Today consisted of me reading, arting, and hanging out with 2 friends today.
First I went to a cafe and did a couple of reading and met up with a friend. We got to talking and I realized that we both are closer to each other than I thought. We had a deep insightful conversation about life and where we wanted to go and it was nice. Looking back on it it was a good conversation to have to just hear life from another perspective. I don’t really have much to reflect on it as I was just kinda in a flow state during it. We talked a bit about how there are ideals about masculinity floating around society that we seem to prescribe to. There seems to be the idea that in order to be a “man” you have to be tough and be stoic and be overly muscular. To be honest I find some of that to be bullshit. I find a lot of societal beliefs to be bullshit actually. I’m reading a book right now and it opens up with how we should actually question the beliefs that we have and actually assess the whether or not they empower us or are true. Before. I didn’t really understand what he meant by this when I read it. Now that I go over it again with a fresh set of eyes I can see what he means by that. There is so many beliefs that are either outdated or are disempowering floating out there and we believe them due to a whole host of reasons. One thing that is lacking though is that we don’t question them and accept them blindly through various means. Seeing how this relates to my own life I saw how I’ve started to do this with my own life and assessing what I believe to be true. The process of doing this is not comfortable as sometimes I’ve had to let go of beliefs that I’ve held true since I was a child. However while your a child is when your most susceptible to accepting beliefs blindly. So in a way you almost have to work backwards from where you are now into the past in order to create yourself a better future.
Second part of the day I spent making some art on a random wall I found. I forget how cathartic making art is and how good it feels to just free your mind for a while and just create freely with no restrictions or boundaries. While making the strokes and painting on the wall. I felt like I was slowly breaking out of the box I had created for myself. I saw this when I was drawing on the wall I decided to step away from the usual patterns I was making and made something completley new. This process is synonomous with what I’ve been doing recently with my own life and my art has begun to reflect that. It’s almost as if the art that I make becomes a reflection of me. As my art evolves so do I , and as I evolve so does my art. It’s pretty much a symbiotic process that is mutually beneficial. The same is also true though that If I become stagnant so does my art. The more that I reflect and engage with art the more and more that I begin to understand it. The issue that I struggled with before was that I would not continue my art because I felt stagnant and bored. What I realized today though is that by actually making the art and pushing myself to make it I actually push myself out of the stagnation and boredom. While I was painting on the wall it felt incredibly freeing. To just create and be in the present moment with the art. I was in a state of flow for on and off periods. But when I was I felt no need to worry about anything or felt rushed , I just felt like where I was at that very moment was where I needed to be.
Thirdly I had conversations with a good friend of mine where we talked alot about how our meditations were going and what changed we noticed as we progressed with our practice. One thing that I’ve been noticing , and I might’ve addressed this in earlier entries is that, I’ve begun to notice subtler and subtler things in my everyday life that give my insight into my surroundings. For example I can read the subtle cues of people in what they say and their micro-expressions . From that I can get clues into what is going on in their mental state. It’s very interesting how a very simple practice can lead to profound changes in ones everyday life. I’ll continue to practice daily and strengthen my discipline in it. The meditations have much to teach me and I have much to learn. Last thing before I sign off, I REALLY love how doing the morning and evening meditation , It acts like a cap and start to my day. It doesn’t matter what happened in the day or anything. I can always have that hour of pure peace and equanimity at the start and end of my day. I’m starting to really look forward to it now everyday. Anyways that’s my reflections on what I’ve learned today.
Stay Humble, Stay Blessed.