Secrets

Today it is all about secrets. The things we keep from others, the things others keep from us.  Are the hurtful or helpful? I guess that depends on your perspective. There is so much duplicity and lies when secrets are involved.  So much drama and chaos, which as writers we know is critical to a good storyline.

But why is that? Why is it that we want to watch, see, feel the pain or joy in someone else's drama in a movie or book, but run a mile when it is our own.  For some it is self created from an addiction or fear for others something they have no interest in at all.

Do we want to learn from a distance so we will know how to handle it in our own lives? Is it a test run to check out our coping mechanisms? Or is it conditioning? For so many years we avoid anything that could open that door, that it is only now safe to open someone else's door?

For others it is a trigger and as long as it is handled well, I guess that is a good thing. I think the trick is in knowing how you feel about them in general before you are faced with the situation. If you live a secret life, you are no doubt more aware of their existence, impact and cost. If you live a life without them, you are pretty much shell shocked at their revelation.

Like a good story, there is more than one side. I guess it is the same with secrets, they only exist if there is some one keeping the secret and someone not being told. Take away either and the secret has no power. I guess that is all it really comes down to - in our society information is power, it gives us choices and currencies. If we do something one way or the other to influence our own choices, so be it. But if we do something that unfairly influences someone else or removes their choices, not so good.

If there is one good thing about all of this technology, secrets are harder to keep. This generation wants to be much freer and open, unlike the ones that came before. Surely that is a good thing? I would agree, as long as we can keep them in our stories, for fun and interest.

The Power of Dreams

While this isn't my dream, it is someone else's and I am learning how important it is to recognize and appreciate that.  Someone has taken the time, the energy to get their thoughts down just perfectly. This particular format is a picture, but isnt that also what we do with our words? 

We find a way to put thoughts and make them into things, and search for the ultimate perfection in matching what we create to what was created inside of us.  When the outside matches the inside.  Yet why does it seem so foreign when someone says those very things apply to our physical and emotional lives?

Why is it we can see and value these things in others and what they create, but are too afraid to see in ourselves? As children we are taught that playing, dreaming etc., is ok up until a certain age. It doesnt matter at what age it should change, the knowing that this is no longer acceptable has been presented and is now a part of us. Is this when we shut down our instincts in a more tangible way? Because we know or have been told that what comes naturally is wrong and it will affect how others view and accept us.

Fast forward a few years when we are in high school and we are then told we should once again turn on that tap we were forced to close, and in record time. To figure out who we are, what we want to do with our lives, who we want to be, so we can choose a career path?

Some, the lucky ones, never stopped dreaming or perhaps more correctly, found a way to incorporate them into their every day lives and that of their surroundings in acceptable ways, so they never lost course. Never lost their balance, their purpose.  Yet so many others don't and try to reconnect on a timetable that somehow never completely happens. So they continue to search.

Some search for what they are looking for in people, others in places and others in things.  Then there is another group who refuse to search and instead try the obliteration route. Trying to block everything they knew while trying to remember what they had been taught to forget.

Slowly, if we are lucky, those pieces of ourselves come back to us. Sometimes by accident others because we are somehow living in synchronisity and it supports us and propels us forward. Other times it is love that brings us to this place.  The type of love that is our foundation, that grounds us to be ourselves again and release the judgements and fears of old so we can hear and embrace the voices we silenced so long ago.

It doesnt matter at what age this happens, as long as it happens. We can have as many dreams as we want, there are no limits other than ourselves. As adults nobody can get in your way, not of the things that really matter to you.  The more you come back to yourself, the more power you will have in your inside world and your outside world.  Yes, it may be a matter of perception, but isnt that basically what our dreams are about? Our own perceptions of what we want in our world? The people and experiences we want to meet, be and share? What our goals are based on and our successes achieved from?

No matter where you are in your life, you still have a choice. To free yourself to the power of your dreams however they present themselves or to remain hidden in fear until your days are done? They say the worst regret is those things unsaid after someone has gone. I hazard to guess if words are that powerful, what a life unlived would feel like in those last moments. I know that I for one, never want to feel that way and in fact, don't want to feel that way for any longer.

I know my characters don't either. Time to free both myself and them, just not sure what happens first. Or is that part of the synchronisity in life, the ying and the yang, the black the white, every reaction having and equal and opposite reaction? Life really is perfect, if you let it be.

