Blank.

Play.

I had half a mind to leave the page blank, allow for artistic interpretation to the emptiness that very few things offer these days. To have some sentence at the end about what to make of your own blank page, your own life's purpose etc. However, I decided instead to provoke.

When was the last time you allowed the mind to wander? When was the last time you didn't stop or try to control the thoughts? When was the last time you were allowed to actually daydream? I feel sometimes that the phone, the thumbprint, the scroll, the 5-10 minutes wasted, and then the rush to catch back up on work or be present with children, or try to catch back up on the conversation you were missing, prevents us from doing so. I feel as though the mind's ability to be, and explore, no longer exists as it once has.

Now, sitting, dreaming, and getting nothing accomplished are not warranted in this world either, nor would that be fulfilling, but everything in the world now seems a way to stop the mind rather than start it. Medications, supplements, meditation, conversations, or varying distractions from an led back lit phone or headphones pounding everything from music to books to the news reports from media outlets, all here to get us anywhere but our own thoughts. We make snap judgments, sure. We tend to form opinions in the blink of an eye, fueled by emotions from some initial feeling too quick to digest, too gone to dissect. We have conversations about superficial things we saw online, or deals, or other worldly things.

As nonjudgmental as a dog watching his
owner eat the entire meal, by himself. 

All of this and yet the path of least resistance leads us to our own wandering minds. At some point we were allowed to wander the vast dessert of emptiness, objectively wandering from object to object, thought to thought, no expectation, no fear, just being, going where the mind went, exploring without the anticipation of finding anything.

When I started writing a blog in 2011, every idea I had, I would interrupt at the beginning of a thought. I assumed where the thought was going, and started writing. I never allowed the thought to finish and found a hollowness because of it. Was I trying to get an idea down before I lost it, or was I trying to convey an idea to the masses that I thought would be well-received? Seven years ago, longer than my marriage or child, I wasn't exactly the most altruistic person, so my desire to produce was fueled by a pain for longing. Now, through practice and appreciation, and the years of realizing that my own mind is great, and that it deserves to be explored, has empowered me within unlike another meditation, affirmation, mental health technique ever has.

No longer must we look within only to find what we judge in others. No longer do we have to be scared of the parts of us we have known all along, yet we fear to bring to consciousness. No longer should we fear expressing those thoughts, ideas, beliefs to others because they too might think the same thing, and if not, then you might be surprised how emotional or specifically jealous they get because of what you have and they don't. We don't have to fear ourselves or look down anymore because of the uniqueness and stand-aloneness that we can perform because we don't "fit in" in some way, but can thrive because of it.

Though survival in numbers is critical to the primal desires of the human species, aka ego driven behavior, we are not striving in the right environment. If we were, the thoughts we have, the uniqueness we bring to the table, would be recognized by no one more important than ourselves. We can explore us, love us, we don't need others to affirm it. Plus, nobody will ever grasp you, their minds couldn't handle it.

A book on a mental health detriment, Body Image Disorder, Muscle Dysmorphia aka Bigorexia, written by myself, from my own mind, my own wandering is available Here. Even if you aren't currently suffering from a body image disorder, the read is a fascinating one on a devaluing mental health disorder not many people know about.

God Bless.