Showing posts with label Fugue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fugue. Show all posts

March 22, 2016

Stop To Think OR Stop Thinking

The Thinker.

It's very important to have time (and space) to sit down and think. 

Not just go through life in the motions--"doing"--because that's the way we always did it or that's the way your parents did it, or that's what your teachers or society told you to do. 

Thinking means we evaluate and assess what we are doing.  Are we going in the right direction?  Are we happy with ourselves?  Are we good people doing good things?  Are there things that we regret and need to learn from and/or course correct. Can we do better and what does better mean? 

I remember at a certain point in my life working very hard, but also feeling like I was in a fugue--and when I "awoke" I couldn't figure out where the time went to and why I had been sort of numb for a time. Were some things perhaps too raw or painful to deal with (better to shut them off somewhere in a little box) or was I just moving so fast and so hard that I just lost sight of my surroundings and the meaning or lack from it all. 

But then I started to feel and think again. And I knew it because it was like an monumental awakening from a long hibernation through eons of time and space. What precipitated it all, I don't really know. But when it started coming back--memories, feelings, some satisfactions, too many regrets--I knew that I had been gone a while and wasn't sure exactly where I'd been. 

So need to regularly stop and "smell the coffee"--think and feel--not just do like a real dummy or stubborn a*s. 

The dilemma with thinking is too much or too little is that it can be a dangerous thing. 

Too much time to ponder and you can become lost in thought or mired in analysis paralysis. Don't bother me, I'm still thinking about it. Or perhaps, your thinking can be "all wrong" and messed up--your misunderstanding, misconstruing, not thinking clearly or brainwashed by others--maybe those with good intentions who want you to be like them, who think they know better, who mean well but are misguided when it comes to YOU or are engulfed by their own zealousness, self-righteousness or are even jerks trying to f*ck with you. 

Also, while ample time to think can leave you revitalized, with new direction, commitment, and enthusiasm, the flip side is you can become demoralized or depressed by "it all," It's too much, it's too hard, it's too meaningless, or even it's too overwhelming important and meaningful. 

Then there is too little thinking going on in that head of yours, and you are a dumb, numb robot who washes, rinses, repeats...not knowing why they are doing it or maybe even that they are doing anything, just that they are in a state of being. It easy maybe to turn off to the world, to keep running on the treadmill of life, get up and do the same routine day-in and day-out.  Not questioning.  Not feeling.  Not getting hurt or dealing with issues better left for another day. But that's not living. That's a life of a sick roaming flesh-eating zombie. Someone just stick that iron rod through that useless skull already. 

Think and live...live and think...go forward as in a directed, meaningful way, and not as the walking dead in pain and sorrow or lost in the abyss of lifelessness. ;-)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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April 9, 2013

Savor Every Moment


This is an awesome slow motion video from Gizmodo.

It is taken with a Phantom Flex4k camera at 1000 frames per second and high resolution 4096 x 2160.

This camera can capture "explosions, crashes, and other split-second events" in amazing detail and costs over $100,000, but in a sense it is a small price to pay for what the value of what you can get from it. 

When I watched this video of the firefighters going into action, I felt as if I was really there experiencing the true heat of the fire, the thick smell of the smoke, the fear of what lay in the dark and burning building, and the human determination for everyone working together to put it out and save lives. 

This made me think about how in rushing around all the time to do everything that others expect of us and that we expect of ourselves that we often aren't fully in touch with the moment. 

It's more like we are just trying to get through it while everything is passing us by, and we are in a disconnected fugue state.

I imagine that at the end of life, we look back at the many moments that we don't fully remember, experienced in just a cold and hurried manner, and that we never got to really feel or savor

If only we had been in the moment, maybe we would have listened to others better, been more empathetic, less judging and critical, and said and done the right things more often. 

Being in the moment would enable us to more fully experience it, remember it, learn from it, grow with it, be together in it--and really be alive (and not a bunch of Walking Dead zombies half the time)!

This video is an eye-opener and wake up call to slow down, experience, and feel life, rather than have it just pass us so quickly and shallowly by. ;-)


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