“Thought is pure energy. Every thought you have, have ever had, and ever will have is creative. The energy of your thought never dies. Ever. It leaves your being and heads out into the universe, extending forever. A thought is forever.”- Neale Donald Walsch
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I suppose I should probably read things a little more clearly before I respond to them with my own written word. I mean, that is of key importance within the art of rhetoric.
But sometimes I do not.
Sometimes my glance only strokes across paragraphs, gathering the generalized meaning. Which works if you solidly know what you’re skimming: the general content and theme, the author’s intention, the basic purpose of what you’re reading.
It’s when the dynamic character of writing comes in to play that I fall short in my speed-reading process. It’s when someone uses sarcasm or satire that I tend to stumble, and usually make an ass of myself.
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Thankfully, I’ve learned to bow out gracefully. Repeatedly. Humbly.
It has been good for my soul.
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Nothing in this universe is what it seems. When we “zoom in” to something more tangible, it is just as accurate to state that nothing in my life is what it seems.
Take color:
The strawberry red color of my pants cannot be called “strawberry red” without an observer.
- The observer must have functional, well-tuned specialized cells in their retina to process the light that reflects off of the pants.
- The observer also must have been given, at some point, the vocabulary to hear, articulate, or assess this particular color.
- They must contain the awareness and/or expectation that there is something “out there” (or, in this case, on me) that has an identifiable color.
- Then they must point their eyes to the red pants and process that, yes, there is color, and yes, I recognize it.
- Also, they must have already formed inside their mind the words to best describe it.
Without the observer, there is no strawberry red pants.
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What about smell?
Can a smell exist if there are no complex olfactory stimuli processing systems?
If no creature or other living thing could process smell, then the stimuli would have no scent.
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And touch?
If we felt nothing, there would be no concept of touch.
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Everything we observe in our minds (and out of our minds for that matter), is a reflection of our own response to the stimuli we receive and process vis-a-vis our sensory systems. In effect, the processing of what you witness is a reflection of your Self.
The next time you take in a sunset, I want you to remember this.
What you are seeing is a reflection of your sensory systems and cognition, and in turn, of you.
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Because we are by nature transient in our attention, we have begun to realize that much of what we experience is a direct response the things on which we’ve chosen (unconsciously or consciously) to place our attention.
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Visualize with me here.
We are at a circus with thousands of people. There are sideshows of fire-swallowing performers, folks juggling knives, elephants nervously shifting their weight back and forth, clowns covered in thick face paint performing skits, children laughing, crying, raising their voices in excitement, and parents talking, shushing, answering their cell phones, and smiling.
If you are a child entering this arena, you may no longer hear your parents’ voices directing you to follow them. You may become distracted by everything going on around you, and enveloped by whichever piece you fancy the most. Even self-preservation takes back seat to your attention, because if your parents are also distracted by their own sensory overload, they may believe you are following right behind them, but you are not.
If you are one of the parents, shuffling along patiently, waiting for the lines of people to break open so you can walk through them, you may also become distracted and not realize that your child has not been following you for many minutes now. When you turn to see your child, they are gone. In a state of panic, you may no longer take in the lot of stimuli around you. You might not hear your husband or wife continue with whatever you were conversing about. You may turn, scan the crowd and realize your child is not where you believed them to be, and rush forward, trying to find them. The circus noises no longer register in your awareness. There is only one thing on which you are focused: finding your child.
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Now, become an observer. Let’s say that from the seat you are sitting, you can see the whole circus ring before you, but you are also close enough to the exits and stairs that you can also see a particular family who is looking for their seats. You may see that the adults are walking in a pair, ahead of the child. You may observe one adult call back to the child, “Stay close!” and you may observe that the child did not hear their parent at all. The child is watching the knife juggler.
You may watch as the gap between parents and child becomes wider and wider. While you watch, you may hear less of the conversation that is happening beside you. Depending on your character, you may interrupt the persons talking next to you, jump up and go to help the child.
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The point is this: With everything going on around you, there are significant gaps in that of which we are aware. We make decisions – even unconsciously – as to where we place our focus. In that focus, the things that didn’t make the attentional “cut” are those things we do not observe.
If there is no observer, then the quality of the unobserved has changed. It can no longer be a particular color, feel a certain way, or smell like something sweet because without the observer to perceive it, there is nothing to be perceived.
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Because there are many of us creatures who are here to observe, most things that might otherwise be unobserved (and therefore fail to exist) remain in existence.
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This is the nature of “thoughts become things.”
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