sometimes, how often people are surprised that I'd take my vacations and come out here to Cheyenne time after time. "Cheyenne, of all places?!" Yes, beautiful Cheyenne, so full of all these wonderful friendships. Truth is, there's no place in the world I'd rather be when I get the chance.

I guess I could say that I’m more physically tied to my current home, and more emotionally tied to my prior home. But this is without a doubt mostly because of the simple fact that I’ve lived here for so long and have career-oriented goals that have been progressing for much of that time. I guess I could also say that my bright future (as its prospects are currently situated) lies here in Kansas City, while my longed-for past (as its prospects are currently situated, as well) lie all the way over there in Cheyenne. There are some deep considerations in this realization, because there are many important variables which are so easy to overlook if I let imagination run rampant and neglect to consider more than sheer longing for the past and what I only get to experience briefly each year.

There is something to be said, of course, of the fact that my time spent in Cheyenne each year is a worry-free vacation from my career-oriented goals and that these emotions are undoubtedly heightened by this. Admittedly, by the end of each visit there is a part of me looking forward to returning to my busy, productive routine back in Missouri. I do enjoy being busy and productive, and I always have to admit that the carefree vacation really does need to come to an end, as far as my bright future is concerned. So it’s difficult to say how things would be if the situation was reversed and I was using my vacation time each year to visit friends and family back in Missouri. I think it would be strikingly similar, in its own way—I would miss family and friends, and I would try to set aside time to come visit, and I would probably feel an intense longing for such times once I returned (to Cheyenne). But I would realize that I needed to return, because I would have a productive life to continue when my vacation time ran out. The two versions are not so different. Such is my devotion to and my connections in both places.

Perhaps the most important consideration of all is that I’m really only drawn back to Cheyenne each chance I get because of the incredible people in it. I’m not particularly drawn to the place because of the place itself—although if I happened to be passing by and absolutely none of my good friends remained, I’d probably drive through and stop at a couple familiar places at least to appreciate some nice nostalgia. But my true interests lie with the inhabitants and for this reason I need to be careful not to rely too much on these people who might not stick around themselves. I must take this fact of life for all of its implications, because when all things are considered the most important thing, besides the familiar friendly faces I definitely would like to be close to, is to be situated physically where I can make the most for myself regardless of the people that have every reason of their own to come and go (the same thing applies, of course, to Kansas City). In an ideal world I would situate myself in the best physical location and have every friendly face from anywhere I could desire forever within my reach—but such is not even remotely likely going to be the case, and this is the primary reason for my wandering mind to create and hold onto this idea which shines so brightly in its potential glory for how I could possibly have the best of all possible worlds right here in the palms of my hands, at least in my idealized daydreams.

So I always find myself torn so cleanly down the center when I consider all of the possibilities that I might have any control over establishing for myself. Kansas City has its obvious physical advantages, and of course a good many deep friendships, while Cheyenne has its unmistakable nostalgia and harbors some of the most deeply-rooted friendships of all. This is the nature of my longing to merge the two worlds, because if I could remain here in this better-situated location on the planet’s surface while still having these friends (combined with my many friends I already have over here) then I would be hard-pressed to imagine a way to be any happier with the Universe.

To anyone who knows me particularly well, or even not, it must go without saying that the primary key to the happiness found in Cheyenne is one Dave Ewaliko, with whom I’ve shared most of every single one of my most cherished memories and most deeply held thoughts. And this isn’t to discount any of the almost countless other intensely-cherished friendships I have rooted in the city (both cities). These people should know who they are. I adore every single one to the utmost of my overflowing heart.

I find it absolutely incredible how intertwined my thoughts are with a place full of people that I’ve only fleetingly kept in physical contact with over so many long years. Early on, after the intense move well over eight years ago (2004), I always comforted myself with the thoughts that the “loss” of Cheyenne, or rather, "The Motherland," as Dave and I came to refer to it, would fade away in time. And of course I was right, to a degree. But there is still somewhat more longing than I had anticipated, or at least had hoped for. I guess I always knew deep down that it was going to be a “scar” for life. It’s interesting how emotional damages can be so much more excruciating than even the most severe physical ones. In the summer of 2007 I fell off a house while working construction and broke my back... fractured my 12th lumbar vertebrate. But miraculously, I feel little pain or even anything more than occasional discomfort at this stage afterwards. The only reminder I ever have is some discomfort if I stand in one place too long, and this doesn’t happen often. It makes things like washing dishes frustrating. On the other hand, I am haunted regularly by the memories of past fortunes that were left behind once my family moved away in June 2004 and the imaginings of things that might have gone so differently had this not been the case. I do see them as wonderful memories, but even the most incredible of feelings can simultaneously bring the most intense longings. And these memories, for all the times that they bring unrivaled happiness and comfort, can sometimes revive the most tragic despair for such good times which are so long gone. Such is the double-edged blade of nostalgia.

I can say in complete honesty that the absolute best days of my mid-adolescent teenage years were spent in a two-and-a-half-year period of unrivaled bliss over in Cheyenne, namely with two incredible friends, none other than Dave Ewaliko and Cliff Cox. In those years we had conquered the world, as it had mattered to us at the time. Yet I can also say in complete honesty that the absolute best days of my elder teenage years were those I spent with my best friends I had here in KC, with Sean Lusher and Jacob Knepper and, similarly, it feels like I had conquered the world all over again with them. The value I hold to each time period is so similar in its worth that I cannot pin down a specific route that would have played out for the better if it could have been more long-lasting—if I had stayed in Cheyenne, then those mid-teenage years definitely would have culminated in ever-increasing intensity as we aged into adults, and yet those late-teenage years I spent here in KC would have had a more powerful foundation, and in turn a much more powerful transition into adulthood, if I had arrived here sooner. The dividing line is, in all practicality, because of all of the intricacies involved in each particular case, impossible to gauge effectively. The thoughtful devotion may be an obsession, but it is an obsession I passionately indulge.

