Authentic Self

For every day in the valley, there will be way more mountaintop experiences, picture-perfect highs, and cinematic nights.

Even the harshest feelings will peak and crash, and even the most dramatic catastrophes will fade over time. You will not remember the hours you spent crying or walking off your emotions. What you will remember is what you learned. What you will remember is what you saw. What you will remember is gratitude.

For everything we cannot control in life, there is so much more we can. We do not need to correct every single setback. We do not need to avoid the hard days altogether.

Sometimes the best way to clear muddy water is to just leave it alone.

To succeed, we must fail. To be beautiful, we must embrace our uniqueness and see ourselves as enough. To learn, we must try. To be better, we must brave our inner storms. We are not meant to heal ourselves to the point of perfection. We are meant to be human, and when we allow ourselves to live authentically, our lives will help us heal.

KJ

Perception...

Perception is a very tricky topic.

If we are talking about the material world (physical realm) I believe that the reality of a situation is based upon the correspondence view of what is true (real).

Metaphysically speaking, as I suppose we should be engaged in doing within this forum, perceptions could be described as, “what is there?” and “what is it like?”

This topic could encompass volumes of writing, but within this forum there is a need to be brief.

I have used the following many times to illustrate how perceptions can differ, but reality is static. If I say, “The grass is green,” I have offered my perception of what I believe the grass to look like. That perception is based on light emanating from the sun (or some artificial source), reflecting of off the grass, enters through the cornea, passes through the lens which bends the light, which then passes through the vitreous gel, and then is focused on the surface of the retina which contains the rods and cones. From there it travels via electrical impulses to the brain through the optical nerve. Is my perception accurate?

That depends on several factors. Is the pathway the light travels through my eye healthy and “normal?” Does my brain process the electrical impulse correctly? Do I have the cognitive ability to decode the information? Finally, is the grass, in fact, green? If the grass is green, and I am healthy and/or at least functioning correctly, I am accurate in my assessment. At that point, the grass being green makes the content of my perception true.

However, is it a true statement to say, “The grass is green,” if I am blind? Not only is it an accurate statement, it would an accurate perception even if I did not believe it to be true. It is reality that makes our perceptions true or false. I posit that it is through evidence that we determine if our perceptions are in tune with reality.

KJ

Focus on What You Have

 

This just hit me, but I hope it helps someone dealing with loss:

 

It might seem easier to focus

on the future you’ve lost

instead of the one you can’t see,

but to get through,

you’re going to have to move. 

 

~me

 

KJ

Living Life...

While you're in it, life seems epic. Fiery, tenuous, and unpredictable. But once you have some distance from it, everything seems to shrink, until it's almost out of focus.

When you look back over your life, or try to put it down on paper, You can see more of it now than ever before. And yet it seems somehow diminished. Humble. Almost old-fashioned. So you begin scanning your life, looking for something interesting or beautiful. You see an ordinary house, with an ordinary yard, on an ordinary street. It looks smaller than you remember. You once had wild dreams and obstacles and risks looming all around you, but now they look smaller too.

You remember giants and goddesses and villains, but all you see is ordinary people assembled in their tiny classrooms and work-spaces, each of us moving around in little steps, like tokens on a game board. No matter how many times you rolled the dice, it was always these little moves, here and there. Do a little work. Take a little rest. Make a little friend. Throw a little party. Feel a little boredom. Have a little rebellion. There are so many of these token moments that were supposed to represent some other thing. You keep adding them all up, as if there was something you forgot to count, some stash of glory that fell off the back of a truck.

You may love the life you have for everything it is, and even though you know it isn't groundbreaking; you wouldn't change a thing. Maybe when you first started building the life you wanted, you left plenty of room for what might happen, and somehow lost track of what was happening.

Or maybe you were never 'in it' to begin with. Maybe you knew even then that this wasn't the world you expected. A world so low and common you tried to keep your distance, floating somewhere above it, where nobody else could look down on this life you built.

Nobody else but you.

kj