Since ancient times we’ve been attempting to answer the mysteries of existence, the reason for it all and what everything means. We’ve observed and taken notes, we’ve wrote our hypotheses down for our descendants, we’ve put all our accumulated information, our knowledge, into books. Some of the information simply can’t be passed down in books, although most of it has. Many ideas are passed down, generation after generation, through the people who embody them, rather than on any piece of text. Most of us have many theories of reality, yet we’re all part of reality, we’re interwoven with it. Inseparable as we are from nature, from reality as we know it, we can’t examine it fully. We are what we eat, who we spend our time with, what we watch and hear and read, we are all of this. Beyond this we are something simple and infinite, but for the purposes of living here on this planet, during this incarnation, we basically are whatever we choose to absorb. We are the product of what we’ve chosen to consume, physically and mentally. We don’t know the details of what we eat, of what we drink. We know alcohol and cigarettes are slowly killing us, and that death might come severely and painfully, through disease. When I think back to the times when I still consumed both of these drugs, I know that I definitely didn’t have the same appreciation for life as I do now. I was an angry, rebellious teenager finding my way in the world. My reputation was important to me, and I had built it around being daring and down to do whatever, crazy. I was not truly thinking about myself, or about the people who love me, about what was best for me and the ways in which things like smoking could affect me and cause a lot of suffering to the most important people in my life down the road. My thinking was about the label that defined me, about who I thought I was, an aspiring rapper, cooler and crazier than any other. The arrogance which developed within me as I believed myself to be this character led to some really unfortunate situations. Thankfully I changed my ways before it had to come to something fatal, and I feel much more peaceful now that I’ve left that image and that whole lifestyle behind. We gain nothing from acting tough, we only close ourselves off from others, we reflect the hate and the indifference of the world, everything which is corrupting civilization. Since we can’t connect with ourselves or with others, we smoke our lives away, and we pick up a drink for the same reason, to socialize better, to lower our inhibitions. Why are we so afraid to speak our minds in the first place? Why do we need a stimulant every time we want to have a get-together with friends? Could it be that we can’t face them while sober, or that we can’t stand ourselves around them, or that we can’t stand the mere fact of being alive in this world and sharing an experience with a few other billion people? Things are too crazy to contemplate, so we smoke on, as we talk about the weather and complain about the calls during our 15-minute break? Are we all so unsatisfied that it’s too depressing to talk about what’s really on our minds? Is that why we’d rather chill with a cigarette instead, completely conscious of its contribution to our possible early death? Now that I understand how important life is, I understand that I need to take better care of my body. One’s body should never be neglected. If a so-called spiritual person neglects his body and calls it right then he is not honoring the fact, he is not appreciative of the fact, that he has a body, in order to live in this world. A home we can take with us wherever we go. If we can’t accept the now, this simple moment of just being alive, in this body, in this planet, if we can’t appreciate this and are trying to kill ourselves off in order to reach heaven or nirvana, then we have failed on our journey in the first place. We have disrespected a wonderful tool which we possess, yet without knowing who has given it to us, our body. I wonder if my lungs will have enough time to heal through the years, especially if I continue blazing, or has my previous cigarette addiction caused permanent damage? Only God knows, all I can do is hope. Time and time again, we are reminded of our inferiority, our seemingly hopeless state, lost with no clue where to go. Life feels like that sometimes, we all go through it. What happens is that we take our blessings for granted. We want things to be different in such and such way, we want to get this, or we want to avoid that. We want to control life, yet we put in no work in order to be able to do so, and even if we did it would not guarantee us that things would go according to our plans. Life is unpredictable, and it is this uncertainty which keeps us moving forward. We need to work on our attitudes in order to be ready to whether whatever storm comes our way, yet this doesn’t mean we should stop reflecting on our lives and making right decisions. We are responsible for clearing all the garbage we’ve already stored within, out of our minds. No one else will do it for us, and as long as we have so much trash in our minds, controlling us subconsciously, it will be extremely difficult for us to find the wisdom and mental clarity which are essential to living life right. None of us know anything, and life is better when we live it this way. We all specialize in one subject and we walk around as if we were the most intellectual people on the planet, we want to spread the message, to speak about what we are, the label we now identify with. What we need to do is to learn now about different ideas, to compare them to what we have learned on our own journey, to search for deeper understanding, both of similarities as well as differences. When we ignore one side of life, out of fear or aversion, we are living in ignorance.
To be continued tomorrow, on Day 33.
~ Rebel Spirit
rebel eye 