contemplative.

Being a really introverted thinker person, it's actually amazing how little time I spend contemplating.

Contemplation, meditation is a sort of medication for the over thinker. I think too much, about too, too much of the time.

Learning to meditate has been so refreshing. Distancing myself from the clutter of the hum-drum dreariness of everyday over thinking. Well I'm guilty of that anyway.

So meditation...

It's really once you get into. I read somewhere it's not about banishing random thoughts, or retaining them, but distancing yourself from those thoughts. In the same way a plane takes off and vanishes in the distance, that's what happens to your thoughts when you meditate. It's intentional, where you imagine the thoughts passing you by. They come, they go. You breathe in, you breathe out.

There's a continual drift in and out of thought. At first the heavy traffic congestion of muddle musings, incomplete thoughts, and tomorrows chores. But allow yourself to picture your thoughts moving on, don't hold onto them. Leave them be, they had a momentum coming, let them continue on their way...

I have found the Spiritual Practices section on Mars Hill Bible Churches website really helpful! Have a look here.

Who else would I want to be?

I often find myself preoccupied with uneducated self directed pondering that often, but not always, leads nowhere.

Regardless of the example, how does what I ponder change anything if I don't act on it? Like, the idea of being in a relationship is great, right. Long walks on the beach, dinner by candle light, a picnic under a tree. All great stuff!

But where is it, that the idea takes hold wraps itself around your every waking thought that the only possible conclusion, outcome, action, is to take action. To make the first move. To put in place the series of events that realise your mindless meanderings.

It's not often that I'm gripped by the intensity of an idea. Those moments are holy. Perhaps I'm unworthy?

Oh, but there are times! When my unnecessary self loathing, pitiful, melancholic dreariness is taken aback. I'm then left with keys to that mystical, mysterious, messy moment of clarity. I'd be listening to a song. The lyric, the melody, the voice catapults you beyond the confines of merely consuming the music, beyond just being a member of the audience, but propelled forward, inward, outward. The idea has taken root. Take action. Move first.

Reflecting on all of this. I think this happens more often than I think. I'm propelled forward, inward, outward, more times than I'm aware of. Somehow and in some way, I'm always better for it.

It's real crazy how these moments often occur, for me, out of a struggle. Creativity is funny like that.

Your back is up against a wall, your fears and lies have your shoulders pinned right back. You struggle to break free. You're cynical, dark and self loathing. You could either; fight back, but the burden is only heavier; give up, but you only get pushed harder. Or, you could face them, you could look them in the eye, you could even step to the side and let push right on through the wall.

I'm often reminded by a melody, a friends smile, a lyrical inflection, a baby crying. That what MIGHT happen is not as important as what IS happening. There's so much to get preoccupied by that I often miss how BEAUTIFUL it is to be present NOW. The STRUGGLE is about taking back your time, taking back NOW. Too often I plan ahead, what just needs to be enjoyed. I forget that who I am, is good enough for NOW and because of that I am able to BE.

In all of my messiness, incongruently reverberating towards old habits, thoughts, fears, I can be OK with who I am.

Who else would I want be?

Possibly, finally... but, probably not...

If you have read any of my last few posts, you'll know that I have been searching/ looking/ thinking about what it is that drives those who find themselves on the margins with some sort of influence to madness.

Although my persuasion is toward reconciling it all with Jesus. I don't want to get ahead of the discovery, the possibility of being persuaded otherwise. A risk yes, but if as I'm persuaded to let you know that my current state of thinking would lead me to believe that all truth is pursued long enough leads to Jesus.

So, if that is true there is no risk in this pursuit...

But who knows what will happen, right? Like if I'm wrong, there goes my entire worldview.... anyway.

The main reason I'm exploring burnout and activism. Yes! I just realised, that's what I'm talking about. Hmm.

Thank you and good night.

Articulate. [adj., n. ahr-tik-yuh-lit; v. ahr-tik-yuh-leyt] 1. using language easily and fluently; having facility with words: an articulate speaker.

Frustration too easily accompanies my inability to put into words those thoughts that stir inside of me. The cat has caught my tongue and is stuck in a tree. No point trying to get a hold of the local Fire Department, my thoughts are still in their early stages and somewhat isolated, like a small town in the country. The Fire Department is made up of volunteers anyway and they closed up shop 3 hours ago. The cat's got my tongue. And with it, my inability to make sense of my thoughts.

Anyway, here it goes...

I've been thinking, as I ended the previous post, about the connection between the ideas of those who situate themselves on the edge through drug taking, alcohol binging and fast living and those who situate themselves on the edge as a result of being followers of Jesus. There are some in the latter category who prescribe to Christian Anarchism. A minority within a minority? Perhaps, but I won't go down that road today.

