Morning Inspiration

by jenkapotente

Evolution is paramount to an enriched self.
Learn, grow, change.
Live and die ten thousand times.
Feeling stagnant? Induce metamorphosis.
Do not give in to the paralysis that results from fear of change. 
Recognize fear and begin the resistance.
Stop waiting for change.
Stop putting happiness on a back burner.
Complacency grows with age.
Will you be looking back and convincing yourself it all worked out for the best, trudging through the muck of what you deem obligations
or will you act when you find you are discontent?
Time is precious.
How much of it is wasted?

My overarching struggle is to align action and intention in such a way a persuasive argument will never have to enter my mind or escape from my lips to convince my self or another of what is truth.
Are we conscious of how much persuasiveness is involved in our discourse? In our responses?
How much of our time is spent being defensive? In argument?
I must take care to not get caught up in the frenetic struggle of chaotic beings. But I will donate my time and touch for their therapy when I can. And when I am in need of therapy, I know it will find me.

Peace is the destination.
Solitary is the journey.
Compassion is the currency.

Be well.

Organicity of Self

by jenkapotente

How do you know if your interests, actions, or thoughts are governed by the powers of marketing, advertisements, television, or cultural milieu?

Exit.

Travel to another world. See what is retained, and then, for how long? See how what you retain is reshaped, through new influence, new experience, and new understanding. The beauty of our organic humanity is our evolution. We change, inherently, through and by our surroundings. Change is facilitated by myriad factors. And, as hard we try to hold on, change is unavoidable. It is in Time that Change occurs, but our knowledge of Time is predicated on our ability to keep it: most prominently through the written word. Our knowledge of civilizations is based on our ability to maintain record. Imagine how devastating a great fire or digital collapse could be on a society. It could mean the entire erasure of their existence when combined with enough Time passing that the memory of them is also dissolved.

So what are we retaining? Who are the lucky ones who get their memory secured in Time? We have some books that supposedly go back a few thousand years. But language changes so dynamically within a mere century that I highly doubt we can appropriately maintain the same ideas of 2000+ years. And in those millenia since have had a large lapse in information. Do we still trust? I don’t trust information which goes through the hands of 100 years of political leaders, magistrates, rulers, so how could I extend that to millenia? Not going to happen.
What I know, little as I do know, is if you want cultural security, surround yourself with those of like mind so that you may flourish in a way that is consistent with your preferred framework of understanding.

I think I want this sort of existence, and then I behave differently. I visit and experience different worlds of existence that, superficially, do not work together, are not harmonious. And it leaves me in a tizzy. But perhaps my vision is so small, I cannot understand the greater cohesion.
I once experimented an altered mind state that left me with one notion: “we are all the same”. And with as much experience I have witnessing our differences, I always return to the sameness of all. This circle is my only understanding.
One must experience chaos to know order. Both chaos and order are boring results. The interesting part is in experience.
So experience change and know ultimate happiness, note to self.
Change at a personal intellectual level: understanding of a process like an algebra equation
Change at a personal physical level: pregnancy or growing hair
Change at a physical cultural level: watching shoulder pads return as fashionable or prosthetics for limb loss
Change at intellectual cultural level: empathy for earthquake or bomb victims
Change at physical global level: the warming and cooling of our earth or migrations of peoples across continents
Change at global intellectual level: concern for limiting pollutants and planting new trees

Hipsters

by jenkapotente

It was the music and it was the images that drew us. We were in love with the look of it; the sound of it, packaged before us inside of 90 minutes. We said, “This is me; this is who I am, too”. We staked our claims in the characters, in the fashions, in the storylines. We chose it to define us. And in its definition of us, we thought we revolutionized the art of film. It was no longer just a narrative. It was a narrative about us. And the music was the soundtrack to the story of us. The world had never known this kind of narcissism. And we were drowning in it. And maybe we realized it, but we indulged it all the same. Because everyone else was the same. Because we were craving definition. And we were lacking structure. Because we didn’t have anything else but the threads and lines of stylized art burned into our heads to give us some semblance of profundity.
We were an amorphous blob of a culture, eroding parameters like storms erode coastlines remiss of boundaries set before us. We borrowed from here and took from there and used all that we could to create an unparalleled beauty that was ours. That had roots in so much history that those who did not understand couldn’t see. Because they labeled us substance-less. Because they labeled us disrespectful destroyers. Because they thought us ill-educated. Because they were incapable of perceiving our preservation through new fusion; they were blinded by the shock of what they thought was tarnished.

But in reflection
we all see the connection
and that
none of this is new
because all the narratives
and all the music
were always about
us;
they
set the boundaries;
they
define the lines
we weren’t sure were there
but
always were
and always will be.