The numbers are shockingly astronomical….the amount of people who vividly without second guessing flat out publicly express how incredibly busy their life is even though we’re locked down in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
It resembles a late night Monopoly game where you barely have sixty bucks trapped under your side of the board and yet you keep rolling the dice...the mission is to land on GO...before arriving Park Place is breathing your name, nearly demanding that you leap onto its corner of the world and if you do, just like the real world…those controlling the cash grant you enough time and space to gather a few thoughts in hopes you’ll quickly pay them back or you secretly come up with a plan to borrow money from the bank by exchanging a few ones in for one hundred or two fifties. Nobody was looking…it’s not a crime until you get caught.
Away from the world of circular gatherings with squared corners to pout or shout in victory a new study unveils that most of us are very much aware of the world that surrounds us. Peripherally we are in good shape…but only in places we are familiar.
So where are we?
One quick glance at the long lines at restaurants and movie theaters and its safe to assume we’re still in love with American Culture. Are we? Author and life motivator Eckhart Tolle seems to think our perception of reality falls short of the true experience…and guess who gets the blame? We do!
When a person escapes their town to see the mountains, beach, an amusement park or travels far away to a different country our consciousness brings life to thinking. Through perception Paris might be the finest city of lights on earth until you arrive and realize it’s far from being what you assumed.
Perception + Experience = distorted judgment.
No matter where you travel remind the self you’ve become that 90% of the time it’s only your body that’s moving…the rest of the journey is created in your head.
My top five places on this giant blue marble are my constantly growing always filled with incredible stories forest full of trees, the brilliantly designed history of Charleston, SC, the fantasy of oceans meeting mountains held by the soul of Santa Barbara, California, the antique feeling of being British without leaving North America in Victoria, BC Canada and the incredible warmth and lack of control inside any radio station production room available for use.
According to the great wisdom and experience of Eckhart Tolle, me naming them falls perfectly into what he speaks:
I named it
Interpreted it
Compared it
If I could grab a flight to Victoria…the moment I land, the experience wouldn’t be anywhere near what my mind has already planned out. An available radio station production studio doesn’t come a dime a dozen and once inside it’s far from being set up the way you expect it.
See how it works! Kodak paper was not used when printing the pictures my mind sees…it elected to go the route of judgment.
We’ve stopped putting faith in all things that make up our surroundings. It’s become a daily goal to push the walls of this giant balloon without ever knowing how much is too much and what happens if it pops.
Constantly naming what you love is an ego builder. Once in place your mind no longer has the right to naturally observe. You’ve already told it what you like and won’t settle for anything less.
Take the most recent Cash for Clunkers campaign…a creative department of marketing geniuses sat in a room late into the night demanding to penetrate your thought process by means of devising a plan that easily convinces you that there will be no better time or deal than right now to purchase a brand new vehicle. Nobody wants to get caught driving a piece of junk. That’s like when your mom drops you off at school and the other students notice she’s still wearing a bathrobe and her hair is up in curlers. Thank god they didn’t notice her thong!
The perception of this deal sounds unbeatable…the experience…congratulations you have a new car payment with no job guarantees.
Grocery stores know how to get you through the door…buy one ice cream get one free. The experience…we are the heaviest generation in history. The diet pills are killers and organic food is too expensive.
My heart attack had nothing to do with my current life and style…those arteries started shutting their doors in my twenties and thirties and when I became extremely active in my forties those little dirty names couldn’t handle the high demands I put in getting back to living.
How do we train ourselves to kick up the engines of our present circle? What methods can be used to sharpen the skills of visually seeing what makes up our path versus what we’d enjoy shoving onto it?
Tolle invites you to stare at a pen, a plant, chair or coffee cup…explore it by taking great interest in what makes up its presentation. Becoming interested in it by means of curiosity—the goal is to learn how to stimulate thought. Julia Cameron calls it painting a room. You can put me inside a totally white room with a single chair and within an hour’s time I’ll have poetry, music and a short story penned out on paper.
How? Learn how to eliminate the objects that put your mind and soul in a past you can’t change. If I suddenly shot off to Victoria the goal would be to create new memories. Why? I have plenty begging to be digested.
Learn to take the thinking out of perceiving. Don’t allow the voices in your heart and head gain access to your desires to rediscover you. Learn to listen to the wind not the abuser who says no, no, no! Now give me ice cream!
After seventeen years of preserving the forest to which I live, I finally slept in it two nights before the attack. I was completely amazed at how loud it was. You can’t yell at the frogs and snakes to quiet down nor can you chase the owls and deer away…even that tiny skeeter buzzing around and finally through your ears seemed to be part of the jazz.
Learning to let sound live through no desire to interpret it teaches your body to relax. Welcome to the journey called inner space.
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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