Hearts and Minds

Another essay I wrote describing the myself in a nutshell.

Why do I write?  That is a good question.  A question that continually barters within my creative mind.  It is something to get the juices flowing, for the inspiration to manifest into seamless visions that appear to be going nowhere.  I have written all my life.  Jot down personal feelings from time to time, keep an active journal, write fantasy and personal poetry which keeps me going.  I usually write for the moment, to capture the essence of what I’m feeling and what I am currently going through.  At times life seems difficult, at times it seems to be a little easy, and at other times life is just the way it is.  The way it should be.  To live day after day with really no meaning, no purpose, to live as a momentum force that flows by gently with the wind.  So where is this going?  What am I planning to say?  Is this going to be some spiritual rant?  Is it going to be something inspirational for other people?  A good answer to that is I have no idea what cause I am writing for.  Apparently I have no cause, no center, no juxtaposition to correlate with.  I write because I have the ability to write, everybody does.  Everyone can formulate their own behaviors and express themselves the way they wish to be expressed.  

For instance, I am not a good enough speaker to express opinions and beliefs in person.  I actually have a pretty hard time speaking to people in a group, in front of an audience or in an auditorium.  I am more of a “behind the scenes” type of person.  I would want to rattle the cages from time to time, but I cannot do so orally, I can only do so rhetorically.  Most people have that boastful expressive personality where they can voice their concern to others simply by talking to them one on one or in a group.  Me on the other hand have a difficult time with this.  Whenever the situation comes to front, I am always grabbing for words, trying to recycle working memory into working thoughts and actions.  So what I tend to do is try to remember the things I have read, and instead of formulating my own theory on what I have read, I try the best to memorize a statement or a sentence to back up to what I am really trying to say.  The best mode that I can really express myself in is my writing ability.  

I am more comfortable with writing than I am with speaking.  Naturally I have a speaking deficit, you see I was born and currently still am a stutterer.  I stammer, slip on words, I tap my hands as I am trying to come up with the best thing to say so that I do not sound like an idiot.  So I am constantly grabbing words from the best of my vocabulary, even I do tend to repeat myself.  The thing is even though I sound like I might be illiterate or have a mental handicap, the truth of the matter is I am a very intelligent person with a lot to say.  The thing is I just do not say much.  I am a very shy introspective withdrawn person.  My entire life I have been this way.  If you came across any of my friends or people that know me on a personal level, they would say he is a great guy but he is simple.  And I loathe for the fact that many people see me in this way.  I have many things on my mind, a lot to jot down, a lot to say, but I cannot do the things I have preached myself.  Call me a hypocrite, but it is not a shell that I want to merely burst out of.  I personally do not think that is a shell that I need to burst out of, it is simply who I am underneath.  

Who am I underneath?  That is a great question.  An enigma trapped within another enigma.  A sloth that burrows his head in the dirt whenever tension or confrontation arises.  Not that I mind not taking it head on, I’m just not good at it.  Like many people I know my limitations, and their very…how should say…not that long.  Whenever debate arises I am always interested, I love a good conversation whether talking about philosophy, religion, spirituality, or anything for that matter.  The problem with me is that I do not know how to hold onto it for that long, but in my head I am always hitting sides like I don’t know which way to go, not knowing how to stay on target.  I am always at odds with myself and sometimes I do not understand why.  My entire life I have always been interested with the introspective and personal subjects of other people, because I always felt like it is good to have information on your side.  Not for exploitative purposes, but to have a good amount of information about who people are, what they know, what they believe in, what the purpose of their life is, etc.  Not too many people would understand why I need that type of descriptive information, I just like to know, to have the ability to understand where other people’s perspectives come from.  So that in the long run, I can formulate theories in mind of how other people are behaving around me, so that I can compare and contrast other people thoughts and actions with my own so I can have a better understanding of how people operate within the world.  I believe this falls into the realm of psychology, which peaked my interest in college.  It was something that astonished me, inspired me, and I currently dabble into this very day.  

Spiritually I can say that maybe I do not understand people.  So many people have their various religious views and aspects on how things might be, how certain things are run, and how different religious groups behave and act.  I am more interested in personal philosophy and personal spiritual aspects.  My mother always told me that religion and politics are two subjects that there will always be a debate on because everyone has their own personal point of view on what they think is right and wrong.  And in truth, I completely agree with my mother one hundred percent.  There is no doubt that everyone has their own theory on how things should be run, or the way people should be treated equally, and this person is a Christian, that person is Islamic, this one is gay, this one is a liberal, the other one is a libertarian or a Republican.  But I can successfully say that all these people who decide to label themselves in being part of a greater extraneous manifestation of higher organizations are completely disregarding their own human potential of being their own unique individual selves.  I know in a way this sounds kind of selfish, but if you really want to understand who you are, knowing what your limitations are, and who you really want to be, you have to act a little bit selfish.  I can say that I am selfish and stubborn on a lot of different areas of life, and at times I do not like it when people enter topics that I am not comfortable expressing or talking about, but it is good to question those things.  