Because even still every time I hear or read about issues Dave is having over there in The Motherland, I want nothing more than to just leap head-first into my car and drive nonstop all the way there, pull into his driveway, throw him into the passenger seat, and drive to Anthony's Pizza (even though it doesn't exist anymore... but any place would do). Then we could go back to his house, stopping at the Mini-Mart for 64 oz. sodas on the way, to laugh our vocal cords sore playing Fifa Soccer or Monkey Ball or watching MXC... and I know in my heart that, at least for the duration of our game-playing or TV-watching, any troubling issues would be in the back of our minds (if anywhere at all). His dad would say hi to me in his ever-soft voice as he rushes to the kitchen to cook sausages for us, his siblings Cece and Jonah would be playfully screaming and throwing each other around the house, Autumn would be laughing at it all or telling them that they're stupid, and his mom (though she has sadly passed on since such memories were so deeply rooted) would be sitting on the couch, telling me about how “special” I am. How special is it when a few experiences easily recalled into memory can rival, or even surpass, the most impressive dream?

They say that home is where the heart is, and I say that if home is where the heart is then there is not a single homeless person in the world. But some people might be unfortunately misplaced.

Long ago, Dave and I came up with a semi-serious pact that when we're wrinkly old geezers assigned to wheelchairs we'll still be sitting out on our neighboring porches (because we will be next-door neighbors), chatting about all the insanity we lived through and all the girls we chased, cherish and loved. It sticks with me, in part because I truly want this to happen. In a way I can precisely imagine the two of us, sitting side-by-side in our rickety old rocking chairs, cracking jokes and reminiscing about all the good times (most of which are yet to come), cracking the same old jokes, Dave bursting out in his oh-so-characteristic hearty laugh (although the years will have taken their toll on it), and just simply enjoying truly cooperative company with each other as a gorgeous Vanilla Sky makes its complex interactions over the horizon.

Everybody has forever to look forward to. Life is absolutely not short, it is the longest thing possible to experience and because we have absolute control over our investments within it I feel it is of the most profound importance that we pursue those things most cherished to us. Because forever is so much more than just a word… forever is the amount of your life that you'll always know you have all such people in your life. And even when they're not around you anymore, or very fleetingly so, as unfortunate as that is, there are still so many ways to talk with them, and even visit whenever possible. Distance plays its unfortunate role in so many cases between people who would otherwise enjoy nothing more than being in each other’s company, but at the same time this same distance can help to strengthen and filter out everything but the most cherished connections of all. And you will know you have one of those true and long-lasting friendships when you can show up on their doorstep after absolutely any amount of time and distance and within mere moments all of the most deep and cherished feelings of all come flooding back as if a tidal wave was unleashed from the deepest depths of the ocean. And you'll know when that term "forever" is to the fullest extent when you see such a person after so much time has passed, and you’ve each pursued such separate paths, and yet each time your paths cross once again it seems exactly like there was no time passed at all.

It may be a fanciful daydream to imagine myself having the best of both of these worlds combined, but if nothing else at least I can collide and merge them within in my own mind, and imagine how wonderful things would be if I had all variables in my grasp at all times. But of course I cannot physically have this fortune. I can, however, relish in all the bountiful memories each holds, and pursue with the best of my abilities all of the time that I can spare to continue to make the best of each, as separately as they must be, and as intertwined as they can be, because I have the power to make it so as often as I can manage.

And so I am somewhat distanced from my current home, here in Kansas City, emotionally, and from my long-lost home, there in Cheyenne, physically. But life is complicated, circumstances are complicated, cooperation is complicated, and my deepest desires are perhaps most complicated of all. So if I seem a little bit distant at any point in time, to anyone from either location, please understand that as much as I’d love more than anything to be there sharing time and memories, old and new, with you, I might seem a bit distant only because I am.

Posted by Unknown | at 7:06 PM | 1 comments

Engineering Nostalgia



Have you ever noticed that a certain song, or a certain smell, or a certain taste invariably brings back vivid memories of a certain period of time from your past? I’ve been aware of this sensation for a long time now, as long as I can even remember. There are still songs and smells and tastes that momentarily invoke such intense memories of childhood or, most profoundly of all, my years spent in the height of my junior high school years where I was most happy with a specific group of friends and adventures. I cherish these tenuous ties with the past, and I’ve come to realize, sadly, that they will only fade with time. My hope is that the most meaningful among them will always persist. Perhaps the most deeply engraved of them will always provide this nostalgic effect, however brief it may be each time, because they’ve managed to dig themselves a burrow some level below the threshold of passing memories. I am convinced that those sensory ties which somehow become attached to individual memories are one of the most powerful links to be utilized in making sure that the most cherished memories of all can be held onto, can be nestled into rightful burrows of their own so as not to ever be lost altogether.

I think one of the problems is that the memories themselves will continue to age as one grows older, persistently crowded out by newer, fresher memories in each moment, and the relevance that the sense which is tied to them has will continue to be spread over more and more more-current experiences. Realizing this, I’ve made efforts to isolate those particular senses which I’ve recognized are linked in this way. A particular Glade air freshener (Hawaiian Breeze, I believe) still never fails to bring me back into my dear friend Dave’s old room in Cheyenne and so I will never  use it myself. I’m afraid that the aroma will begin to attach itself to the present day, and gradually remove itself from those precious memories. But picking it up off the shelf and inhaling its sweet fragrance will always put me back into those cherished times, into that beloved room and into those dear memories and into the fun-filled company of a friend so favored. Left to such few and far between indulgences, the link should remain strong, and I can always rely on it to transport me at my whim.

Another powerful example is any of many songs that I used to listen to consistently for a certain period. But every time I listen to one of these songs now, its relevance shifts at least very slightly into this moment, becoming bit by bit more attached to a more current time frame. Even so, many songs still provide this most enjoyable sensation, even as I continue to enjoy them. Some songs I’ve already realized have lost most of their relevance into the past, yet even so every now and then one of these songs still manages to transport me so vividly into a memory. There must be some subtle factors which continue to play a role, perhaps a certain emotional state or an extra sense such as smell, which still even today invoke the nostalgia at its deepest. And some songs, the ones at the very height of this power, have hardly even faded at all even though I still put them on all the time. They’ve managed to stand the test of time even still, even when I’ve enjoyed them countless times throughout the years, even though I’ve experienced so many new memories in their presence. They still take me back, still hold that original link. I am so grateful for this. These examples are definitely the most deeply held, the ones persistently refusing to be outdone in the present.

Taste is a tougher case; I think this might be (for me, at least) because there are not very many examples of unique-enough tastes that are specific to a narrow time period. There are a few, though. The first that comes to mind is a certain flavor of Doritos (at the time it was a “mystery” flavor, I think it ended up being cheeseburger or something similar) which when I have happened to find them again strikingly reminds me of a certain time period several few years back when I was playing a new game and eating lots of them. Another example is candy corn, which never fails to put me back into the mind of myself as a child enjoying the treasures of a long Halloween trek.

