The Magic of Exploration

Hi there,

It’s a light-hearted piece for today, one born out of my joy of having this blog.

Let me first say that the last three-and-a-half months have been quite eye-opening. By that, I mean that life and has begun to feel more and more rich. Things are starting to look clearer, and I feel like I’m getting things a bit more. Life is appearing more fruitful to me.

I don’t mean that now everything is all happy and lighthearted, because that’s not the case. No, there are still the occasional times when everything seems awful. I’m only human, after all. But something has definitely changed. Maybe it’s a bit early to identify reasons as to why that is, but I honestly think that it’s has a lot to do with this blog.

Don’t you feel so tiny sometimes? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There is so much out there. Ignorance won’t get you anywhere. If you really want to find what exactly it is that’s ‘out there’, you have to sit down and really articulate your jumbled thoughts. True exploration is the discovery of yourself. You may think there are things out there that you have not seen, that aren’t a part of you, but they are. When you try to make sense of the world around you, the things you see and hear and feel, you’re really just trying to make sense of yourself. Why? Because it all starts within you.

It’s not so much about survival for many of us anymore. Instead, I think we are searching for purpose, for definition, and we don’t know where to look. Many of us don’t want to look, because we fear what we can’t see.

Moving beyond the fear is everything. You cannot truly see when you are afraid to look.

If you are serious about examining life, about writing or articulating what you have to say, you must begin digging, no matter the fear. If you are truly curious, if you have the thirst to learn, the passion to discover, the will to move beyond what you know, you will continue to dig. And you won’t stop until you find something.

The magic in that is that what you will find will change your life.

Can you see the color? (Photo credit: wenzday01)

I try to see beyond the surface of things, and despite my young age, I feel as though I’m already unearthing incredible things. Like I said before, I feel my experience in life has become richer, my understanding stronger. I believe what I believe a bit more passionately. I feel a little bit happier, a little more awake. And those seemingly small changes really change everything.

The magic of exploration is that life becomes a more dynamic place, a more beautiful place. And that’s because you become a more dynamic, beautiful person.

–mrprose

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Experience Life

Live life. Experience it.

What does that mean exactly? Aren’t we all in a way? We’re all living, right?

I don’t know how much living many of us are actually doing. If doing the same thing everyday counts, then I suppose. If always staying in your comfort zone qualifies, then I guess so. But I don’t see things that way, and I’m starting to realize what actual living is.

Gustave Flaubert (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think the number one thing I’ve learned while having this blog is rather simple, actually. I speak of all kinds of things, things I’m exploring. Life, existence, meaning, philosophy, I’m moving towards theology… the list goes on. As it was once put:

“The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe”
–Gustave Flaubert

I agree with that. I do believe I am discovering what I believe. I feel like I have a more solid view on life, for sure. It’s fantastic, I’m rather happy with where I’m going (I know, it’s ego, but cut me some slack!). I feel as though I’m looking at life in more intelligent ways, in ways I didn’t previously. Here’s the thing, though – I’m not sure how much any of that really matters in the long run.

If I don’t live, truly live the things I’ve learned.

Books are great, and they can teach you a lot. But they don’t have a tenth of their impact if you don’t practice what you’re reading. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a lesson that has taken me quite some time to truly understand, and even now I’m certain I have a lot left to learn. The example that comes to mind is that I started reading self-help books early on, and that may be the reason why I opened my eyes from such a young age. The difficulty I had with those books, the content, was not that I didn’t enjoy it, because I very much did – to the point of feeling drawn to the whole subject. I struggled I had was with translating the learning into my life, and that was a key element that was not addressed directly in the books. How am I supposed to get to that level of spirituality? Surely we all have our own way to go about it.

Thank goodness I learned how to do ridiculously difficult math. Now I may live a fulfilling life. (Photo credit: Kevin H.)

