Thinking about thoughts

I’ve been thinking a lot about thoughts (bizarre, I know, but go with me for a minute). Why do thoughts feel different to different people? Some people’s thoughts sound like their voice, some like someone else’s, some think  in pictures, but no one can actually explain properly what their thoughts are like.  My favourite description when I asked what thoughts look/sound feel like was ‘I dunno. Like thoughts.’ This probably sounds incredibly simplistic and actually a little stupid, but when you think about it, it’s so hard to define something with no reference. If you don’t hear your thoughts, and you don’t see them, then do you feel them, or just think them? I think without words, without pictures, often without feelings. I’d say I tend to think in concepts, and sometimes in stories. Maybe that’s why things I sat often come out wrong, or I lose a sentence halfway through saying it. I understand the concept, but I don’t have words or pictures to go with it.

 

Is that the same way I experience God? Is that why it’s hard for some other people to experience him and hear his voice? Maybe it actually sounds the same to them as their own… Maybe the pictures God places in their head are indistinguishable from the ones that they put there. But the concept of God, the feeling, the experience, is different from my thoughts. My thoughts are mine. I understand them.

Side note: Do I create my thoughts or do my thoughts create me? I know that question sounds really existential and philosophical and various other forms of bullshit, but do we actually get to choose what we think, or do our thoughts shape and define us? It’s like the chicken and the egg. It’s a cycle, so how do you figure out where it starts? Like, can we control our thoughts with enough willpower? I know we think some stuff on purpose, but I’m really talking about those thoughts and ideas you find floating around your being that you didn’t create. You know when you realise you’re thinking something and it gives you a bit of a shock? I always kind of enjoy that. Especially when it’s something a bit confusing. It makes me feel really intelligent that I’ve accidentally thought something so bizarre.

 

But, anyway, I guess my question here is; where do those thoughts come from? Is that what they mean by your subconscious? Can you ever become so aware of what’s happening in all your various areas of being that you don’t get caught unawares by thoughts you didn’t think on purpose? I imagine that would be a really boring way of living, but then, if you knew yourself that fully, maybe it wouldn’t be boring… Maybe it would just be peaceful. But can you ever know yourself that well? My first thought is that we mere mortals don’t have the mental capacity to understand something as complex as ourselves, but if we’re the ones who are so complex surely we’re built with the capacity to understand that complexity? No? Probably not, actually. I have a lot of spare time, so I spend a lot of time thinking, but I don’t think I could ever understand absolutely everything that’s going on in me physically, spiritually, mentally, psychologically, emotionally and all-the-other-forms-of-self-ally. Am I just stupid or is it not possible? Will we eventually evolve to a point where we can understand all those things, or are some things meant to remain a mystery?

 

As I’m typing this I’m starting to feel more and more stupid. Of course we can never know everything. I don’t really have much evidence to back this up, except for that no one ever has. Maybe that’s what nirvana is? That’s true enlightenment? But then, people tend to experience that after meditating for several years of their lives, so maybe they’ve just got less stuff going on with them than everyone else… or have meditated themselves insane… Hmm…

Poppies for Grace

Exciting news! I have some semi-employment! I've been thinking about getting a job, but have been incredibly worried that I won't be reliable because of my health, and I really don't want to do anything to make myself worse. However, the boredom and feeling of complete uselessness have been getting steadily worse. 

So, there are some girls from my dad's church who design beautiful stationary for Poppies for Grace. They used to make all of their own cards, but the business has been growing, and now their stuff is sold all over the place. The girls still design the cards, but they need other people to assemble them, so that's what I'll be doing! I'm going to meet Sara on Monday to learn what to do, but from what she's told me, I think they're starting a new range of embroidered cards, so I'll be doing some sewing!

I've been checking out their website, and it's so cute! They use recycled paper, and employ quite a few girls who can't work full time (myself included, now!). I'm so happy to have something to do, and so excited that I can be involved in such a beautiful business. I'm also just really excited I'll have something productive to do... I haven't been doing too well recently, so have been doing a lot of junk to try and entertain myself. I intend to use this as something to help me structure my life a bit... I really like having time and space to do what I want, but I think having a bit of a routine's quite important to me. I miss having a reason to get up, and I miss feeling like I'm doing something good with my time, so, while I don't expect this to be a massive change (it will actually only be five or six hours work a week), it's giving me a really good reason to sort out my priorities, and figure some stuff out...