I wonder often whether some of these particularly powerful nostalgic links will continue to persist even as I join the ranks of the elderly. So far some of them seem so much more deeply ingrained into my mind, and I sincerely hope that I can hold on to these fantastically enjoyable experiences. I’ve thought long and hard about where this phenomenon originates, how it’s formed and how it can be retained as best as possible, and I think I’ve gotten a pretty good idea about how to keep them close, and even help to create new ones, most efficiently.

I’ve developed a strategy for willfully creating this phenomenon. I call it “engineering nostalgia.” For me this whole concept has been most powerful in relation to a certain clearly-defined and memorable timeframe of the past (not so easy to anticipate at the time) and, more specifically and controllably, in relation to more trivial things like playing a certain video game or listening to a certain album. If the video game or album is new to your experience, it is for good reason much easier to coordinate complementary senses to go along with them. What I’ve learned to do is this: when you begin playing a new game (or reading a new book, or visiting a new place), also buy a new CD (or at least begin playing one that you haven’t listened much of). The closer they coincide as brand-new experiences, the better the effect. If you can get hold of both a new game and a new CD at the same time, and begin experiencing them simultaneously, this is the ideal situation. For extra effect also buy a new air freshener and a new flavor of some snack, such as Doritos, you’ve never had before and combine them all.

So put in the new CD (and the new air freshener, and open up the bag of chips) as you begin playing this new game. Further down the road, even years and years later, any one of your senses, randomly reminded of any one of these sensations, will bring you back to this time period when you were playing this game and listening to this album and breathing in this aroma and tasting this snack and you can bask in the resulting nostalgia. It is a wonderful thing, made even more wonderful when you can willfully induce it.

Of course, playing a new video game is just one example of a time when you can anticipate a nostalgic bond able to be formed. There are many, many others, if you are careful enough to provide for them, such as a vacation to a new place or moving into a new house or buying a new car or beginning a new hobby. The possibilities are practically endless, because it really comes down to anything that’s new enough in our experience to be so impressionable. And the base act doesn’t even need to be new to you, it just seems easier to me. But maybe the secondary influence is what’s new. You might have been going for nightly walks for months already, but if you have a new album in your mp3 player then further down the road of life those songs are very likely going to bring you back to those walks, to the times when you were just getting to know those songs, and you will miss those times. You will long to be on that very same walk again, wishing you could experience it for the first time all over again.

Nostalgia is a funny thing, I’ve come to find. This feeling of such deep familiarity and longing seems to be not necessarily due to the belief that a certain timeframe was so “good,” but simply because it is gone. It is familiar, we know exactly what came of it, whether good or bad, and there is comfort in this. Even the not-so-good memories sometimes invoke this feeling. There are some periods of time that my rational mind would never even consider revisiting because of how rough I know and remember them to have been—but when some sense is spontaneously stimulated in just the right way to invoke the memory, I cannot deny the nostalgia. Part of me longs to be back in this time despite my avoidance, despite the knowledge deep within myself that I did not enjoy it. But it would be comforting even so, I realize, even if only because I know that things turned out alright, I survived to the present with a healthy grasp of new learning experiences, because this particular memory had its particular impact on the present. On the other hand, both the present and future are perpetually shrouded in mystery and we are always anxious for it to some degree, which I think works to reinforce the longing for the past. We don’t have the comfort of knowing how the future turns out like we do with previous events. But there is beauty in this mystery, as well—the future holds immeasurable possibilities that we humans alone have the ability attempt to foresee rationally and, most importantly, to shape so according to our desires.

Time may flow invariably and without the slightest bit of consideration for us measly human beings, but we can and must fill it with as much as each individual among us possibly can, and achieve the grandest impact as is our power to achieve. By whatever means necessary this must be done to truly make our mark. Impacts can come in so many forms, from a simple smile that influenced someone else in some positive way, to a deep conversation with a friend which helps them see something more clearly, to a bestselling book that millions upon millions of people read and are affected by, to an everlasting friendship that works to profoundly shape the futures that two people share together and independently because of the impacts they have on each other, to so many countless other possibilities. It’s impossible to know what random trivial or heartfelt acts might be the positive influence somebody needed at that moment. The beauty that is life is in our power to influence, at least to some degree—and every single last moment is precious beyond the most poetic words anyone could possibly put to them. Any means that you have in your power to engineer the nostalgia which is so powerful in appreciating the life you have lived is incredibly useful, and I believe should be passionately fought for. This may be as simple as putting forth the effort to realize that recent events are special and unique enough to warrant the extra care in uniting them with a carefully considered added element so that you can utilize this connection farther down the road. You can bring the joyful moments of your past back to you so much more readily if you have attached something special to them at the time.

So many people say that life is short. And I realize that this is generally meant to be inspirational, but how can life be considered short when there is absolutely nothing anyone can experience that is longer and more fundamental? Life encompasses utterly everything that holds physical meaning, everything that means anything! Every thought, every feeling, every joy, every sorrow, every last experience is a product of life in all of its glory in whatever duration each of us happens to “receive.” I feel like this insistence that pursuits should be sought after, and joys should be appreciated, because “life is short” are degrading the truest beauties that could be relished. If life is short then we might be more likely to hastily indulge reckless behavior, or fail to consider the most meaningful pursuits. Life is long. Life is absolutely everything that each of us will experience, and consider, and enjoy, and learn from. Life is absolutely not short.

It could be argued that one life was shorter than another. As a measure of time in its purest form, this is irrefutable. Tragedies happen to the best of us, without warning or meaning. But as a measure of quality, or of impact, it is definitely not so simple. One person’s life at 50 (or at 20) could have twice the lasting memories as another’s at any age, if such a value could somehow be quantified. But it can’t, really. In this sense it’s a matter of content, of perception and of impact. A life lived in fame is obviously favored to appear to have been more impactful, but is there any way to know? I don’t think any span of life will ever seem to be enough, no matter how long it endured, especially if people are compelled to think of it as “short.” This only stresses that the value of a life is not necessarily lessened much by a short timeframe. It is unfortunate, of course, that any life ends any sooner than it might have under ideal circumstances. But it is what it is, and I sincerely hope that the person in each such case had as fulfilling and impactful a life as possible in his/her allotted time. It’s going to seem short no matter what, if you have such an outlook, even for the longest among them.

