Beautiful And Ugly Side Of The Mind
The mind can be the most malleable substance in the universe, but only if one wishes it to be so.
We, humans, love to hunt for some magic box that would open up the possibility for us to accomplish whatever we want, wherever and whenever we want. And if we are told that there is an alien object, a black shimmering cube from an outer space that could give us tremendous power that could grant us an untamed potential and that could imbue in us superhuman abilities then every one of us would be hard-pressed to learn more about it.
The scientists would be all over it. They would dissect it, research it, and would attempt to reverse engineer it in hopes of unraveling its mysteries and inner functions. They would leave no stone unturned in attempting to crack its code.
Its decipherment would be something that everyone would look forward to with bated breath. Entire humanity would be intrigued by what potential powers it holds. And everyone would want that day of revelation to roll past as fast as possible.
But then we may really don’t need to seek such a wild contraption because the secret that we wish for is one we already possess. Why do we need to look elsewhere when we already carry the million years of evolutionarily and biologically sophisticated and matured project in our heads? The brain is the most powerful biological object in the universe and the mind the most powerful simulation.
But if we are least interested in understanding our own mind; the magic box we already possess then harboring a wish to find any extraneous object is also highly deceptive, one rife with treacherous traps. Because it compels us to keep on chasing after something that we don’t have and most shockingly doesn’t exist, all the while forcing us to turn a blind eye towards that which exists and what we already own.
And just by observing how trivially we treat our own mind we can be certain that if we were to even chance upon some magic box, after a while we would no longer treat it as anything special once the novelty has worn out. And it would become just as ordinary an object for us no more powerful or different than a finger on our hand
But mysteriously exquisite as it is, mind deceptively is a double-edged sword, a glowing sign that it is truly remarkable. For all powerful things can aid and harm if they can’t do both, then they are not powerful enough. At any given moment mind is characterized by duality.
For it is, simultaneously both darkness and light, prosperity and ruin, help and hindrance, tempest and quiet, apex and abyss, hope and despair, freedom and bondage, cynical and trustful, rigid and malleable, settled and roving, clarity and haze, meaning and void, tamed and unruly, promise and denial, empowerment and restraint, infinite and bounded, known and unknown. enigma and insight, chaser and bystander, savior and executioner, creator and demolisher, ruler and slave, commander and puppet, doer and naysayer, doubter and determined, catalyst and deterrent, force and impotence, question and answer, remedy and chaos, connection and boundary, start, and end. The mind is all that all at once.
It can help a person fight when the whole legion of doubts and fears descend upon him, when the roaming thugs of troubles vandalize his courage, when the battering ram of miseries and hardships ram into his strength, when the armies of trials and tribulation lay siege upon his spirit, when out of the nowhere a hidden band of adversities ambush his hopes, when the mob of privation and predicament strangle his vitality, when the unending suffering stabs his morale, when the unhinged miseries steal his sense of purpose, when the hidden traps of failures and dejections ensnare his will to go on, when the relentless obstructions crush his core.
In those times his mind is the sword and the shield with which he stands his ground. It’s his mind that keeps his hopes afloat, keeps his strength intact, keeps his sense of purpose alive, and lends him the will and the force to evade surrender, to keep on fighting and keep on pushing until that moment arrives when he finally triumphs over all that threatens his world, when he vanquishes all that which stands against him and when he marches on as a victor with all the odds subjugated and bowed before him.
But then mind may also be the one that turns on him and does all that by itself dismissing the need for an external enemy. It may lock him up into a stifling prison without any trial and jury. It may drag and throw him into a dark cellar without ever learning why. It may shockingly push him into an inescapable pit when he thought he had its trust. It may manifest as a scary ugly being that horrifies him and makes him cringe.
It may put shackles on his feet, manacles on his hands and chain him to the wall to languish away. It may cunningly enact a propaganda apparatus that aggressively blast self-deprecating imagery to keep him subdued and live under its serfdom. It may deceptively show him enemies and obstacles where there are none. It may rapidly shift its currents to force on him a loss of control.
It may mischievously call him out from many different directions where he can no longer determine what it wants. It may immorally project dreadful demons walking around to keep him ensconced in his cozy refuge. It may embroil him into the traps of temptations to tune him out of his true journey. It may warp perception to the point where it strips him of his desire to live.
It may impede him in achieving his goals, it may hamper him in doing what he wishes to do, it may inhibit him in making progress in life, it may restrict him in growing his character, it may repress him in enriching his personality, it may obstruct him in attaining happiness, it may thwart him in rising to his highest self.
