resaults of a book store visit

Xaikayla 2009-10-25 06:13:01 ET I am tired of excuses. no matter legitimate or simple masks of fear they are how I get through the day. If you only knew everything I want to be and don't. I read a bit of New seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton yesterday and I am still working out the little chapter I read. He spoke of contemplation being almost a small death. a moment to disavow everything you think you know only to know more and to know it beyond words and images. I would like to think I am contemplative. But in truth I am a day dreamer. I conjure stories and what if's that represent how I would like the the world and myself to look. But Day dreams are excuses. tiny bits of pitiful escapism in order to elude responsibility for the world about me. I'd like to say it is analyzing how I would react in such a situation arose, but that is an excuse too. Those day dreams keep me from actually doing what I imagine myself do. I imagine success at what I try and so fear of failure keeps me from branching out into the physical world. And the daydreams isolate me. I spend so much of my energy stuck in my own trap of a made up world that I am not present in the real one. So I have been inspired. to train myself to be contemplative.What I read in Merton's chapter on what contemplation is stated nothing about daydreams. But As I thought about how I think, I realize that I do not want to waste time on the daydreams. To stay and be apart of where I am, not hidding. Not escaping. Oh, and I forgot how much I liked jules verne's 20,000 leagues under the sea.

turbo 2009-10-25 15:21:42 ET as much as i almost hate to say it, it's reasons like this that i left church and all other things remotely religious and overly fundamentalist in the dumpster a long time ago and started striving towards more things that i actually found to be internally and externally productive here on planet earth based on an actual end-result with my 'god-given' instincts instead. the world is a big place, and too many people hold themselves back based on outside standards that are stifling, stupid, and just completely unrealistic and counterproductive to everyone at the end of the day. then again, people can only hold themselves back at the end of the day. i was reading the teddy roosevelt on goat's page a bit ago. truer words were never spoken.

Xaikayla 2009-10-26 05:24:09 ET Just so you know, Thomas Merton is a catholic monk. There is an element of modern christianity that feeds on fear. That presses a person to conform to a box that is neither biblical nor practical. My excuses, my lack of motivation has nothing to do with my belief in God. The exsistance of them, I believe is entirely against. But I am not wallowing in guilt at that statement. I am turning myself from procrastination. I'd like to be more like this: "but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly."

turbo 2009-10-26 13:46:41 ET yesh. also, belief in god and religion and church are not the same thing or even have to be interconnected, imo.

Return to Xaikayla's page