And yet I can’t argue with the idea that someone who runs around proclaiming that life “is short” and, in turn, motivates themselves (and others) to live it more effectively, is certainly getting something valuable out of it. I just think the same value, and so much more, can be gotten out of life without this nonsense. We don’t need to convince ourselves that our time is “short.” We need to convince ourselves that our time is precious, and long, and we have all this priceless span of life to fill with as much positivity and goodness as we can manage. Do it because it is so long, because there is so much available to fill it with.

I wonder what is even meant by that generic phrase “Life is short?” Broken down to its individual words, the phrase lacks meaning. “Life” is obvious; it is the perception each of us has of our surroundings in the duration that we have them. It is life, it’s self-explanatory. We all know what life is. “Short,” however, is a comparative argument; there is no “short” without acknowledging something that is not. Certainly, in respect to the lifespan of a giant tortoise (reportedly an average of 177 years in captivity), or of a Redwood tree (reportedly 500 to 700 years) or of a star (our own rather “average” star will supposedly have “lived” for 10 billion years by its end), the average human lifespan is but a fraction—a decent fraction of the giant tortoise, but a mere nanosecond of the “cosmic day” compared to the star. But what real relevance does any of this have? We are not giant tortoises and we most certainly are not stars. Their lifetimes apply to them and reflect upon the grand scheme of things from their individual perspectives but need not imply any sort of shortcoming on our part. So what if a giant tortoise lives 177 years? Its life is trivial compared to ours. Nothing against humongous elderly turtles but, come on, their biology is so much simpler and so much more accommodating of their “long” lives. Can a giant tortoise entertain abstract thoughts and shape its environment to its will? Can it even move faster than five miles an hour? Would anyone seriously give up their human inheritance for these extra hundred years? Stars perpetually burn unimaginable amounts of fuel throughout their ridiculously long lifetimes, but they’re not even sentient. They can’t communicate with each other and share in mutual pursuits. They are stars. Any comparison is silly and fruitless. What real meaning does the comparison of years hold in any of these cases, or in any other?

Perhaps this judgment of shortness is being compared not to the lifetime of another thing, but to the lifetime each of us desires to experience. I think most people probably would like to know that they are going to live well beyond any averaged estimate of their society, or even the record breakers. But this shouldn’t make the life we are living, and whatever life is going to be in store for us, any less incredible or meaningful. It shouldn’t make us feel like it is short.

The average human lifespan is reportedly about 63 years (higher, of course, in first-world countries). As recently as 1796 the average lifespan was around 24 years (again, higher for first-world countries). Some are claiming that, as of today, as many as half of the children born will see their hundredth birthday in good health. And the children of these children may be looking at a reasonable likelihood of living to be 120 or 150! This thrills me to no end. I dearly wish that I had been born in this projected generation that is likely to live to be 120 in good health. The point is, we do have influence on the length of our lives. The evidence seems to suggest there is not some upper limit of barely more than 100 years, like some seem to believe. If life expectancy has been climbing, and continues to climb with appreciable progress, who can say it’s going to stop? Of course there are undeniable biological processes at work; bodies degrade and organs cease to function on their own, but clearly there are means to extend this downfall. We have every reason and every chance to put our unique human potential to work and extend this beautiful and mysterious thing that we call life for as long as we possibly can. Without it there is nothing, and I cannot consider that an acceptable alternative. What is nothing in the face of everything? If there are still more possible ways to advance the average lifespans of our kind, healthily and without significant consequence, then I absolutely believe that we should pursue this. I don’t believe there is some boundary inherently imposed on us by some all-encompassing force, over which we have no “right” to achieve. The boundary is ours to determine, ours to influence and improve upon by whatever means we gain understanding of it and competence to do so.

We tend to live our lives in defiance of the impending doom which is sure to eventually come. We indulge in material things, and in (sometimes foolish) “fun” pursuits, and we shrug off the idea that it’s all temporary. The people who act most recklessly (within reason) seem to be the most highly regarded by others. I mean, I’m all for having a good time, and making the most of my “prime” years, but I also feel like more meaningful pursuits are more advantageous at any age. This trait should not be shunned, but admired and strived for. The generic advice of the elderly is generic for a reason. We’re bound to realize this eventually, so why not as early as possible? We can still be somewhat reckless and have a good time while being considerate of whatever future we are imagining at each moment and efficiently factoring this.

This is all, of course, without consideration of a spiritual afterlife. I need to make that clear. Such a thing is just wildly difficult to mix into an argument (not to mention the number of people who will simply dismiss it). In fact, I respect this viewpoint, the idea of a spiritual eternity, most of all. But even so, even in the face of the promise of the most wonderful, glorious, eternal afterlife, if you believe in this, the physical, worldly life loses none of its significance. My argument does not change at all. Because an eternity of blissful spiritual afterlife is, by definition, going to be fulfilled regardless of the length of the timeframe spent roaming the Earth. What’s another ten, or fifty, or even a couple hundred years in the face of eternity? As a matter of worldly years, it doesn’t matter when you reach this eternity. You won’t even notice. But it makes all the difference here in the physical existence. You will have experiences, and you will impact others, and you will leave some sort of legacy. Another 50 years, if it were ours to be had, holds all the relevance in the world. You’ll never even know, once it’s said and done and you’ve achieved your spiritual afterlife, how long it took, how long you might have had to “suffer” (I disagree) through the physical realm. Any number of years is of no consequence in this regard, but any single year holds unimaginable promise here where the laws of physics bind us and our fellow humans need our help and our communication and companionship.

So give these things while you can. Indulge your passions. Make it count. Life is certainly not short, but it is all we have and the moments will flow by like a raging river if we aren’t careful to always make the best that our individual potential can make, and stay focused. Stay intrigued. Stay curious. And for the love of all that is good and just, be friendly and reasonable and share all that you can share with your fellow humans. What else can we do in this time that we have? Petty disagreements and judgments and ill-feelings in general are just silly. You should be ecstatic with joy any time your eyes fall upon those of another human, any fellow human being, especially when you know them personally and have any sort of memories and experiences together. To paraphrase the great Carl Sagan, you could travel a thousand light-years and never meet another. We should all be the best of friends, every last one of us. We should all be experiencing the joys and fascinations of life, and even the sorrows and pains, with one another. We should all be doing what we can to make sure the memories we have made, and perpetually continue to make, are as impactful and long-lasting as possible. We all have ultimate power over all of these things, including also our hopes and anticipations of the future. The best is yet to come.


