Our Minds and Hearts...

Physical pain is only a symbol of true pain which is of an emotional and spiritual nature. When that idea is entirely understood the most horrendous and agonizing physical traumas a body can endure become wholly bearable.

There are times when a person just has to write regardless of how busy they are. But I would not give up my healthy and well rounded schedule now to revert back to numberless nights of sleepless writing.

The fact is right now I’ve never been more able—and stable in my life. I enjoy my work greatly, I love church, I love church ball, I love tai chi, I love skating, I love being able to function properly for more than moments in a day, I love my schedule, and I, for the first time I think in my life, I see that my future is really bright. I understand that these things aren’t my source of peace but rather external blessings from finding it within myself. I believe that, yes, there are things that cause us to be greatly happy, but true peace and wellness come from our own depths, and it is brought to the light when we search with all of our hearts. If we always only rely on another person or external things to cause our happiness we will never attain wholeness because our happiness is dependent upon another.

Our minds and our hearts—our souls are, as if I could say designed from before existence to extend our abilities and consciousness into Eternity. The ever critical mind vs. the ever forgiving heart clash and cause much confliction of thought and desire. But the spirit of a man chooses its own reality by bringing to pass what he cannot deny to be true.

Can a soul ever completely shun something it considers to be a part of itself? Can a person hate something he/she considers beautiful? Can a man deny his conscience when all else so easily dismiss it as unimportant or contrary to what one should believe?

I speak all of these things with the ultimate idea of humility within the grain of my words. I can only love when I am passionate, my passions only are real when I am persistent in truth, my truths are only true when I choose goodness when I am alone, my solitude is only loneliness when I am carnal, my solemnity is only grave when I think only of myself, my conscience is only clear when I am simply the person that I am, and I am only me when at last I am passionate about those things that I love.

Not enough time...

There is just too much to write about. If I were to share everything interesting and incredible that I observe or witness on a daily basis than I would never stop writing, that is until I finished writing about the psychological excursion of continuing to write everything there was that was interesting in any given day, because once I ran out of things to write about I would inevitably start writing about me writing and how that effects my perspective and understanding on myself and the world.

Well, here we go. Don’t fret, I am still reading Man’s Search for Meaning. It is taking longer than expected because, and admittedly I haven’t read too many books, but it is quickly becoming one of my all time favorite books ever, and I find myself reading and re-reading pages over and over again because of how enthralling it is. The singular conscience is such a marvelous and unique thing because we’ll never be not our conscience, and Frankl’s portrayal of the conscience and scruples of how he and others lived under those trying circumstance, in my opinion is more precious than gold. It is simply incredible to read his perspective outside of himself of those instances, and though, try as he might, as we all do when creating something profoundly incredible or beautiful from the knowledge of our experiences to be humble and meek, he must and truthfully does have a sense of great accomplishment because of those things that he has written. Though it portrays the grueling life of a prisoner at those times, Frankl did it in such a way that is not gruesome to read or understand. In my opinion the book is a beautiful piece of literature because of the experiences described, and the way in which they were described. He did his conscience good when fulfilling what it commanded him to do. There will be a full review when I am finished posted in my Book Club.

There is too much to write and not enough time. I need to go, but just know that I was planning on writing so much more. I will be back later. Keep in touch, thanks and goodbye.

1st Nephi 4: 7-18

I guess you’ve noticed that I’m not writing every day. Don’t worry it’s a good thing, I’ve noticed that when I’m actually doing everything that I want to do in a day I don’t have a whole lot of time to write nearly as much as I usually do. It is good though and I am doing well. This is something I wrote however the other day, so enjoy.  

I’ve been feeling surprisingly good lately, and it feels really–good… despite what I may have alleged in the past I have always believed deep down that happiness and peace is a deliberate choice on ones part. Just keep reading. I only say that, meaning that true peace cannot come from an external source outside of oneself. It’s just that we can’t choose it until we’ve learned how to, and there are indeed many external sources that impede our ability to learn how and to even choose. Baby steps my friends. I believe there is however, a time when it isn’t appropriate to choose to be at peace, and at these times I don’t believe one really can, and that is when we mourn, and who am I to choose or dictate the ways in which a soul mourns and for how long. One thing I know is that we are all different in our abilities, and especially in the ways in which we handle grief, so I can judge no one harshly.

Gaining peace is not so much for me a search for happiness as it is a yearning for wholeness. The church, regardless of anyone’s conflicting opinions on any topic within the church is especially designed for those searching for wholeness, because it teaches the ends of truth within its basic structure of faith and hope. However I think that most within the church are the very ones who struggle with finding peace the most, because of that very atmosphere of the depths of truth it so easily grasps. It touches the very depths of our spirits when we are surrounded by it but then afterward, our spirits our left to translate those touching feelings through an imperfect, often times broken body of flesh, bone and brain into a world where those types of feelings aren’t very common place to think about, talk about, or even to know about. Even in the halls of church one cannot reiterate to another the feelings and observations of one’s own existence as seen through ones own conscience, because we are our own conscience and no one will ever be that other than our own self.

This is so interesting; I pick up and chaperone a pair of autistic twins named Alex and Aaron for family home evening and sometimes church. We were destined to be friends because they, within their own worlds of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and many, many more interesting movies and shows communicate with each other whilst hardly saying a word outside of their memorized movies. It’s like they are the movies, and they don’t even give me a second thought when I start unconsciously talking to myself when driving in the car with them, because that’s what they’re doing, just talking, with no worries of who might think they’re weird, or who might criticize them, or make fun of them.

The truth is I love the church with all of my heart, and I love the scriptures. I just read the account of Nephi walking by faith into Jerusalem to find the records of his fathers. I’ve always really enjoyed the enthralling story of Nephi struggling with beheading Laban… Jeese, after writing that I suppose that sounds kind of strange that I enjoy it… why would I enjoy a man getting beheaded? Anyway, it’s a great account, and I noticed something reading this account this time that I haven’t before. The scriptures are full of stories and things of the like depicting the spiritual nature of things and how to determine what is good and what is not, but I say that this event, the way Nephi wrote it is utterly remarkable in its description of how one interprets the feelings of the spirit as opposed to one’s own natural desires and feelings. I won’t repeat the verses now, and I say that all of the scriptures are good, but 1^st Nephi 4: 7-18 are some of the most beautiful scriptures depicting the inner struggle with understanding and following the spirit. What does he do? he doesn’t just jump right into doing something, these verse describe his thought process of the whole situation and of events leading to that situation. I really could do a complete psychological study of the human mind and spirit based off of these few verses but I won’t do that here and now because daylight is burning and I’ve got other things to attend to. until next time my friends, and read those verses too. Goodbye.   

Day 1

May 1^st, 2011, Day 1.

Well, today was a solid first day of a journey. I really am needing to go to sleep right now because it is late and I am really tired, so, sorry for the short first entry. I am feeling a great entry tomorrow though so stay tuned. Goodnight my dearest friends. Thank you.