Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Sleep

I don't sleep too well. I go to bed feeling that there is something unfinished about the day. I get lots of ideas when I'm in bed, unable to stop my mind from slowing down. I try not to think up these ideas because I fear I will forget them overnight and they will be wasted. I literally dream up ideas too, but I can never really remember them, all I remember is the feeling, and telling myself in my sleep not to forget them when I awake. I often have ideas and keep them to myself, thoughts that are like a secret between me and life. I contemplate sharing them in order to spread the brainwaves, but I stop myself because I'm afraid that other people will not share the passion or be able to experience the ideas like I have. This way my ideas tend to get lost or forgotten, so I don't even know I had them in the first place. In fact, writing this is something that I have thought over and over for some time now, pondering what the outcome may be if any. I feel that my brain is so hyperactive at times that if I don't share my ideas or at least write them down, then they will be overwritten by the continuous surge of thought passing through my head. I'm talking about things that I would like to share, ideas that hold some sort of significance or importance for me, not just a stream of consciousness. I think we live in a society where it is almost taboo to imitate or directly and openly copy something you have seen heard or experienced in any way. What is wrong with this? This is how children and young animals develop. Humans are naturally inquisitive and playful, but I think that as adults this is something that gets repressed. Children call things like they see them, if they come across something that they may not have experienced before they will openly express their fear or interest or however it is they feel. They won't pretend it isn't happening or just pass it on by. I have often found myself either in a group or on my own, climbing or trying handstands for example in a public place like a park. Then I notice that other people, usually the children are copying our games and trying the same things. If you see something that interests you you want to try it, and the way you try is by copying what you have seen others do. It's a simple process and probably the most natural and innate way of learning.
In my experience I have come across what I can only describe as a phenomenon, a phenomenon where people have ideas and then claim them as their own, saying that it is wrong to use the same idea in any way, as if an idea is somehow something that can belong to you. Science, technology and the arts would not have come this far if humans did not copy one another. You may have seemingly just plucked a new idea out of thin air, but that doesn't stop anyone else from having the exact same idea at the exact same time half way around the world or even half a street away from you. I don't believe that there are any new ideas, I just think that it is a matter of tuning into them or rather, being in tune with them. In every culture, skills and knowledge were passed down from generation to generation as a means of survival, but that process seems to be dying out in modern society. We work in offices and buy our food from supermarkets where our relationship with what we eat is nothing more than something else to be purchased and consumed, and people hold knowledge like a weapon. I feel that people don't share their ideas, their creations, their knowledge, because it gives them a false sense of security, knowing that they have a particular skill that other people do not. Fear that if you were to teach someone everything you know, it would somehow devalue that knowledge, or yourself as a person. I know that people also don't like to freely give up knowledge, particularly if they had to work long and hard for it, as if that everyone else must also work equally as hard for it. I know this because that is how I used to think.
When you refuse to share knowledge not only are you slowing down the growth of what could be an infinite number of people, but you're also stopping yourself from growing and moving on. For everything that you willingly share, impart, and let go you will get back so much more. It is a wonderful thing to share and to teach, to see someone discovering and experimenting with things for the first time just like we all did at some point. I believe that in some ways we are products of our inspiration, not to say that we have no choice in life, but all these little jigsaw pieces both conscious and subconscious shape what could be called our 'style' or 'personality'. These things are not rigid, they are meant to change and they are not really who we are. Once you see things from this perspective you now longer see it as a threat to your 'self' to share ideas and knowledge you have, which have basically all come from somewhere else in the first place.
Through my own experience I also believe that the more people are aware of a particular idea or are joined in a way of thinking or acting, the more likely it is for other people and groups to spontaneously have the same idea in a sort of snowball type effect. Hence why I feel it is so important for us and everyone involved in all the various forms of expression, creation and exploration to share what inspiration they have acquired for the advancement of human consciousness.
This is my way of giving back, my way of allowing these fleeting ideas to flow wherever it is they wish, to pass on inspiration, to capture the moment and set it free.
Every action is a revolution, we underestimate the effect each of us has on the world as a whole.

When you have some spare time please take a visit to the link below.
http://www.freewebtown.com/jaxxkaos/monkey/monkey1.html

2 comments:

BMcG said...

Exactly as you've written... I think things; You also think things. On this subject, we do not disagree.
Too bad the website you've listed at the end is some sort of "Attack Site" or I'd write...

Byron H said...

I feel like I just read a transcript of my own thoughts. I wish you lived close so we could train and talk together... maybe I'll find a replacement, haha.