Posted by Unknown | at 12:56 AM | 2 comments

The Garden of Forking Paths




There is this theory in quantum mechanics called the "many-worlds" interpretation. To my (limited) understanding--not to attempt to claim that I know practically anything about quantum mechanics--it theorizes that there is no "waveform collapse" when two potential futures are reconciled. Instead of one reality, and only one reality, progressing continuously through each and every decision in your life (and everyone’s lives), one world line path becomes two (or more) at every possibility point, separating into alternate, parallel universes, and this branching happens every time a choice is made. While this description may not be the one a trained quantum physicist would try and explain to you, I’ve gotten the impression that this is the general idea when applied to the everyday world around us. So I’ll just run with that; whether or not this understanding is technically accurate and true, it’s incredibly interesting nonetheless.

The most striking disturbance I have with this idea is…what exactly determines when a timeline branches? Does this occur at any conscious decision? Or just those that exceed some somehow-determined boundary of significance? If it's the former there would of course be a truly unfathomable number of such universes, infinite in all practical meaning. And even with the latter, unless the boundary was extremely high, there would be an enormous number of realities still, perhaps virtually infinite as well. There must either be a line or not, and if so, then where is it and how is it determined? And then I wonder, is there a branch for every possible decision one could have made? For instance, if I am asked to pick a number between one and ten, and I pick five, is there a branch for each other answer I could have given, or only one for considering a true-false scenario (I either picked five or didn't play the game)? Technically I could have said anything--one, zero, ten, fifty, rhinoceros… I might not even have spoken a response; maybe I nodded or decided to dance. The Universe shouldn’t know whether or not some potential answer was actually valid within the scope of the question, so I'm intrigued to wonder whether the branching is only done when a choice is made or not made, or if there truly is a branch for every possibility.

My other most striking concern with the theory is that none of this is tangible in any way. Even if one exists in five hundred billion parallel universes, all branched from various moments in one's own and in others' universes, it will go completely and utterly unrealized by each. So does it even matter? Does something you can't possibly hope to demonstrably verify have any meaning whatsoever? While the thoughts of all this bring me some comfort, thinking that there might possibly be versions of myself who made so many of the “right” decisions in life which I only later came to realize in this reality, the impossibility of confirmation prevents most of the comfort I wish I could feel. The excitement mostly fizzles out when I grasp that no possible branching can actually provide any true objective meaning.

Still, I can't help but imagine what this all can imply in the mind, if nothing else, at least at the most significant turning points of my life. I suppose inspiration for self-reflection is worth something, if this theory provides us nothing else to glean. Because there is a garden in your mind, a rich, fertile ground from which any combination of possible thoughts can be planted and grown to whatever lengths and however many branchings you might take them to. All it takes is a thought, a seed, and then some consideration, some nourishment, and your mind is free to wander to your flooded heart’s content, if you just let it bloom. Enjoy the fruits of imagination.

Perhaps the most significant factor of all for the ways in which a person’s world lines might have branched furthest is in the environment one grows up with. Every time my family moved (my mother was active duty Air Force) was certainly a very significant "choice-point." I was born in Maryland and then lived in Washington D.C., Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, Wyoming, and then Missouri again. Any one of these could have ended up being my family's permanent residence under other circumstances. If there is an alternate universe for each of these possibilities, in which I've grown up in a completely different environment, surrounded by utterly unfamiliar landscapes and cityscapes and circles of friends and acquaintances, they would of course have progressed in radically different ways from this one and from each other. I would have grown up with strange people and likely done things I never even dreamed of in this reality. In an alternate universe there could be a version of myself, doing whatever it is he might do, who has lived in Maryland his whole life, who never moved away in the first place. He’s been there all his life. How bizarre that idea is! I mean, I’m trying to imagine and I just don't know…I am utterly biased towards the life I have actually led. It's very difficult to imagine a life that progressed completely differently since a point before I was even two years old. But it could exist, and how interesting would it be to meet him? I wonder what he’s made of his life up to now, what friends he’s chosen, what pursuits he’s held on to, what successes he’s enjoyed, what failures he’s endured and learned from. I wonder what he’s like, how good of a person he is. I wonder if we would be best friends.

This also means that there could be a version of me who never moved from Cheyenne, Wyoming so many years ago. Cheyenne, where I grew up during my most formative years and have retained, even to this day, some of the most powerful friendly bonds I’ve ever made. This is the thought that hits home most of all--that in some unreachable parallel universe may be a version of me who didn't miss out on the Cheyenne life during all these long years since my family moved away. He was there all along, oblivious to the suffering of the “me” who wasn't. Of course, this version wouldn’t have it all good. He would never have met so many of the incredible friends I’ve made since my family moved to Kansas City. For all the memories that I could possibly imagine might have had the chance to have been made if I had been there in Cheyenne all along, there are a comparable number of experiences that I actually did make here where I’ve been. Of course there are pros and cons at every point, which I guess is why I am so struck by this whole idea, but it’s so completely fascinating regardless. This is not regret or despair, but awe and wonder at simple possibilities my mind can fathom.
I just wish I could communicate with him, if he somehow truly exists in some parallel realm. I wish I could ask this incarnation of me how those… wow, eight years, now, as of summer 2012, have been. Were they as wonderful and blissful and full of nonstop joy and appreciation as they've played out in my head countless times? Did the friendships last and stand the test of time even better than they have through my occasional visits? Are we having the time of our lives together anywhere near like we’ve had in so many of my dreams manifested in the deepest sleep? Am I on a bright career path? Did I fall in love? Has it lasted? Am I better off?

I would ask him about all my friends over there. How did things go when I was around all along, as opposed to only briefly during some select summer or winter vacations? Are things as great as I have always imagined they would have been, or have I perhaps been over-projecting my guilt of leaving? Is everyone still good friends with each other? Did I help to provide some sort of social adhesive to people who otherwise would have drifted apart? Do we all still have as much fun in this world as we have when I come to visit from my own? Or are things largely the same, on the grand scale of things, minimally affected by whether I’m actually there or not? It wouldn’t even truly matter what the realities may be, because they are all ruthlessly interesting regardless, no matter how much positive influence I might be projecting into such a reality where I might have actually had a role to play in its overall “success.” Of course I want to have had, and may see myself as having, such an impact. But actually knowing the full truth is its own joy altogether.

