Share and Care

I used to wonder back in the early days of my life, why, generally speaking, we folks (including myself) spent\spend so much time watching tv; specifically, dramas.

Spoiler: Bore free...

As I continued to observe in order to make sense of a reality I struggled in, which included the beginnings of exploring my soul in order to understand myself better thus perhaps sort my issues out, I began to notice that folks have no problem with allocating a ton of time and effort immersing themselves in these fictional stories of character's lives and the dramas they find themselves in and have to deal with; some even spending a decent amount of time discussing last night's episodes with friends and coworkers the next day, as if these fictional people and stories were important to their lives.

I also noticed a pecking order with folks (again, generally speaking as not everyone I met were tv junkies), how much they'd allocate their time and energy towards. Spending most of their time immersing themselves in the fictional dramas seen on tv, then the dramas of other real folks, and lastly, with their own dramas.

I only began to notice this as I found myself spending more and more time dealing with my own dramas; both the negative and positive ones. With the negative ones, it was always a profound joy to have resolved some issue. With the positives, it was life affirming to acknowledge and utilize my positive traits and enjoy the positive events.

I'm reminded of these quotes...

"Who gets up early to discover the moment light begins? Who comes to a spring thirsty, and finds the moon reflected in it? Who, like Jacob, blind with grief and age, smells the shirt of his lost son and can see again? Jesus slips into a house to escape enemies, and opens a door to the other world. But don't be satisfied with poems and stories of how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth, without complicated explanations." - Rumi

I've found the best story to immerse myself in is my own story; the story of my life. Reminiscing through my past, writing pages for each new day, and contemplating future goals; and realizing what dramas I can get up to is limited only by the scope of my imagination and within the boundaries of material resources, but even a poor man can have amazing adventures.

And similar to how one can never be lonely when one has a deep relationship with oneself, one can never be bored; one can never say one has nothing new or interesting to do. I ceased experiencing boredom decades ago. When there's nothing external to grab my attention, there's a whole inner world to explore; and I find I'd rather spend time internally than externally. For me the main reason was I had a shitload of inner turmoil to sort out, and when I sorted each one, my external world increased in quality, thus boredom decreased. Even the mundane becomes wonderful adventures.

"Our history is not our destiny, and our destiny begins now." - Alan Cohen

History is one's story, the new pages to be written are fully open to one's creative abilities, though subject to one's self created restrictions, the dysfunctions and wounds that can be sorted and healed, thus there's an intriguing story right there, sorting oneself out, that can last for decades.

"If you want your life to be a magnificent story, then begin by realizing that you are the author and everyday you have the opportunity to write a new page." - Mark Houlahan

There's a scene in Stranger than Fiction (my recounting isn't exact), where Harold Crick now knows his inevitable death is a lot sooner that he'd like, and he's disappointed because the knowledge he's wasting his life has been fully realized, that he's not doing much with it.

And professor Hilbert flipantly says, 'Well then, don't worry about when this death will come, just go make your life the best it can be, do the things you enjoy, why you can even spend the rest of your days just eating pancakes.'

Harold Crick is incensed, "Just eat pancakes, what are you talking about, this is my life we're talking about and you're talking about eating pancakes?!'

Professor Hilbert calmly clarifies, "Harold, you might think differently when you consider the issue is about the quality of the pancakes against the quality of your current life." Harold understood, thus begins writing far better pages of his life.

Harold was once lifeless and bored, just an emotionless mass floating the seas of life, now he eagerly awaits awaking to each new day, filled with so much potential that he has the creative means to manifest.