Freedom

Why is freedom so important? What does Freedom actually mean?  By definition it is a noun that means either the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint or secondly, the absences of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government. (thanks Wikipedia)

For this conversation I am going to use the first definition.  About having the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.  Typically we assume this are things restricted by external forces i.e.: parents, teachers, police officers etc.,  but what about those things we do to ourselves?

What if the hindrance and restraint is from within? What if it is our own actions, thoughts and words that keep us from being free? Messages we have learned incorrectly and internalized and made them our own Gods?  Words that have been spoken that went straight to our core and replaced our own DNA until what is now replicated and rebuilt resembles nothing of the DNA we received from either of our parents?

Now it looks like some web of different markers, different measures - none of them with our best interests at heart. Ruled not by our metabolism or other structures but by emotions controlled by fear and ego.  What chance to our bodies and minds have to grow and thrive when we are being attacked by our insides?

More importantly, why does it matter?  Quite frankly, for some it doesn't. For those too far gone on their journey they have lost sight of anything internal and live in an only external world. For those whose escape mechanisms put them in a different realm that is not truly connected to this world, their escape is already complete as they journey to whatever comes next.

For the rest of us it is a fight we must face. Some are aware of this and some are blissfully unaware. I say blissful, not because I believe they are any happier, but from the thought that they must be happier living a more simple existence, unaware that they are not all they can be. Perhaps this seems judgemental and I don't mean it to be, as I continually get told to go with the flow and just allow things to be, to happen, and trust they will as they should.  That said, at this point I simply cannot go with the flow and allow myself to be a tourist in my own life.  I want to have some sort of impact on what happens to me.

Didn't I sign some contract before I arrived? Sitting back, watching my life go by brings me no closer to knowing if I am on track or not, if I am here to do what I came here to do?  Carolyn Myss talks about them in Sacred Contracts and I think just as we played a role in getting here to do certain things, to experience and contribute certain thinks, it is our responsibility to do our part while we are here.

In that vein, if I am getting in my own way of achieving and accomplishing my own freedom, what good will that do? Do I not owe it to myself and those I came here to interact with, to do just that? Somewhere along the lines that I got off the path, through age, distraction you name it, the fact is that I am now the one that is impeding my own freedom.

I think I know the how, when, what,who and why so have all of my answers to that. After today, I also have the what, when, how and why to take the next step. I know I have to do it, so I have the who as well.  Interesting notion that we keep ourselves prisoners far more often that anybody else ever does.  We don't need a cold war or weapons of mass destruction, we are or can be, our own worst enemies.

Unfortunately, that applies to both definitions of freedom doesn't it? Is the solution to both the same or does one beget the other? If we all made ourselves free from the inside, would we need to fight for our freedom on the outside? Seems to me it wouldn't even be an issue.  Hmm...food for thought.

Being noticed vs. being remembered

So today, my thoughts are about impressions, of ourselves and others. The things we notice, the things that catch our attention.  The things that remain with us.  This picture is an example - for those on the road and those in the plane, and while a funny example, shows what I believe to be true. That it isn't as much about being noticed that matters, it is more about being remembered.

Isn't that really why we write? To have an impact? Sure being noticed is nice to get us readers that will be interested in what we say, but really, what we want is for them to remember us. Or more correctly, what our words mean to them in their own lives.

I believe each writer has their own unique "signature", how they write, the words they use etc., and once you have found someone that reaches you, matches with your own receptors a relationship is formed, for however long it suits your needs.

I think this is why both writers and readers search for each other.  As a reader I search for "reliable" authors that consistently deliver what I am looking for at that moment. I go back to them again and again, for that certain feeling I get by reading their words, the way they say them and the concepts they explore.

Some are comforting as they are so similar, I can relax into their words.  Others stimulate and challenge me as they write things I want to learn about but haven't experienced and others because they have writings skills I do not currently possess.  Every time they meet my expectations those connections last and it becomes some sort of relationship.  They are my go to authors.

When my current favorites have nothing new out to devour, I begin a hesitant search for a new author to add to my library. To my life. That is where the real talent must rise.  I must admit for the most part it is their titles, their book jackets that I usually notice them and read their brief summary of what will follow inside.  But it is in the inside that is what will make me remember them.

But even that said, I believe there must be a balance because to be remembered, you do need to be noticed first.  So really one cannot exist without the other? Perhaps not an even 50/50 but they are both important.

What do you focus on? What do you spend your time on? Would you rather be noticed than remembered?