I would then ask him about Dave, unquestionably the deepest, most profound, intertwined and enjoyable friendship I have ever had. How is Dave? What is he like, having had me there all this time? As things are, Dave and I have taken, in some ways, very different paths since we parted ways in 2004. There are some things that we don't quite see eye to eye on now, but many, many that we still do… but these differences are trivial, and the floodgates inevitably open so wide when we reunite. And all the long years and all the daunting miles that have haunted our separation are swept away as all the memories and all the connections we have ever formed come flooding back in like a raging river, unstoppable and undeniable. Then it's almost as if those years and miles were never even in the way to begin with, and we can enjoy the shared glory of our friendship for whatever time we have. At best, usually, I get this for two weeks of each year. But how different might it have been if we had remained neighbors perpetually? How much positive influence might I have had for him and him for me? It's difficult to say, to say the obvious. I get chilled just putting serious thought to it. My mind gets a bit cloudy; there are far too many variables. But I imagine, with all the honesty I can muster, that it would be an incredibly beautiful thing, for each of us and in each other. I feel like it would outshine any downside to having remained there all along by enormous degree. Such is this single connection.

So it ends up being a little awkward, this longing to be in both places at once. If it were somehow possible to combine the best of both worlds it would solve so much. If only I could just cut Cheyenne out of the earth (people, power, plumbing, everything) and fly it over to Missouri and lay it down in some nearby open area, some already-prepared jigsaw puzzle piece of an empty space to drop it in. If I could incorporate the friends from both sides into my current everyday life, if I could have all of my deepest friendships right here, each and every one of them within the reasonable means of each and every other one of them to connect with, I would be hard-pressed to desire anything else in this world.

And then I wonder what if each romantic relationship had not ended? This is another huge significance, assuming that each relationship was aimed at the long run, if it had gotten far enough to be established as such, as they should be. Inside alternate branching realities, based on different sums of decisions and factors, each case could have progressed onto some wildly different path. So perhaps these are still going strong in some alternate universes, where whatever it is that messed them up was somehow avoided by some pivotal decision unrealized in this one. The ability to observe the results would be most interesting in these cases, as well. How far would they have gone by now? Would there be a marriage on the way? Might I have a family yet? Could things have been worked out effectively, or was it doomed no matter what? Was the outcome I’m familiar with inevitable? These curiosities are impossible to determine, ultimately, sitting here surrounded by the perpetual flow of a single course of history… and that frustrates me. Unknowns are so frustrating, and I now realize this is one of the reasons why this whole theory is so captivating to my mind. It provides for me a means to ponder on what could possibly have gone differently, and produce an outcome entirely separate from the one which I’m so fundamentally familiar with. It doesn’t need to imply that you wish this imagined outcome to have been the case, it only means that the alternative is interesting in that it never came to be but you know it had even the slightest chance to. Because the willful mind is such an incredibly wondrous thing, providing for us the limitless possibilities to imagine countless realities as suits our whim, and consider what certain outcomes might have come about given alternate circumstances. And perhaps we might even learn something useful for this objective reality which we actually have control over.

What if my father had not left ten years ago? That would be another extremely different reality, another one I can hardly comprehend--the impact would be huge and profound. It’s amazing how some things become so normalized, so ingrained into our minds simply because it’s all we know, because we can only experience one single timespan, because that’s how the world around us works, apparently. It becomes hard to imagine things any other way. And when you try, you get this vague idea that it would have been so nice, but…getting more than that out of it seems difficult. It's hazy, like there is some general sense of how things would be, but... the data is just simply insufficient. There are far too many variables, again. You can only wonder, and imagine what that version of you is experiencing in the world that you project for them in your mind.

And what if I had picked a different college, or a different degree program, or not moved out with my brother several years ago, or even not written this? There are so many possibilities for things to have gone differently. And of course there would be unfavorable parallel universes, as well. There would be one in which I dropped out of high school (since the thought crossed my mind), or never went to college, or never bought my current vehicle, or never had that very first conversation with Dave, or for that matter any other person who’s ever been in my life.

The fascinating thing is that any, or, really, all, of these twists and turns throughout the garden of forking paths might be true realities of other representations of me. And of you, and of everyone, with some details changed. I suppose this is why they say the past is so dangerous. Not completely, of course--everything can be seen favorably, at least constructively, in some way. The good memories are, of course, positive reinforcements, and the more the better. The bad ones, however, are useful in their own ways—they can be warnings, lessons, and points of comparison. They can be things to avoid, experience to pass on. Optimism is a very, very powerful thing.

So it's all a profoundly interesting thought experiment, really, this little introspective here. It’s a daydream session, a trip down nostalgia lane with a fun twist. I'm sure everybody is aware of various moments where their lives took a decisive turn in some direction. Does it interest others that those choices might have spawned their own realities? Even if you can only ever attempt to imagine their implications, this can still provide some valuable insight for you if you can relate to it effectively. And hopefully you can shape those insights into positive applications for what you actually do have knowledge and control over.

I'll say this: if I could somehow verify that these alternate realities do indeed exist, and if I could somehow determine their locations in space-time, I would do everything in my power to tear a wormhole in the fabric of space-time right here in front of me with my bare hands. I would figure out how to navigate myself through them in any direction that I choose and give myself free reign to visit some of these other possibilities. Just to see for myself. I wonder how some of those other realities have turned out. And even if I come across a particularly beautiful one, I'll come back, for sure…

at least to say goodbye.



Posted by Unknown | at 10:15 PM | 4 comments

The Beauty in Sorrow


 
Do you ever put on a sad song or a sad movie, or get out some old pictures, or watch some old videos, or just sit and reminisce, with the deliberate attempt to feel a certain way? A certain bit of a coordinated sense of longing, or sorrow? Perhaps you’re not quite sure exactly what you want to feel, but you know you want to feel something powerful. Maybe you've just been through some tragic ordeal and you need to relate with something, or maybe you're falling into old memories of long-lost times, just tragically misplaced in this crazy world we inhabit and you merely want to bask in the familiarity that these memories can bring back to the surface. Or maybe you're not even sad at all but just want to enjoy the depths of the emotions on display in these acts. You might just be a little bit lonely and simply want to identify with something you can feel deep inside your core. I, for one, can relate to each of these and I don’t doubt that any reader can as well. Sorrow is one of those things that you can always rely on to fill you with emotions so powerful because your own interpretations of a thing define how much impact it has, and this can be a wonderfully beautiful thing if your will is powerful enough to utilize it toward some gain.