It doesn't help over dosing on the writings of Hunter S. Thompson, and having your mind on the road with Jack Kerouac. Not helpful in the sense that, you're confronted with your own inability to act in a way as to make it all count, yet somehow you're arrested by pessimism too. Passively consuming media sound-bites, and scoffing everything the tabloid smörgåsbord puts before us, only to inadvertently fuel the incessant greed of those desperate for attention. Or we might just be feeding our-nosy-selves? Living vicariously through the stories of the rich and beautiful. Oh I'm not as rich as those people, we say. We deserve our slice of heaven don't we?, we lie to ourselves.

Often those who push against the cynical picture I just painted (yes, i admit to being cynic!) tend to have as their right hand man, a bottle of whiskey who wildly wields in holster a plethora of drugs. As though in a western, the brutal reality of politics, consumerism and materialism is in a showdown against those who dare to defy them, who quick draw lines of cocaine, acid and copious amounts of weed. Hunter S. Thompson puts it like this in a chat with William McKeen, "Drugs usually enhance or strengthen my perceptions and reactions, for good or ill. They've given me the resilience to withstand repeated shocks to my innocence gland. The brutal reality of politics alone would probably be intolerable without drugs."

Am I for the use of drugs to numb the shocks to the innocence gland? Not necessarily, I'm just really interested in the intersection that might exist. For one, there's a strong sense among those who situate themselves on the edge that the "Church" consists of ignorant fools, and lead by pedophiles of the greatest proportion. There is a sense I have gathered, in my uneducated opinion and mere assumption, that whatever might be the way forward does not exist in religion. I'll add that there is some truth to that.

Where am i going with all of this? Leading you down some dark alley and then... WHACK! You wake up with a searing headache, a black cloth bag over your head as wake you up to the gibberish of your captors. "What should we do with the body once we've taken care of him/her?" No my intentions are innocent, they really are! Honest...

This my attempt to...

Articulate. [adj., n. ahr-tik-yuh-lit; v. ahr-tik-yuh-leyt] 1. using language easily and fluently; having facility with words: an articulate speaker.

Jack Kerouac - On The Road (1955) part. 2

Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.
Jack Kerouac

Wow, I find myself at a loss for words.

Part of me thinks that it's Kerouac's fault. Perhaps the way he wrote has made me self conscious of the style of my own writing. Or my attempt at writing. Anyway, I digress.

This book is nothing short of a masterpiece. You might disagree, but first you'd have to read the book and then look at every other person who had read it. It seems the verdict is unanimous. Jack Kerouac is a literary genius. His writing so effortless. Your eyes follow, your finger keeps turning the pages, your heart literally beats a bit faster. The precision of the detail, the captivating dialogue.

"On the Road", captures a desire that seems to run not only deep within us, but also counter to the messages that get blared at us from that 'talking-box' in our living rooms.

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!” - Jack Kerouac.

It makes you want to get of that comfortable little nook where you always enjoy reading your books, pack your bag, step out onto the curb in front of your, and stick your thumb out. You don't want to just be part of the 'everybody goes "Awww!" You want to do it, live, breath, experience.

Kerouac's words aren't the only ones that have driven me to this conclusion, but I'll save them for another time. But seriously though, read it...

Jack Kerouac - On The Road (1955)

On Friday (15/10) I went and picked up some forms to finalize my employment at a Jewelery Retailer. Anyway, I arrived early and decided to head into Whitcoulls. I had recently been reconnected to my love for reading and had an urge to read more novels, as opposed to books that required a lot more resolve that tackled topics like sociology and psychology, etc.

So there I was, in a book store, hoping to find something that would rekindle my reading journey. I proceeded to look for a book, by an author, I had not heard of before, but had an interesting title and catchy back cover. I found myself milling over the section that was responsible for the Penguin Classics Collection. There were a heap of authors I had heard of and the titles failed to capture my imagination.

After some deliberation I picked up 'On the Road by Jack Kerouac'. The title got me it was obvious to an extent, road trips, hitch hiking, etc. Then I read the back cover and I was hooked. Of the few things I enjoy doing one of them is getting to know someones story.

The back cover read:

"Jack Kerouac's On the Road rocked the establishment with it's seminal, stream-of-consciousness portrayal of 1950s underground America. Amidst a whirlwind of sex, drugs and jazz, writer Sal Paradise and his hero 'the holy con-man with the shining mind', Dean Moriarty traverse the country in search of life and experience. Wild and exuberant, this life-changing novel defined the Beat generation and inspired countless others."

So my appetite for reading gets offered it's first break in close to 2 years now. There's a story to be found here, be it fiction, it still happens to offer the possibility of getting know a generation that existed a good 40 years before I was born.

I'm half way through it as I type this. I'll do another post when I finish it, with some more thoughts about the book in particular.