deceptions of an arrested understanding

a soul in unrest

attached in the mire on this journey’s quest

I beg for release

from bondage that won’t cease

a mind that must heal

somebody help me

I’m falling, can’t seem to deal

I don’t want to think, don’t want to feel

the questions I keep asking

the answers must I fight

the forsaken rules taunt me

a claim that proves itself right

awaken the passion

align this plight

amuse these memories

settle the voices

I cannot escape in the night

The Observance of Specters and the Specters within our Observations

As a child I learned to pay close attention to the ways I was treated by others.  As I grew older and reached other stages in my maturation, I continued to learn about the effects of our behaviors and searched for a guiding philosophy.  Indeed I am still learning life’s lessons and think there is no finish line in developing oneself, rather, there is a fluent continuous process that evolves us.  As far as I can surmise, I was a normal kid, but I somehow developed sensitivities that continue to operate within me to this day.

I have often been told that “I think too much”, “I care too much”, or “I worry too much”.  It is like having a Super-ego on steroids.  I can’t recount the times I have stalled from taking action on something I wanted to pursue because I did not want to fail at it, or quite possibly the reason could have been due to the fact that I was shy in my boyhood.  My honest assessment is that I was probably too fearful of doing something wrong, and that the judgement of others weighed heavily over my consideration in some social settings.  I equate this scenario as possessing a naive perspective, and without having many resources to turn to other than my own thoughts, I did not feel like I could turn to anyone for advisement, that I was shy, and that I possessed an injured self-esteem.

Knowing this about myself, I must have been susceptible to receiving an ethos for that platonic theme of finding the best possible life when I think of my desire to know about why we treat others the ways in which we do.  I can visualize the platonic dialogs that circle my head as I think of them

• The Republic & Crito (Justice)
• Phaedrus & Symposium (Love)
• Gorgias (Rhetoric)
• Euthydemus & Protagoras (Sophistry)
• Lysis (Friendship)
• Meno & Protagoras (Virtue)
• Philebus & Theaetetus (Knowledge & Pleasure)

I will never truly know why this ethical prerogative has been infused in my psyche.  I first pursued psychology as a way to understand the questions that seemed to always plague me.  I then naturally studied philosophy and opened my mind up for further discoveries about the human condition.

As time continues to place us in situations, and as we fare through these experiences one after another, we form opinions about ourselves and the world.  These judgements and beliefs from these experiences are often compartmentalized and stored within our memories.  Sometimes we are aware of them, and sometimes they are stored within deeper realms of thought that we are not so aware of.  The possibility for these sub-conscious ideas and beliefs emerging and expressing themselves within our personalities and behaviors without a deeper understanding of them seems to be a logical assumption.

As my surveillance of the world has a tendency to incontrovertibly find the grievous elements in human behavior; the insipid parts of our existence that penetrate my discerning eye, I more often than I would like to admit, regret this disposition.

I reach out to a world and find an ocean of misguided anguish-ridden souls, and a desert (scarcely populated) of visionaries.  My surveyance is preoccupied and tends to place my attention on elements that do not please the ethical aesthetic.  I spot them with uncanny ability that seems to haunt me like a curse.  But despite these observations, there remains a path for the traveler to choose how one would like to travel.  Learn to detach and separate one from a life you are not in favor of is the course of action.  Build the skills to look beyond the crass, and beyond the foul spirited such as they will always be a part of our world.  Look to the path that is hardest to travel, yet rewarding to traverse.  Fortunately one can train oneself, and can appreciate all the positive attributes that keep the spirit uplifted and resist the skeptical and rescind the nay-saying antagonists.

The fact that there is a mass misunderstanding of an ethical life in our world should not stain our souls with disgust.  The soul often tires from a constant barrage of ill-founded exhibitions in its passage through the world.  So too can the soul thrive on a healthier dynamic that can uplift oneself and others if it remains in a befitting disposition.  Again the Specters in our observances must be brought out into the open and extinguished to allow for a better perception for us to see the possibilities in our world.