April 9th, very early morning.

I came upon some information recently about the importance of creative output. You must make a lot of whatever it is you make, and not all of it will be good. This is how masterpieces happen. Not like I'm expecting to form a masterpiece on this blog, but this idea inspired me to start writing more on here.

Recently, I was reading over some journal entries from the past year and was surprised at how interesting some of my ideas were. These were things that I had forgotten all about, that I just jotted down to ease my own mind, to work out some personal conundrums or just to reflect. Often times my journal entries start with, "I have no idea what to write..." and then end up trailing off into something entirely different. Once I get started, I'm often shocked at how much flows out, and when I go over it later, some of it is good stuff.

We don't see it at the time, when we are having these thoughts or ideas, and we especially can't ever see it unless we record it somehow or share it with others. I think I (and people in general) could benefit from recording their thoughts more often, if only to review them later on and never show them to another person.

How many times have you seen someone say something extremely intelligent or make something beautiful and compliment them, only to have them react in a surprised or doubtful way?
We're not aware of our own creativity. We downplay it, or ignore the ideas when they come, not even noticing anything significant about them. I think the truly innovative thinkers are the ones who aren't afraid of saying something dumb or creating something unoriginal.

It's just a matter of having enough self respect to allow your ideas to come to some type of fruition, even if that just means saying or writing them.

Thoughts From Last Summer

Today feels like limbo, or purgatory or something. I just need to get the words flowing and the rest will find its way.

Lately I remember my dreams when I wake up. Last night there was something about a car and a really unstable rocky road downhill. Something about driving past a town that had a 50s Elvis-ish theme and thinking of that Stephen King story about the city with all the dead rock stars.

Everything I want to write feels so damn cliche, which is why words aren't always my favorite mode of expression.

I'm having thoughts about 20 years flying by and looking back at this moment, or this time period.

These past 2 months will be something I remember forever.

I am in intense resistance to all of this ending.

I can feel it in my upper back and my neck, it's where all my suppressed tension and anxiety and resistance goes. What is the alternative to this involuntary clenching of my muscles? Maybe just feeling the anxiety instead of ignoring it, maybe taking deep breaths, exploring it thoroughly. It's starting to really hurt and bother me. I've always held tension there but this is a whole new dimension.

So many intense events these past couple months, so much strangeness all the time, crazy characters, drama, pain, laughter, absurdities, the ever changing landscape of life. How it flows, how it overwhelms with sensory data and then bores nearly to tears, and oscillates between the two with ridiculous intensity and suddenness. Another one of those extreme cases of "one or the other" I seem to know so well and find so familiar. What seems to be a characteristic of something that has the quality of constant change. The habit of changing habits. The permanence of impermanence, if you will.

"The shoot-the-messenger mentality has doomed any number of

military leaders, business leaders, coaches, parents. It's been widely

reported that Saddam Hussein practices this, with much the same

result as Hitler's. Literally shooting bearers of bad news is horrific

enough, but the crime of shooting ourselves rather than rationally

dealing with accurate information is arguably worse!"
-The New Psycho-cybernetics

Why are we so hard on ourselves? Why are we so forgiving to friends who confide in us yet ruthless with our own issues? It is indeed a moral issue whether we apply the lessons we've learned. How disrespectful is it to ignore your own wisdom? We learn all these hard lessons, digest them, come to insightful conclusions and then just throw it out the window.

I am inspired to stop being so damn passive, and I mean this in a general, approach-to-life kind of way. I'm always thinking that I'd like to be happy, or successful, or creative, but I just wait around for these things to happen to me. It's like I subconsciously believe that they are a matter of luck. I never consider aggressively seeking them.

Well these are habits that are beginning to take shape. I like these lively ideas. The most inspiring people I've encountered and known have always been the fiery ones. They tend to be quick to anger, quick to ecstatic joy, and just excited in general.

Why are people so afraid of going after they want with everything they have? Is it possible, as the author states in The New Psycho-cybernetics, to approach the subject of acquiring happiness in a cold and systematic way? 

I am testing that out.