Can we run out of thoughts?
As mentioned earlier, a lot of my aware thoughts are not spontaneous, meaning that that they don't automatically come to mind. Thinking is an active process and if I do not instigate it, I am essentially in a zero state, thoughtless. Perhaps there is more going on outside of my awareness, but for all intents and purposes, I am blank. This isn't to say that I have good control over what I think or what I say, because once activated it does wander. And, what I say is affected by random word selection, where similar meaning or sounding words are said, even though they don't make sense in context.
Role the dice - speak my mind.
I was thinking about this in terms of journaling and whether we can get to a point that there is nothing left to say. Maybe it can be like the running scene in Forrest Gump where after 3 years and thousands of miles, he just stops in the middle of the road and says,
"I'm pretty tired. I think I'll go home now".
While learning is one of the only things we can do our entire lives, it tends to be that the speed and width of what we learn lessens, as we either get set in our ways of what we know and do, or just get tired of adding in new. Adding new takes a lot of energy and the enthusiasm of youth tends to wane quickly. But, how many of us know our purpose in life?
Go into an empty room with a pad and pen.
Don't come out until you know.
I remember reading something like that a long time ago, and while I didn't do it, I can definitely see the benefit of the practice. In the podcast I mentioned yesterday, they were talking of two question to answer.
- Why are you alive?
- For what are you willing to die today?
Easy to answer?
Maybe this will help:
Go into an empty room with a pad and pen.
Don't come out until you know.
I feel like we are meant to explore our world and work out what actually has meaning and value to us. This is difficult in the culture we have built, which is designed to influence us into wanting this, that and the other thing, because it generates financial gains. It doesn't matter that it feeds our pleasure centers, but leaves our joy wanting - because that doesn't factor into the monetary equation. The business incentive is to maximize profit from customers, not the joy of customers. It is an extractive process that leaves us wanting, not an improvement process that leaves us satisfied.
There is an interesting conflict, because we are a creative species that uses experience to grow our innovations. However, the more we consume, the less we tend to actually create ourselves. I put this down to not having the mental space, the blank canvas, the time alone, to actually think. We fill up the canvas and available space with consumer noise that tells us what we are meant to think, feel, and how to behave - and then wonder why we are losing our personal, community and societal wellbeing.
Loneliness is in epidemic proportions.
Yet the focus on ourselves is the highest it has ever been.
With all the possibility to connect, instead of interaction, it is one-way traffic, it is putting our image out there to be seen as relevant, but not considering the relevance of others. It is me, me, me. We want to feel special, we want our unique identity to be accepted, we want people to know who we are - but we don't care about getting to know, accept or help others.
We have a thousand ways to share, but no one to share a life with.
Maybe at some point we do run out of things to say, because we are not listening to our environment, we aren't observing anything, other than in the mirror and how it relates to us. We become insulated, isolated and starved of new, because we keep picking and choosing our experience, choosing the easiest paths, the ones we like, but never making the commitment to choose to love.
Without love, what does life become?
Why are you alive?
Love is directional. When it goes nowhere but to the self, it dies.
For what are you willing to die today?
Maybe, thoughts run out.
Taraz
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