Walking on Diamonds

'Ello Reader,
Sorry for the long delay--it's been kind of a crazy week.  I'm actually sitting here redoing my hair since it's looking a little minty green.  It's supposed to be purple... it turns out blue.  Don't ask.  So I'm sitting here, a bit bored, I haven't blogged in about a week, and it's a good way to procrastinate on my homework.  OH!  I'm going to a conference from Friday to Sunday and I am super excited about it!  So yep, that's what is new with me.

Hmm, so let me talk about thought and the mind for a bit.  Our minds are incredibly powerful and incredibly mysterious.  I mean, why else would a branch of psychology (cognitive) be dedicated to the mind and how it works?  We can slip into altered states of consciousness through things like meditation or hypnosis, which are really solely due to the mind. Our minds can also cause physiological symptoms, especially those associated with pain or anxiety.  There's a whole slew of psychosomatic disorders out there, and I don't know about you, but stress and worry wreak havoc on my body.  I especially carry stress in my shoulders and as someone put it quite eloquently to me, "You have knots on your knots!"  So yeah, it's a little crazy to think something so intangible can manifest thought and worry into physiological symptoms.

What I think is a little bit cooler though, is the concept of attention.  If we don't pay attention to something, especially something visual, it's as if it doesn't exist!  I find it both interesting and a bit freaky to think about the extent of what we miss on a daily basis, simply because we're not paying attention.  The other night, I was walking back to my dorm sometime around midnight. The temperature had just dipped below freezing and the very thin layer of moisture left on the street and sidewalk was beginning to freeze.  I wasn't really paying attention, but when I looked down everything seemed to sparkle.  It was as if I was walking on diamonds.  It was the most beautiful thing I had seen in quite a while,  though I must admit it was rivaled by the hoar frost we've had on the trees for the last two days.  Stunning. Here's a photo my friend took of that by the way.  I feel so lucky to be living in such a beautiful place.

I think I was lost in thought before I noticed the sidewalks and roads.  I love just sitting around and thinking.  It's why I kind of like blogging--it forces me to organize and summarize my thoughts.  I think a lot of people enjoy thinking, and especially having the time to think, but what gives thought it's value?  It is valuable because we enjoy it? or do we enjoy it because it's valuable?  Also, does the value of thinking come from the sheer fact that we do it and enjoy it, or from our explicit application into our daily lives?  I'll leave that last one up to you. Whatever answer you come up with, I'm sure it will be epic.

So, go enjoy a few minutes of that epic thinking, but don't forget to look down--you never know when you'll find a diamond.

Please be well and be excellent!  Have a good week!

-Megan

Fragile

Okay Reader,

Since when do I procrastinate this much, huh?  Seriously, I need to stop letting myself put off so much work for so long.  You know what?  It will get done, and it will be good.  I'm sitting in my dorm at 12:30 am, just writing this.  T'was a very low key day, and I even got a nap in.  It's a shame I have to put off naps until the weekend... a cryin' shame. Anyways, this is what I've been thinking about lately:

I'm not super religious or anything, but I do have a spiritual side, and for lack of a better word, we are miracles.  There.  I said it. The human race and the human experience is incredibly and profoundly miraculous.  Why?  Because we survive as individuals, as groups, as cultures, as a race.  Not only do we survive, but given the right conditions, we downright thrive!--all while inhabiting very fragile bodies in a very dangerous world.  Life is extremely fragile, do you know this?

We have five incredible senses and an even more powerful mind.  Now, the reason I say that life is fragile is because everything we are, our personality, our soul, ourselves, are stored in our brains, and if anything happens to that brain, we lose whatever processes and systems happened to be on that part of a very fragile cortical layer of gray matter.  Every sensation you experience, every smell, every sound, every taste, every image, and every touch, only exists because some part of your brain tells you you're experiencing it.  If this is damaged... you simply don't experience that particular sensation. Fragile.

We live a miraculous existence because our lives are filled with rich, but raw sensations that our mind weaves together to form the tapestry that is the world we know.  Simple wavelengths come together in the systems of the eye to produce the beautiful image of a sunset, pressure waves are transformed into electrical signals that are interpreted to be the sounds of a friend playing guitar... and the subtle changes in pressure on our skin cause sensory neurons to fire more rapidly, resulting in us detecting the comforting squeeze of a friend's hand in a moment of distress.

We lead dangerous, perilous, fragile lives, and yet it's a beautiful existence made stable by our interactions with the places and people we choose to be and be with.  We live lives rich with experiences, even if that's just waking up to the smell of vanilla.  Life is a miracle because somehow, all this randomness and chaos makes sense once filtered through biological systems in our brain.  The science behind our senses allows us the wonder of the human experience--to experience humanity.  I think that's pretty epic, don't you?

So, Reader.  I want you to use your senses.  Breathe deep.  Look around.  Savor that meal.  Listen to that music. Feel something.  Don't take your senses for granted--just take a moment to soak it all up like the sensory sponge you are.

That's it for now.  I hope for you the courage to be brave, be bold, and be beautiful.

-Megan