Over the Thanksgiving holiday, my daughter Allison Raffel was home from college and asked me to read some of her writing. Of the half-dozen pieces I read, this one spoke to me more than the others. Upon asking myself why, I realized it’s because it forced me to think outside my comfort zone. Thinking is exercise for the mind. Our work often has us thinking along straight lines but writing like this gets me thinking along tangents. I hope you enjoy this poetry like piece from Allison.
We underestimate the power of the human mind and what the vast majority of people fail to understand is that the mind is infinite in its natural state.
What has happened, partially due to the construct of society and partially due to individual laziness, is that most individuals have programmed themselves to believe their minds, imaginations and thoughts are limited.
This is not the case. When we dream, our thoughts become vast oceans and galaxies. They are so encompassing; so real to us, that we are, most times, unable to determine them from reality.
The reason we are so exhausted all of the time is because we have created for ourselves, in the outside world, what is essentially a prison for our minds.
In modern society, there is an extreme lack of new stimuli available to the average human being. Our minds are witness to the same thing day after day with little to no variation.
Without variation, there can be no adaptation.
Without adaptation, there can be no growth.
What we have failed in when we created this society is nourishing our minds. Instead, we have decided to focus on the physical, on pleasuring our bodies with food and intoxicants.