There are of course a vast many causes for one to be sad, ranging from the loss of a dear friend or pet or family member to a tragic breakup or distant memories of some cherished good times…the possibilities extend endlessly in between and on either side of the broad scope of what usually brings us to this place where sorrow broods solitude. They all have their own varying degrees of severity, of duration and depth, but they are all similar in that they belong to the same sort of "family" or class of emotions. They all invoke whatever longing emotions you have attached to them, amplified to whatever extremes by whatever severity they originate from through your personal experiences and the weight of consideration you’ve placed upon them. Sometimes you just want that intensity. It puts you in a particular realm of thought, emotionally, where you can then look upon everything else from a certain unique vantage point that doesn’t exist in the normal routine mindsets that generally occupy your thoughts. And from such a vantage point you can appreciate whatever brought you there so much more deeply, so much more wholeheartedly, even if only in retrospect in order to avoid a recurrence of whatever the source is. This is definitely valuable, but there is so much more to be enjoyed if you have the proper mindset. By no means does such an emotional state have to be entirely a bad thing.

There is a deep-rooted beauty in the musings of sorrow. I've always thought this was a bit strange, a little counterintuitive somehow, although I've felt and appreciated such emotions for as long as I can remember. Positivity buried inside the negative manifests a certain kind of hope and admiration of life. Even when I was a little guy, as early as eight or nine, developing my tastes for my very first “favorite songs,” they tended to be sad ones. And I know now that I didn’t actually even truly understand the depths and the meanings of the songs I adored—I had of course never truly loved, or lost,  friendly or romantically, or been otherwise emotionally damaged or esteemed… but I adored them anyway, even if I was singing along with lyrics I could not possibly comprehend. Looking back, I’m sure that one of the primary reasons was for the certain quality of the vocals in such songs. I had already discovered a love for the emotional display of a singer singing a sad song. There’s something in the voice, in the finest among this class of music, which stands apart, especially when the singer seems to be particularly passionate about the song. A raw display of emotion and the unashamed willingness to express it to anybody who cares to listen has this immensely deep beauty which I cannot help but admire and empathize with. I still remember holding my little cassette recorder up to my alarm clock/radio before I was even a decade old and recording songs I liked when they happened to play on the radio. This was my introduction to the concept of creating playlists like I still spend so much time doing today. The tradition has remained, evolving along with the technology involved. I still listen to some of those very first songs, some fifteen years later. Some of them I even now understand and relate to on a personal level, which has only helped to enhance their values.

At first the idea seems a bit counterintuitive, of sadness being a desirable emotion to seek out, because I think sadness is generally (and not necessarily for bad reasons) considered to be an undesirable one. But with the proper considerations you can escape from this gravity well of negativity that seems to pull so many far beyond any enjoyable level. I've become a lot more comfortable with this over the years, and I've found that if you look a little deeper there are some undeniable and incredible benefits as long as your mindset is sound and effective enough to realize them. There is so much raw, unfiltered beauty down there in the depths of sorrow, just laid bare for you to see and identify with and perhaps even reconcile.

From such a mindset you have the most potential to gain—at your will, of course. It is of utmost importance that you don't just sit and wallow in the sorrow. This is where the generic unfavorable viewpoint from most people comes from, I think. It seems to be a cliché that sorrow brings further sorrow, and nothing else. As if it’s an endlessly spiraling descent into hopeless despair with no personal value until you manage to halt your fall and haul yourself back up without ever looking back down. But it doesn’t necessarily need to be this way, because this vantage point from the depths of your mindset is where everything else looks most beautiful. When you've sunk to some level, everything that is now above you looks so much better in its new light. This is perhaps the easiest gain to get out of all this: the appreciation of something that you once took for granted, now that you’re gazing longingly up at it. Maybe you will get it back, and maybe you won’t, and maybe you never actually lost it. Whatever the case you will have a better, hopefully more appreciative understanding of it, and how to hold on to it or how you might have lost it and how you might reacquire it.

Basking in this state of emotions, down there in the lonely pits of your mind, what once was dull and uninterestingly familiar now appears so beautiful up there above you… and what once was already beautiful now looks even more beautiful. And even what once looked dark and fearsome down there underneath you now looks merely dull and familiar once you’re staring it in the face. In other words, everything just got better, at the cost of your relative position. I think this is the critical thing to consider. You have to be able to accept this realization that you are in a “lower” place now, but from this lowering you have a heightened potential to appreciate. And you should make the fullest possible use of this opportunity. You can grant yourself access to appreciations otherwise overlooked in your day-to-day routine. They are always there; they are always in your grasp… but understandably, they get lost in the daily motions of a busy life. And so this is why I feel like some time occasionally set aside to focus on such emotions is such a valuable pursuit. Put together a playlist of the deepest and most heartfelt of the more emotional songs in your collection, or some touching movies or books or poems and when you find yourself with some downtime get them out and just enjoy relishing in the gloriously beautiful displays of affection and feelings that these artists are pouring their hearts out over. They don’t want you to feel miserable; they want you to have something to connect with and share with you. They want you to be comforted by the idea that so many other people have felt very similar feelings, and they can be shared with the world in all their sorrowful glory. And they can be overcome.

It’s a rather generic saying that you should not “dwell on the past.” And while there is definitely some value to this, there is also some value to doing just that. It’s the ratio between considerations of the past, present and future that really matter—because the past happened. And this past, utterly unique to you, influenced you and your present state of being in the most profound and intricate ways imaginable. Be it good or bad, everything that you’ve ever been through is valuable to your collective experiences of life. A hopeful future is much more solidified if you have the gains from your past miseries (and successes, of course) to build from. If you can spend some time considering some past event, and its consequences on later events and on your own present mindset, then you should be able to glean some sort of insight into something deeply meaningful. Good memories, whether or not you are in a comparatively “good” situation at the moment, should bring you happiness. But if your present state is a particularly troublesome one, then such goodness might be in conflict with a powerful sense of longing and threaten to pull you down even farther. This is normal, though, up to a reasonable level, and is combatable with a strong will. Understand where the line between what is not able to be influenced (but has every possibility of providing insight) and what you actually have control over (the present and future) is. In this way all of your musings can be constructive.

