Old and Gray

I don’t want to wake up one day, old and gray, asking myself, was it worth it? Was it worth it omitting what I actually felt, hiding it from myself, distracting myself from my actual desires to useless “normative” fillers to my life?

I don’t want to wake up one day, old and gray, asking myself, are you happy? Are you happy with all the decisions you’ve made that have led up to what your life looks like now?

I don’t want to wake up one day, old and gray, asking myself, are you free? Are you free from all bondage that once tied you down, forcing you to accept, forcing you to deny reality, distorting your vision?

I don’t want to wake up one day, old and gray, asking myself, did you love? Did you sacrifice your own happiness for someone else’s and in turn received that happiness from the act of self sacrifice?

I don’t want to wake up one day, old and gray, not wanting to wake up. Not asking, not living, stuck in the inescapable realm of my insatiable dreams.

Peace?

A dreamer opting for peace is no more than a fish wanting to walk.

Peace ceases to exist.

A piece of the pie of the real world and you realize the pettiness of peace.

Reality strikes like an unwanted guest.

Habits

One of the most powerful things in the world, as I know it, is habit or habits. We can speak of habit in many ways, which I will address, perhaps not the one that a Nun might wear though. Habits of perceiving our world on a daily basis our formed through sense perception and function as a guide for future judgment on what our world may look like. They aren’t necessarily indubitable, but we make them, and live with them anyway. I’m also not concerning myself with any philosophical thought on causality, mainly because they don’t really lead anywhere, unless you wan’t to travel in the sea of skepticism, which I certainly won’t waste my time in. The type of habit, or habits that I would like to address are the ones that we consciously and sometimes subconsciously make in our daily lives. We tend to separate habits in to two categories, good ones and bad ones. We all have of a fair amount of each. The habit of waking up and going to sleep at a certain time is certainly good, not because of itself but because of the benefits one may acquire from doing so; more energy, stronger muscles, better attention span etc. I don’t necessarily need to point out the bad habits, we all have them, except they all have one common quality, which is, in my view what makes it a bad habit. Excess. Doing things in excess will certainly create unwanted habits; chain smoking, drinking too much, even working out too much are all common examples. Good and bad habits are not the focus of my entry today because again, we are all familiar with them, and usually touch base with them sometime around January 1st…

I would like to focus on habits that are not necessarily good or necessarily bad. Habits that one unwillingly acquired growing up as part of sociocultural expectations or norms. Habits of belief or faith, habits of handling yourself, the things that make up who you are. The things that have been with you your entire life, which you may be aware and unaware of. How on earth may one go about changing those type of habits? Would simply wanting for it to change, and applying it and just changing it suffice? What about all those nights you sat there tormented by what you have been taught your whole life, contemplating the iffs ands or buts of your ideas, or what you thought were your ideas. Naturally when you’re exposed to newer ideas, they often replace the old ones. Naturally when you’re exposed to more knowledge, your old beliefs are altered even completely taken over. Clearly at first with some hesitation, but it happens, and that’s the growing process. Slow, sometimes painful but oh so inevitable IF you open yourself to it.