That is why it makes sense for him to understand his mind and learn how he can unleash its power to get what he wants and make it work for him and not against him. Because, his efforts, his passivity, his happiness, his sadness, his desire, his disinterest, his competence his inability, his valor, his cowardice everything emanates from his mind.
The mind that is so mystical that it encapsulates the entire world, all the hidden and exposed thoughts, all the possibilities that can occur, all the inestimable actions a person can take, all the endless directions he can go in, all the ceaseless roles he can play, all the infinite lives he can live. And it views everything as a pair of opposites, locked together in a binary system. Where each pair can be thought of as an atom, with one constituent of the pair as electron while the other a proton.
And a person can make this entire pair positive or negative, depending upon which side he listens to and decides to go with. If he goes with the negative side it is as if he is causing the pair to gain an electron thereby turning the whole atom into a negative ion, one giving off harmful negative energy. But if he goes with the positive side, it is as if he is causing the atom to lose an electron thereby turning an entire atom into a positive ion, one giving off wholesome positive energy.
A person’s actions determine which side of the pair will be activated and whether a pair would be positive or negative overall. If negative pairs outweigh the positive ones a person becomes weak, despondent, demotivated, empty, hopeless and rudderless. But if the positive pairs outweigh negative ones, then he gains strength, motivation, perseverance, direction, and contentment.
His mind allows him to do things that for him once never existed. When he was born at that moment he hadn’t done anything in life. His action history was void. And so he learned and began to do. From birth up until now everything he did, there was a point when he did that for the first time. All the repeated actions were first-timers once. A person’s entire life is simply a composite of first-time actions. Some were one and done, some repeated a few times yet others carried up until this day. So why shouldn’t he continue to do what he has been doing since birth? Why shouldn’t he do more first time actions to explore what else is in mind, what else life has to offer and where it can take him.
Who knows what secrets, lost abilities, and talents remain untapped and what regions of the vastly infinite mind may lead to the next big leap in life. Who knows how far thoughts can travel, and what treasures they would bring back from the exotic voyage. The thought universe is free from space, time and constraints. Whatever exists there can be transferred over and be infused into real life.
The thoughts are like threads, the material life is like fabric and the person’s actions like needles. And so a person can weave the threads of his thoughts into the fabric of life with the needles of his actions. Though the mind can create whatever it wishes, the material reality follows rules and patterns and whatever needs to be crafted needs to observe those laws.
A programmer can pretty much create any program he wants but to do so, he would have to follow the rules of programming and the language to write the code that would achieve his goals. A painter can draw whatever he desires but to bring those creative thoughts into the real world he would have to use the tools of the material reality; the canvas, the brush, and the palette. By using the material tools he would be empowered to impress his creative thoughts onto the canvas and make his thoughts real.
The connection between mind and reality is much the same. A person has the thoughts within and the tools beyond and by forging the connection between the two he can move his thoughts from one end to the other and transfigure them from mere spectral images into a tangible reality.
But since everyone’s mind is different, it’s up to the person to explore and understand his personal and unique mind space. No one solution can fit all. No one way can unlock the powers of everyone’s brains. The general patterns can fit but the details have to be figured out by the person himself.
If the mind were a sword then though everyone’s sword would look the same but the weight, the cutting power, the sharpness, the length, the width, the girth, the metal, and other factors would vary. Someone can teach him how to draw the sword, how to swing it, how to thrust it and use it defensively, but ultimately he is the owner of the sword, he best know its intricacies, he has to figure out how to use it, grow with it, learn new ways of dealing with it and unlock its ever-expanding mysteries.
If a person is left to spend an extended time with someone, then he would do his best to learn more about him, he would strive to understand him and would attempt to develop camaraderie so that his extended time with this person would be an amicable one. But what about his mind that is always with him, even when he doesn’t have anyone around or when anyone or everyone leaves him. It has been and will always be his most permanent companion in life.
And if one has to spend an entire life with his mind then it only makes sense for him to learn how to use it and how to unlock its infinite potential. And when his mind is transformed his life is transformed, and then his mind becomes his greatest gift and his most prized possession. But if he neglects this unspoken and unwritten obligation then his very mind becomes an affliction for him that torments him, that obstructs him and that prevents him from progressing in life.
Everything that a person does each day, the reality he forges is the manifestation of his mind. His life simply is the mirror of his mind. It is that sought after mystery box, it is that enigmatic code. When someone opens its gates a whole another universe sprawls before. This is the next big frontier that each and every one of us should explore. When the mind is explored all other frontiers will unravel themselves unquestionably.
Knowledge not gained equals ignorance. Power not used equals weakness. Efforts not made equal stagnation. Abilities not exercised equal atrophy. Talents not discovered equal loss. Mind not harnessed equals waste and life not actualized equal unfulfillment.
