We seem to have...

...an eternal desire for explanations. We want to know the truth, the absolute truth and nothing but the absolute truth! I am struck with amusement by the paradox of so dearly wanting and seeking such an explanation and simply not being able to arrive at one but not for want of trying and oh we try! Science is without doubt the most efficient method we have of determining truth (that I'm aware of at least) and it is merely a gradual process of uncovering the truth by exploring everything diligently and revising and challenging what we think we know. The question is, will we ever arrive at an absolute truth other than that of demise? Maybe that's all there is!

Writing...

...for writing's sake. I don't know what to write about because I'm waiting for inspiration. Have I got a flawed idea about how these things works? Is inspiration something that just genuinely pops out of nowhere or is it a result of honing a skill so that it comes more often than not? I feel like I sit around waiting for inspiration to just fall upon me...but I don't think it works like that. That's just laziness. One has to practice and accept the shit that comes out because sometimes floating around in the masses of rubbish, you can find a gem.

At the symbolic heart of a human is some kind of creative source, some unnameable essence that is somehow pure and infinite. I know that sounds abstract and suspiciously new-age (if you knew me you'd know that that is not that suspicious) but really I'm just talking about the feelings of inspiration and joy and how when one is firmly rooted within them, there are no words, quantitative or qualitative enough to truly describe and share that experience. It's so subjective and yet so easily shared and commonly understood at an intuitive level. All these words, concepts and ideas serve the purpose of intellectuality, perhaps positively for the purpose of education but simultaneously can be divisive and move us away from that natural centre of living consciously and in the moment.

Do you believe...

...that there can be world peace one day? I do. Do you believe that there can be a greater amount of equality and justice for all people one day? I do. Do you believe that we can live in a better state of harmony with the environment? I do. Do you believe that we can eventually dissolve abitrary notions of nationalistic personal identity and recognise our common human identity and global family? I'm not so sure but I hope so.

On practicing...

...patience. I was in the shop the other day, queuing patiently to pay for a lottery ticket but with a small sense of urgency about getting back to work to have lunch. There was a blind lady a couple of people in front of me who naturally was taking a bit longer to be 'processed' than one would have liked. So, I did the mindful thing and noticed my own growing impatience and recognised it as being my own and not caused by the blind lady, so I whipped out my smart phone to appease my impatience. Is this really practicing patience? Or is it encouraging distraction? We live in a world with increasing amounts of distraction everywhere, our minds are conditioned to work at high speeds to cope with the fast moving data-obsessed nature of our jobs and the entertainment 'industry'(speaking very generally). Perhaps I should have just stayed with my impatience and questioned it, and analysed it further. My first thought was "this is an opportunity to practice patience", my next thought was "I'll get my phone out", so I don't know who much I really practiced being patient.

Skip forward to this morning, when I was in the shower while my phone alarm was going off. At this point, there was nothing I could do to switch it off, because well, I was in the shower. Shower + Phone = Broken Phone. So, again here was an opportunity to practice patience, a pretty persistent one at that, as is the nature of an alarm. It's very name provokes a sense of immediacy and not something that is easily ignored. At first I could recognise the growing impatience, and I recognised the subsequent 'thought reactions' to it, some of which were a little bit angry; I think the word 'idiot' came to mind but I persevered with it and allowed the alarm to continue and not annoy me until I was able to comfortably ignore it, again by distraction but this time merely by my own idle shower-thoughts!