Questioning behaviors and actions is the whole thing.  Not just in day to day life but in everything.  If we never ask questions, then we completely remain ignorant of everything, and everything that exists externally around us.  We must acknowledge the things that make us a little bit stubborn and selfish, not to the point where we try to change these things, but express certain aspects that we would like to understand.  Understanding is a concept of the world.  I believe we were given brains and minds and hearts to completely understand the world and the way it operates.  To understand that motion of the world is to understand the fundamentals of being human.  We are here just to be here.  With no ulterior motive or cosmic disturbance behind it, we are living creatures just like everyone else.  As my mother once said, everyone s***s out of the same hole.  So that must mean something, it means that we are all in this together.  We may have separate families, different friends, various acquaintances, and people that come in an out of our lives during our entire lives that impact us in some way.  And we can see that simply because we see ourselves in other people.  We can see our own soul vibrate within another person’s eyes.  Call this love or intuition, but it is something we cannot ignore.  It is the center of whole being, the connections we feel, the people we touch and inspire.  The energy we feel when we help another person, the feeling we get when we receive a good grade or being told that it is a job well done.  We cannot deny these feelings of self-sacrifice, love, rewards, and friendship.  It is what drives us to make the things in life worth fighting for and worth dying for.  And I completely understand why people go certain extremes to keep things a certain way, because we end up becoming comfortable in our life and in our position that we do not want things to change.  Real change does not happen overnight but it must start somewhere, and that place is within the mind and in the heart.  

To change our minds and hearts, that is a difficult task.  Most of them time when we get older we refuse to change, we try not to heart alternatives that arrive at conclusions that we do not agree with.  Many people become stubborn in their hearts and minds.  It is kind of funny, but remember before when I said I am always at odds with myself, it is because my heart and my mind are on two differently wavelengths.  Mindfully I think conservatively, I think about those around me and those that inspire me and those that love me.  I want to look out for these people and protect them at all cost, even if it meant I must die so that comfortable life.  I completely understand that one must be responsible for other people and their actions, they must be dependable at their jobs of employment, and they must have a concern fiscally about various financial situations that they get themselves into.  But my heart is on an opposite spectrum.  My heart could run wild.  To the point where it has no boundaries.  My heart is spoken through my written words.  I would not be writing if I did not care about someone, or everyone, or even the world for that matter.  Maybe that is what I am writing about, the world itself.  In my heart I can be the poet, the mediator, the writer I choose to be, and I choose to express myself whole heartedly in the manner that I wish to be expressed.  Call this blind intuition but is what I know and what I understand that goes on through my complex mind.  

My heart wants to be felt for miles.  I want to be heard.  I want to inspire.  I want to create a little stir within someone’s life so that they can question their surroundings and their situation, so they could turn their heads to the sky and ask themselves the question: “Is this what I really want?”  The messed up thing is that no one really knows what they want unless they have it.  Many people are scared or frightened to give up things they have for a sense of peace and security.  To understand and know that they are fully protected for the rest of their lives.  I completely understand how these people feel, and they feel like it is worth fighting for and dying for.  But many have to understand is that there are two sides to every story, two sides of a coin.  People have to understand that everything is interpreted from a person’s point of view, every book is written with a motive or an agenda, that there are societies out there that try to hamper with the normal human existence to further their own altruistic hedonistic superstructure.  Books, articles, and journals write about this stuff all the time, and the sad thing is people fall for it as blindly as sheep.  But I do not want to get into that, and I choose not to write about that, maybe for another time.  

The fact of the matter is that there is one thing missing out there, and that is acceptance and love.  Love being the most important factor of them all.  Not too many people accept other people’s behaviors and actions.  They completely disregard them, considering their point of view to be considered right and righteous.  Some people consider the world of being their play toy, a bobble head doll in which they can flick their finger in the direction they choose.  The fact of the matter is that the bobble head swings both ways, and it always comes back.  Love and acceptance, even though considered to being the fundamental drive behind all human emotions is being hampered on today.  It is what gives us the freedom of being free.  To freely choose a path that is before us, to ride the ride of life in the way we choose to.  And with acceptance in second place, we must understand that other people are on this ride too, their speed and their efforts just may be a little different, but do not forget, when that ride ends, we are all going to be crowded together at the exit all wishing that the ride never ended in the first place.