And even if your present state is actually a particularly good one then you will probably experience some sense of longing anyway when you let such emotions flow. Your first-hand knowledge of the outcomes of even the most tragic memories helps to paint them in a positive light. Nostalgia doesn’t differentiate much with “good” or “bad” (at least in my experience); it merely reflects on past events that you miss simply because they are gone. There are always ways to appreciate memories, if you care to seek them out. You just need to know what you’re doing, know what you intend to gain from this pursuit, and how you can relate it to the present day. Don’t see it as “dwelling” in its negative sense, but see it as dwelling positively by evaluating and cherishing and learning. In this way, effectively executed, you can’t go wrong because you can only gain and benefit. Because you are still alive today you have survived whatever experiences of your past you remember to be so troublesome, and they now offer so much potential in analysis.

But putting aside the potential to evaluate and learn and improve, both the deepest and highest beauties still remain. Because at the bare root of it all, emotions on display are beautiful because they are laid bare. How often have you refrained from telling somebody something because you were uncomfortable with putting yourself so far out on the limb? It can be a terrifying thing… and so the courage to do so is beautiful in itself. Emotional songs (as well as other media) are so successful because, to a degree, we all feel the same things. Our minds aren’t so very different. They are shaped by experiences so unique to us that I think this consideration of species-wide similarity is easy to overlook. But it is so powerful a thing, to realize the similarities that exist between all of us despite utterly unique sets of experiences personally. On a fundamental level we are all so much alike, despite vast differences in appearances and habits and experiences. If you are feeling something, deep in your core, rooted to yourself so deeply that you can hardly imagine anyone else feeling the same way, there must be countless others who feel something so similar that the self-righteous comparison is almost trivial. You can find a connection to relate with, if you are willing to genuinely try. Even your next-door neighbor you might not have ever spoken to most likely has depths of feelings more than enough to form a powerful bond with.

This is beauty in its highest regard. The miniscule differences that separate each of us, genetically, and yet make up individuals so unique, yet at the same time so familiar to each other in the grand scheme of things, is absolutely incredible! My mind is so boggled by my thoughts of such things, and how privileged a position each of us is in. I oftentimes find myself so troubled by the unwillingness of people to share their deeper thoughts and feelings with one another, or even with themselves, and yet at the same time I find myself so amazed and prideful at the humble display of so many others who are eager to share with others. There is definitely a rift between the two extremes. We, as humans, are the only beings who can understand each other on anywhere near this level. And so every single possible connection is priceless—there should not be any reason to give it up entirely. But the very attributes that set us apart from every single other species also give us the capacity and the “reasons” to fear and avoid such interactions. This is understandable, of course, in its own right, as I am certainly one who fits into this unfortunate pattern at times. Some people just do not present themselves as approachable at this level, for whatever reasons, in which case there is only so much you can do. But I am always trying my hardest to fight it. And I want to try my hardest to inspire others to fight it, as well. Because the capacities of our emotions are so incredible, so unrivaled and so inherent of so much more potential than any other creatures on the Earth that I find it among the most tragic of disasters that so much of this potential is left to wither away and die rather than being embraced and shared among us.

In the midst of all the chaos of everyday life, there just isn’t time to devote the resources of the mind to fully comprehend what is nesting away right there in each of our heads to be gained from. But it is there. And I think that the differences here, between what is commonly felt and what is only felt during the most extreme cases, is one of the factors that make the consideration so powerful. On a typical day, barring a random encounter with a particularly deep thought or a memory or a song or a scene from a movie, we do not tend to devote time to these depths within our minds. But this same tendency creates the differential that gives so much value to these depths when we can devote the time to appreciate them, when that certain song does randomly play on the radio or when we set out mindfully to click it. When relating to someone who is sharing their sorrows—whether it’s an actor in a movie or a singer in a song or a dear friend on the phone or sitting right there next to you—the invoked feelings you must be experiencing are in such contrast to what you feel in the vast majority of the passing moments of your regular routine that the mere difference here provides a springboard for appreciation and for empathy of the highest importance.

Empathy is what I’m trying to get at, here, overall. Empathy is when you can be sorry and compassionate with someone (even with someone portraying an actor or singing a song), and clothe yourself in the mantle of another person's emotional reactions—to genuinely understand and relate to what they’re going though. I think the capacity to experience this is one of the highest beauties of this world. That any one of us has the ability to peer so deep into the mind of another, to relate their experiences with those of our own, and to offer our own personal insights and our best personal advice or just simply share in the collective appreciation of this connection, is just astounding. Pick any two random people in the world, and (barring communication barriers) they have untold potential to share, to learn, and to appreciate between and from each other.

…And there are over seven billion of us. Endless possibilities abound.

So we can all do it—share, reflect, learn, and appreciate what each of us has to offer ourselves, and each other. Even if it’s nothing more than a touching song that relates to something you’ve been feeling, or through empathy have the capacity to feel almost as if you did, and you feel like someone else might also feel for, this is a luxury. A luxury beyond compare, because even though our minds and our hearts reside only in our own experiences, we have the ability to express them for others to relate to. Endless possibilities are laid daily at our feet, and at the feet of others, and our minds are subject to nothing but our own applications of our thoughts and feelings and experiences in terms of these. They can be shared, to whatever extent any person is willing to share them. We all can identify with each other with even the smallest effort. Even the deepest-felt sorrows are really beauty-filled meadows with more than enough space for all of your acquaintances and personal interests to gather and work together toward some positive end. We all share this inherent capacity to relate to each other’s feelings, and only offering some raw, unfiltered expressions will open the door for others to come in and join you in your considerations. There is a profound beauty in sorrow if we let it flow through our being and shape our understanding of this crazy world and the events which unfold within it.

Sometimes there is nobody around you to share with, or at least nobody who is willing to climb down beside you. In these cases, perhaps making up the majority of such instances, it is crucial that you be able to work through the pain and sorrow and regret entirely within the confines of your own mind to find the beauty that is hidden within. Reminiscing on old, dearly missed good times can foster more appreciation in that you ever even had the opportunity to be so content. Reflecting on a failed relationship of any sort or some attempts that never quite made it that far can bring some very troublesome feelings, but they offer so much insight. So relating to a powerful song or scene from a movie can help you because you can recognize the sorrow in a way that applies it somehow to your own mind. And knowing that somebody else in the world felt something so strikingly similar and was able to express it in ways that channel the connection for you to grasp can be such a comfort. Sometimes this is all you need in the world to feel a little bit more at ease. Ultimately, sorrow makes the good, and even the potential for good, that much more beautiful. And thus, the best is yet to come.

Posted by Unknown | at 2:29 AM | 1 comments

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)