The end of this blog has been very vague and rambley, but I'll probably explain a bit better soon. Maybe not. I'm pretty lax at blogging at the moment...

Anyway, the point of the story is: I get to sew pretty cards to be sold in pretty shops. Lovely.

going, going....

Do you ever worry that when you've been sick, bored and alone for a while, your brain will turn into mush and you'll lose all ability to be entertaining or intelligent? I think that has actually happened to me. I am slowly losing my personality and am becoming a rather bland, nothingy person. Pretty soon I will probably start blending into the background and eventually I will just disappear. Maybe one day a few years down the track, you'll notice I'm missing, but the disappearance will be so slow, you won't even be surprised.

So, if I'm slightly stupider and less fun next time you see me, you know that it's just because I am subtley melting into oblivion. Either that, or I will just live forever as an unintelligent, unentertaining, useless life form. Wish me luck.

Love, Mushbrain.

I have no memory

Well, that just weirded me out! I could have sworn I had posted a new blog, but now that I'm here, I've realised I just formed a blog in my head and never got around to actually typing and posting it... Ironically, now I can't remember what it was about.

Just thought you'd all want to know!

nothing much to say

Have had the weirdest few weeks. Nothing much to blog about, but it's been a while! My health's been fairly nuts so I've been in bed between about midnight and anywhere from 11am to 3pm pretty much every day for a fortnight. This does not leave much time for other stuff. However, in that two weeks I have been to two amazing gigs which I shall rave about later, had a massive Eurovision weekend and done some other very enjoyable stuff, so it's been quite a fun fortnight, despite the really really large amounts of time spent in bed.

So! Thursday night I went to the Presets and Architectue in Helsinki. It was AMAZING!!!!! Both bands were brilliant and we danced like maniacs and I pulled a muscle in a slightly awkward location and have been struggling to cross my legs ever since, but it was brilliant!!! Could not have been better.

Failed miserably at uploading a photo of the presets, but here's architecture.


Also, I just dyed my hair, and I think it's exactly the same colour. That's so upsetting. Will write a blog that is actually interesting as soon as I think of something to write about. I'm rather apathetic today. boo.

By the way...

I just got the first lot of test results back (I've had a lot of tests for allergies and various other things recently). The horrible blood test has revealed that I am allergic to....
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Almonds and tuna!
Is that not the most ridiculous thing ever? Who ever heard of someone being allergic to tuna.


Also, did you see my last post? I totally figured out how to put a photo in there. I could not be better at this computering thing right now.

madeit.com

This website is amazing. It makes me want to go and do craft.. and then when I fail to make anything that cute, come back online and buy a million things.


It also makes me want to take lovely photography. I always get that urge when I see really nice photos... Especially beautiful food pictures in recipe books. (Jamie Oliver has amazing food photographers)

Disconnected.

I got sick of my old layout. I have just decided that this one is not better, but there are no good options. boo. I don't really have anything to say, except for a few unconnected thoughts.

My nephew is walking! He's so big! See here. In slightly less happy news, he goes in for his operation on Tuesday. We're all doing a lot of praying at the moment.

I'm usually very good at describing what's going on for me but at the moment I don't understand, so I don't know what to say. I don't know much at the moment.

"Until that moment I never knew myself." I have had that quote floating around my head for a while now. I don't know why.

If you meet someone you like and you want ot be friends with them, but you've only met them a couple of times and there's not much linking you to them, can you pursue a friendship with them or is that weird? Also, what if they think you're a freak?

I have been thinking about it recently, and I have decided that I'm completely ok with the fact that I care what people think about me, as long as their opinions don't alter who I am or my opinion of myself. I want people to know who I really am, and I want them to like me, but if they don't, I won't change myself to be more agreeable.

I still desperately want to find truth and beauty and joy and I still can't. I will not give up.

One truth that I have found, is that if you numb any real pain, and ignore the bad things in life, you can't feel pleasure anymore. (this is kind of what my last post was about) So, unfortunately, it's necessary to be honest in all your emotions, but try and keep them in proportion.. Life tends to end up being bearable, with the hope of becoming more.

I feel like I can't cope anymore, but I know I can. I just hate feeling like I don't have options.

This post has become quite morbid, which I didn't intend, so I will end it now. I think I'll post it anyway.

