This summer has been spent in a lot of thought for me. I am constantly, however, reminded of a picture a friend of mine posted once on Tumblr. Though I do not remember the original artist or link of the photo, I can clearly recall what the picture held. It was the image of a man lying on a couch. A giant lightbulb had smashed his head, leaving blood on the floor and furniture. The lightbulb was cracked and pieces of it lay all over the place.
The meaning of the picture? We think too much. Sometimes our thoughts can lead us to a sort of mental death, to a point where we can't think anymore, we can't live happily or in peace.
This is precisely the place I have been trying to avoid going to. I know my thoughts can rule me, can push me to think the most unthinkable ideas. Even worse is when I am thinking of five or six different things at once. That truly makes me go mental and I have no way of talking to anyone with a straight conscience. I have been outruled by my unrelenting mind.
And this leads me to ask the question of whether or not our thoughts are one cause of the misery and joylessness of life. Although I'm hardly a vigilant prayer person, I tried to go back to it today. In these moments, I sometimes open my Bible, hoping that there are words to find that will suit the prayer, since I hardly have the words left for such an act. Curious as to where my book-ribbon was, I flipped to the location of it. It was stuck in Matthew. I usually have reasons for the ribbon being in certain spots. Obviously there was a day in the past where I saw something that struck me and I decided to save it for another looking. I looked and looked on those pages today to see what I had saw that I liked. And I did. It started in chapter 11, verses 16 and 17:
"To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: 'We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.'"
Of course, my first response to the verse is "Those are part of the lyrics in 'Torches Together' by Mewithoutyou!" My second response was a bit more sinister. What are we? What do we do with our minds and our actions? I cannot help but feel that we are the emotionless people of that generation spoken. Children are trying to cheer us up. They are singing and dancing; they are mourning and sad; but we have no emotions left to spare. We are the adults who have duties to pay heed to, familes to take care of, bills to pay, cars to fill, groceries to eat and thoughts to think on. There is no time for being happy or being sad. We can only be hard as stone, for letting ourselves be vulnerable through love and emotion is to surrender our wits and discipline.
Is it? Is it really surrender? Can laughing and crying be all that bad? This is one area in which I see the ruling of our mind's thoughts as key to the trouble. After spending a lot of time this summer with my niece and nephew, I've learned that children understand the balance of emotions better than we do. They would cry if they didn't get their way or if they got hurt, but not long after that, they were back to their happy selves. There was the time for sadness, but they knew joy was just around the corner. Children have taught me a great deal. They have shown me that if I let my thoughts control me all the time, it could drive me into madness. If I just know when to dance to the flute or to mourn to the dirge, then I'll be on the right track. Tears are not a weakness and dancing is not a sin.
Our generation needs to lighten up; that goes out to every person of every religion or no religion. If we take our lives too seriously, we'll kill ourselves from the inside. This isn't to say that I don't struggle with this part. I am very serious to the point that I can appear to be a jerk to some people. I apologize if any who read this got that impression from me. It's my stone-cold wall I've built because I don't want my emotions to get the best of me and I have a hard time trusting people.
I've got to listen to the kids. I've got to be the emotions without shame.
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