The more I think of it, the more I realize that it’s true for most things in life. As I wrote just a few days ago, you learn a lot in school, sure, but what do you do with the information? Nobody tells you, nor does anyone seem to know. Which is an immediate indicator that there is something off. What am I supposed to do with something I do not know how to use? I think the number one thing we should keep in mind is this: can I use this information/knowledge/learning/skill? If not, it better be of some sort of enjoyment to you (e.g. playing the guitar), because beyond that, it’s useless.

So it’s easy to hide behind that excuse to stay where everything feels safe. You or I can wait until someone will come around and tell us everything we need to know, but that’s not going to happen. Plus, you wouldn’t learn anything.

That’s why I say to experience life. Dive into things, head first. Make mistakes, mess up a little bit. Learn about whatever the hell it is that you’re doing, by doing it. I know I’m not the best person to make this example, but the same goes for parenting. There really isn’t an instruction manual, and I’ve seen my parents learn as they go (I have a younger brother, which helps a bit to see this process a little bit). They have certainly become better leaders as I’ve grown up, I’ve witnessed it first-hand.

I see the same thing with business owners, with authors, with actors. You’ve just gotta do it if you want to truly learn, to truly experience life. I started an unsuccessful blog some time last year, but I never got it going because I didn’t invest. Maybe I was afraid, maybe I wasn’t ready to learn just yet. Whatever it was, it changed when I tried again several months later, and now here I am. It wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t make a promise to myself to commit and be okay with a little failure, a little pain.

So the things that I write about and the blog itself really are teachers to me on how to live. A theme for the last few days has been selflessness (or rather selfish selflessness), and I physically had to do stuff for others without directly impacting myself to really get the beginning of understanding on the whole subject.

Who likes a hypocrite? Live what you preach, and preach what you live. I know some some pretty famous people in history that did just that….

Get off the couch from your TV, from your self-help book, and try something new. Put down your plan and go for it. Do something you haven’t done, something you’ve been talking about doing for a while. Experience something new.

Experience life.

–mrprose

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Conflict is Better Than Stagnation.

There’s a subject I’d like to address today that has always been on my mind, and something that I firmly believe, but also something that I’ve never been able to articulate as well as I would like. At least, until I saw this quote:

“Conflict is better than stagnation.”

–Frederick Douglass

This is a quote that really speaks to me in the way that it’s something I’ve very slowly come to have understood in my life. It’s one of those things you have to experience to truly discover. And although at first it may not seem to make any sense, if you go just a little deeper, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

Stagnation won’t lead you into the wonders of the ocean. Instead, it’ll leave you waiting, always waiting… wondering what lies beneath the waves. (Photo credit: sunnyUK)

I’ve learned that there is nothing worse than stagnation in life. To cease one’s drive/effort for development is to (in my opinion) cease interest in life. You stop discovery, you lose your drive, your passion. Commonly misunderstood, stagnation is not at all stability. It’s the halting of growth and innovation. Maybe it’s because I’m a romantic (a.k.a. personality type 4), but a string of pointless, eventless days affected my mood dramatically.

That aside, conflict is the reaction to digging deeper in life, of exploration. You cannot simply “grow” without any challenges. We learn from our mistakes, but we don’t make mistakes if we don’t try new things (unless the mistake is not trying new things).

Conflict, eventually, has to lead to resolution. All conflict ends. Wars end. Fights cannot last forever. Struggles are transient. All pain is temporary. And what lies beyond may be discovery, depending on the form of resolution. A constant, though, is the growth.

In the end, one thing remains the same: if there is no struggle, no conflict, no battle that is fought, there can be no progress. Emotional, and physical (physical obstacles, facing limits, etc.) I’m talking about everything in our lives.

I always talk about growth and discovery. It’s why I believe we’re here. But it’s not easy an easy thing to go through. In fact I believe it’s the hardest thing you can do in life. Because anything that teaches you anything will be painful, as pain is our greatest teacher.

Not-coincidentally, the same amazing man that said the quote above, said this:

Frederick Douglass portrait (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will.”

–Frederick Douglass

I think he pretty much sums it up – if you want progress, you have to face obstacles first. You have to be strong. It’s a decision that only you make, if you’re ready to take it on.

–mrprose

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