I just read Helen Kellers "Three Days to See", after reading it one finds that there are infinite numbers of things taken for granted day in and day out. She was right when she said that we don't really live for today because we believe there will be plenty of time to get around to doing the things we really want to do. We tend to get secure in our daily routines and don't want to disrupt that flow. Her observations have prompted me to start enjoying my life, not existence but LIFE. I don't want to be a somnambulistic shell of a man drifting semiconsciously through life. At first I thought that I would just start paying attention to everything then I realized it goes deeper than that. I have to become more aware by exercising my senses as I do my muscles. The mind, I felt was the first place to start, and the best way to strengthen it is to learn. I then decided to strengthen my hearing, and for this I chose to play music rather than to just merely listen to it. Vision as I see it can be conditioned best through observation, and the way I chose to test my observation skills was through art and writing. The following paragraphs are my blueprint for living a more concious lifestyle.
As I mentioned above the springboard for my plan was my mind. To strengthen your muscles you lift weights; to strengthen your mental abilities you must lift words. In other words read, but you can't just read, you have to read something that has weight. By weight I mean it has to make you think or ,that dreaded word, learn. It hasto leave an impression on your mind, this way you are forced to expand your sphere of thought. This process is like gathering building materials, which if you didn't have you couldn't move on to the next phase.
My hearing isn't really lacking on the incoming side its on the outgoing side that I need to pay attention to. When you play your own music, you're playing what you hear in your mind, because your feelings are being converted to sounds. At some point in my life I realized this to be true and I used this for its therapeutic value. It soon became lost in the cloud of dust my hectic life had stirred up. Then Helen Keller helped me to settle the cloud and I found my guitar. I dusted it off and began to play. The first song I found inside sounded like crying then it transformed into excitement and it ended in a sigh of relief. With this device in my toolbox I can move to the next, vision.
Vision, the act or power of actual seeing, can also be the act or power of imagination. I know for a fact that in today's society true imagination and creativity is losing ground to mental complacency and intellectual laziness. Many say, "Why should I try to think an original thought when someone else can do it for me?" For example plagarism is rampant on the Internet you can find six different sites with the same stolen lyric from a song and the person is trying to pawn it off as their own. I feel sorry for them when I see this type of intellectual degradation. Its no wonder with all of the physically unfit people that there are even more mentally out of shape people. Thinking can be as tiring as running. I remember hearing on the news that thinking creatively for an hour can use more energy than an hour of aerobics, thus emphasizing the importance of cerebral exercise. Therefore I propose that everyone should begin taking up some sort of art. I have chosen two forms for now, writing and computer graphics.
My experiences have proven that their exists inside each of us an array of mirrors reflecting our most original feelings and thoughts. Though, without some mode of liberation they sit tilted inwardly bouncing ideas infinitely causing a chaotic imbalance. By taking in our surroundings and not giving back, our heads begin to weigh heavily on our shoulders until we are too weak to let out even a little bit of originality. It is a sad state of existence, because thats all it can be; for loss of independent thought is loss of life. One also loses autonomy because one can't think for themself. The cure is to learn a tool of art and use it to tilt the "mirrors of the mind"* towards the outside emancipating ourselves and our ideas. I hope that my words don't fall on deaf eyes and blind minds. Even if they do I still feel great now that I have tilted my mirrors in the right direction. Thanks to Helen I have harmonized my consumption/production ratio and have begun to enjoy my powers of creation. We are not the only species capable of creativity, it is essential to survival and evolution. Feel free to use this as a map to plan your freedom, or for those who believe, "Freethinkers are dangerous", use it against me when you turn me into the proper authorities.
As I mentioned above the springboard for my plan was my mind. To strengthen your muscles you lift weights; to strengthen your mental abilities you must lift words. In other words read, but you can't just read, you have to read something that has weight. By weight I mean it has to make you think or ,that dreaded word, learn. It hasto leave an impression on your mind, this way you are forced to expand your sphere of thought. This process is like gathering building materials, which if you didn't have you couldn't move on to the next phase.
My hearing isn't really lacking on the incoming side its on the outgoing side that I need to pay attention to. When you play your own music, you're playing what you hear in your mind, because your feelings are being converted to sounds. At some point in my life I realized this to be true and I used this for its therapeutic value. It soon became lost in the cloud of dust my hectic life had stirred up. Then Helen Keller helped me to settle the cloud and I found my guitar. I dusted it off and began to play. The first song I found inside sounded like crying then it transformed into excitement and it ended in a sigh of relief. With this device in my toolbox I can move to the next, vision.
Vision, the act or power of actual seeing, can also be the act or power of imagination. I know for a fact that in today's society true imagination and creativity is losing ground to mental complacency and intellectual laziness. Many say, "Why should I try to think an original thought when someone else can do it for me?" For example plagarism is rampant on the Internet you can find six different sites with the same stolen lyric from a song and the person is trying to pawn it off as their own. I feel sorry for them when I see this type of intellectual degradation. Its no wonder with all of the physically unfit people that there are even more mentally out of shape people. Thinking can be as tiring as running. I remember hearing on the news that thinking creatively for an hour can use more energy than an hour of aerobics, thus emphasizing the importance of cerebral exercise. Therefore I propose that everyone should begin taking up some sort of art. I have chosen two forms for now, writing and computer graphics.
My experiences have proven that their exists inside each of us an array of mirrors reflecting our most original feelings and thoughts. Though, without some mode of liberation they sit tilted inwardly bouncing ideas infinitely causing a chaotic imbalance. By taking in our surroundings and not giving back, our heads begin to weigh heavily on our shoulders until we are too weak to let out even a little bit of originality. It is a sad state of existence, because thats all it can be; for loss of independent thought is loss of life. One also loses autonomy because one can't think for themself. The cure is to learn a tool of art and use it to tilt the "mirrors of the mind"* towards the outside emancipating ourselves and our ideas. I hope that my words don't fall on deaf eyes and blind minds. Even if they do I still feel great now that I have tilted my mirrors in the right direction. Thanks to Helen I have harmonized my consumption/production ratio and have begun to enjoy my powers of creation. We are not the only species capable of creativity, it is essential to survival and evolution. Feel free to use this as a map to plan your freedom, or for those who believe, "Freethinkers are dangerous", use it against me when you turn me into the proper authorities.
*("Mirrors of the Mind" borrowed from 'Message to the Universe' by Jimi Hendrix)