Freedom

The little bird sat in her cage. She didn't want to sing, she didn't want to fly, she didn't want to be seen, admired or despised. There used to be a time when she yearned for the world she used to know. A world of trees and sunlight, rain, rivers, forests, animals, flowers oceans, people, predators and fields. A world of beauty, joy, passion and danger. She used to sit in her cage and remember the world she had come from, hoping to see it again and longing to be free, but at some point during the long years she had spent in this dreary grey world, she had stopped dreaming. It hurt too much to remember what used to be. She couldn't bear the terrible uncertainty of living in hope but knowing that she may never be free, never again see the beautiful blue of the sky. So she had let go of her hope. When she let go of her hope, she lost something else, something she didn't expect to lose. She lost any joy or enjoyment she had found in this new world. She no longer enjoyed beying admired and seeing joy and love and wonder in the children's eyes when they looked at her. She could not sing. She could no longer create beauty for anyone else, because she couldn't remember how beauty felt.

The little boy who lived in the house had noticed the change in his bird. He watched her and talked to her, hoping that she would get better and start to sing for him again, but she didn't. One day the little boy got sick and had to spend a week in bed. During that week, he missed being outside, he felt flat and dull and longed for the sunlight and the beauty of nature. He looked to his little bird to provide him with joy, but she couldn't, and finally the little boy understood why. The next day when his parents were at work, he picked up the cage of the little bird and took it outside. He opened the door and he set her free.

The little bird stood, blinking in the sunlight. She had forgotten the blue of the sky, the feel of the wind against her face, and the sound of the swaying trees, but to her shock and dismay, she could no longer find beauty in any of these things. She had spent so long ignoring the precious little beauty that could be found in her caged world, that she had forgotten how to feel the blissful wonder of being immersed in beauty. She had forgotten how to feel joy and find adventure. The little bird had lost the ability to love what she loved and fear what she feared, but as the boy stood watching her, she made a decision that she would not allow this feeling to take her. She would search and experience and explore until she found joy again. She would find her lost hope, and her soul would be complete again. So she looked to the horizon, flapped her wings and began to sing as she flew into the glorious freedom of possibility.

New Years Resolution-ish things.

I always thought new years resolutions were kind of ridiculous... Why should you wait until new years to evaluate your life and make big decisions? Are you really more likely to stick to something if you decided to do it on the 1st of January? Probably not, but this year I found myself thinking a lot about the past year, the decisions I've made, the person I've been and the way I've been living and realised that the way I lived last year is not the way I want to live this year.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy with the way I lived last year. It was kinda a big one for me and, even though I wasn't working or studying, I had to make some big decisions and I think I learned a lot about who I am and how I want to live... So it was a good (and challenging) year, and an important one, but I need to move on now. Unfortunately, I don't have a clue what that means as I'm still not well enough to commit to a job or study or anything. And I'm very confused, because most of the things I want are really obscure and difficult to commit to.

The only things I've decided for sure are that I'm going to get a spiritual mentor, I'm going to commit to the diet and exercise my doctor wants me to do, even if it's horrible, I'm going to get my Ps this year and that I'm enrolling in a subject at Tabor in second semester.

Spiritual mentor - I learned a lot about spirituality during YITS (and especially living with Joel and Heidi) and started becoming more aware of God's Spirit and His power in everything. I loved learning this stuff but I think I forgot about it a bit last year, because I was so busy trying to sort myself out. So I've decided I need to find someone who can teach me more about how to live as a spiritual being, commited to bringing God's kingdom through my actions and my life. Do not have a clue how to go about asking someone about this.

Diet and exercise - My doctor put me on a low GI diet which I totally have not stuck to as it is very difficult and frustrating, and doesn't seem to make much difference. I have decided, though, that I need to get better as soon as possible, so if this will make me even a tiny bit healthier, it is worth it. The exercise thing is a bit weird, as I kind of need to do less (or at least more selective) activity than I have been. Stupid confusing limits. But whatever. I am going to do this and take the medicine and get freaking better.

Ps - Self explanatory and necessary. I can really almost drive.. Stupid manual! I will learn to change gears! I shall conquer this. I shall! (Oh, Mr. Darcy, how I adore thee)

Tabor - I am desperate to go back to study. I miss Tabor and I'm bored stupid. I think that I'll be able to study if I only do one subject and don't work, so that's the plan! I will be well enough by then as I'll be doing everything I can to get well, and if I'm not well enough by mid year to do one subject, considering how much money and effort I'm putting into getting better, I think it's time to find a new (preferably cheaper) doctor.

So these are the plans for the year! I didn't think it was much, but having written it down, I think it's enough to be getting on with.
Happy New Year!