Thursday, June 12, 2014

Life is like a game of chess. To win you have to make a move.

I found this great video of some less well known statements from Martin Luther King Jr. That man truly was a king.
Starting from today I intend to ponder in depth my stance on life and society and begin re-evaluating the perceptions and morals I hold to. I'm trying to find and define the border between what I believe to be my true beliefs and inherently a part of my being and spirit, and what has been engrained in me by society, culture, politics, or consumerism. I've found an excellent blog "Responsible Men - repair the past, prepare the future" which is a great source of interest and very thought-provoking. I implore you take a moment away from your job, struggles, and self-centeredness and do the same. Jesus went into the desert for 40 days to sit and be alone, as did Mohammed, as did Buddha. Make time for yourself because time gives nothing back.
Nosce te ipsum  or "Know thyself" is truly one of the most overlooked and increasingly disappearing things in our world. Here are 4 other interesting things that were nicely laid for you by the Wachowski's (or perhaps more accurately Sophia Stewart)

1. The Matrix cannot tell you who you are
Neo: “I have these memories from my entire life, but… none of them really happened. What does that mean?”
Trinity: “That the Matrix cannot tell you who you are.”
The Matrix is the system you were born into. It can be your bondage, or your chrysalis.
But that system is there. That system is culture.
It will try to convince you of who you are, how you should be making a living — that you should be “making a living.”
It will try to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong. It will tell you what to believe, whether it’s dysfunctional or not.
But deep down, culture is a human construct — it cannot tell you who you are.
2. Don’t think you are, know you are
Morpheus: “What are you waiting for? You’re faster than this. Don’t think you are, know you are. Come on. Stop trying to hit me and hit me!”
To believe in yourself, you have to know in yourself.
If you don’t know that you can succeed, you’ll let fear, doubt, and disbelief decide for you.
To be successful, you need to see yourself succeed; you need to feel it.
3. Walk the path
Morpheus: “Neo, sooner or later you’re going to realize, just as I did, there’s a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.”
You won’t know your path until you walk it. It may seem like a good idea to get a new job or end a relationship. You may be able to come up with all sorts of rationalizations as to why and how and when.
But none of that matters if you don’t know what you really want, what you really need, and why. If you can’t feel it, then “knowing” it does you no good.
Because once you do walk the path, it may not be what you expected — what you planned for on lined paper with neat handwriting, dated and signed.
Your life life is not meant to be mapped out based on what your rational mind thinks it comprehends today. Your life is meant be experienced, to be felt, to be lived.
4. There is no spoon
Spoon boy: “Do not try and bend the spoon. That’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth… there is no spoon. Then you’ll see, it is not the spoon that bends. It is only yourself.”
To truly know yourself, you must see yourself in all people, all things. It’s when you stop looking, when you doubt a connection is there — that you stop learning about yourself, and who you can be.
When something happens to you in life, you always have a choice. You either respond or you react. You either connect or you dissasociate. You either integrate or you resist. You take the red pill or the blue pill. You move on or get stuck.
When you see the problem as being “out there,” you forget to look “in here” — where it matters, where it counts.

Perhaps it's time to watch that film again. Gonna need popcorn.