Deep Thoughts

DEEP THOUGHTS

I don't know why, but this last week I've been feeling very insightful, and I know I'm quite an insightful and analytical person as it is, but this week it's more so than normal, and I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's because it's my time of the month. Maybe it's because I accidentally cut 4 inches off my hair and new hairstyles always seem to symbolise turning points in my life. Maybe it's because my friend and I were weighing up who we'd marry out of James Bay and Matty Healy, and why. Maybe it's because I went for a run the other night, and that always gets me thinking deep. Maybe it's because I've been watching too much Pretty Little Liars. Maybe it's because I've just been writing an essay, where I've been trying to work out a solution to a problem. I don't know. All I do know, is that I feel like I'm seeing the world through fresh eyes. I feel like I'm amazed at the simplest of things. I feel like my perspective on life is changing again. I feel like I'm understanding on a deeper level than I did before. Maybe I'm maturing again, just like my tastebuds have been doing as of late. Maybe it's because I'm 20 in eight weeks time. I can't put my finger on the answer, but I like it all the same. It makes me happy and appreciative to be alive.

Last night I was lying in bed, and all these thoughts about people and life kept coming into my head. Not necessarily personal thoughts, or personal perspectives. Instead it was more abstract concepts, more neutral, more general. And all these thoughts were simply rehashing the ideas and concepts I've been playing around with in my mind all week. Some might consider it boring, but I adore the simple act of thinking. It makes me really happy. I love those moments where there's nothing else I can do, except sit or lie down and think. I love learning new things and educating myself. I love processing information and doing things with it. I love exploring concepts in my mind and trying to relate them to other things, or compare and contrast them against something else. I love trying to make sense of things. I love to understand why. Last night was the first time in a long time, where I found myself reaching out for my phone so I could write all these thoughts and ideas down. I didn't want to forget them. They needed to be put down somewhere, because ultimately I wanted to refine them further, explore them further, and share them with other people. I want to see if they think the same things too. Or if maybe my own thought could fly like the seed of a flower, and plant itself in the mind of another, where it would then bloom. So that's why I decided to write this post. I've been itching to write all day yesterday and all day today. Sometimes it's like I can feel the words are in my fingers, waiting to be released, something needs expressing. I just need to figure out what it is. And today it's those deep thoughts occupying my mind, and with that, I'd love to share them with you. So dear readers, get your snorkels on. It's about to get deep.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CONCEPT 001: WE ARE THE PRODUCT OF OUR ENVIRONMENT

Humans are essentially built around the concepts of input and output. We're meant to be a product of our environment, whether that be the environments chosen for us, or the ones we chose for ourselves. When we're born, we're a blank slate, and as soon as you enter the world, your environment immediately begins to shape you and construct who you are and who you will be as a person. All this input is fed into your brain through your eyes, your ears, you nose, your mouth, your fingers, your toes, and it all interlinks together to create a bigger picture, which then goes on to create some type out put. Then you do something with that picture. It leads to a change. It's always leading to change. And that change helps to build up who you are. Maybe the information is simply stored, and something new is learnt. Maybe it corresponds and excites something inside of you, and you form a personal connection which goes on to form part of who you are, and your personality. Maybe it makes you feel another type of emotion, and you express it with the world, and you learn to associate two things together. Maybe the information helps you to determine who loves you and cares for you. Maybe the information makes you move, makes you speak, makes you reach out to someone else. Maybe it prompts a basic survival instinct, and you act accordingly. 

I find it so interesting how no-one is, and could ever be the same. How who we are is a product of so many different things. Even the smallest, most minute things are capable of creating an impact, whether that be purely in the moment or something permanent. When you're a human, living your life, you feel some kind of static, some kind of definite, some kind of permanency,  ike you're constantly plateauing forwards. You feel relatively simple, relatively plain, like not a lot is really going on. Yet the reality is you're constantly changing, always. You're always electrified by life. You're always in a constant state of processing, deciding, acting. You're always making little changes to the world, and the world is always making little changes to you. You aren't a piece of 2D art stuck upon a wall. You're like an animation. Always moving, always changing, always doing. You're always being added to, built upon, and it's like there's two streams running through you. One is the here and now. It's temporary, high impulse, always changing, the fight or flight kind of thing. The other is caught somewhere in infinity. It's permanent, it's deep rooted, it represents and is who you are as a person, and you carry it with you from birth to death, and it changes gradually over time. And all the information coming into your brain, all the time, enters these two streams and leads to a whole rainbow of different actions and changes. It's just crazy how you're the same person when you die, as you were at birth, yet within that time in between, everything has changed. The world and the people in it have shaped you, built you, broken you, changed you, bettered you, and it's amazing to think that if I'm this person today, who will I be tomorrow, who will I be in future?

CONCEPT 002: WE ARE THE PRODUCT OF THE PEOPLE WE'VE MET

I was binge-watching Girls, and two of the characters were in the transition of ending their relationship and starting new ones. And it made me think about how people impact us, and change us for better or for worse. And how you don't often step back and see the progression you're making, and how you're changing a little bit at a time, as people come and go, and life takes you by the hand and guides you onwards. Again, it just feels like everything is rooted to one constant, never ending moment in time. Life feels like the same day lived over and over again, just with different names, numbers, meanings, tasks, people, locations. All these different variables. You look to these important markers to assure you that time is even passing by in the first place. The seasons. Christmas. Easter. Your birthday. A loved ones birthday. Deadlines. Ends. Beginnings. The lines on your face. The way your body changes. You don't realise how everything is always changing, and how much you've been changed. It's crazy how people can come into your life, doing their own changing, their own processing of the world, living off their own conclusions and ideas, and the two of you collide and impact one another. And sometimes it's temporary, sometimes it's permanent. Sometimes it scratches the surface, sometimes it goes much further. And sometimes they stay, or sometimes they go, but whatever happens, their impact remains, like a crater from a meteorite collision against the planet of who you are. And even if they aren't there any more, they stay with you, like a stamp on a passport, that gradually builds up and fills over time. And again, you're the product of who you've met, because as humans we're so vulnerable and susceptible to the influence of those around us. 

I think back to all the thousands of people I've met in my 19 years, and I know that I wouldn't be who I am today, had they not come into my life in some way. And I think to those certain few who have defined certain parts of my life, and guided my moments of transition. And I think to those very select few who changed everything, and how incredible it is that I even met them, and how amazing it is that we reacted, we do react, in that very special way. It also makes me wonder about who I'll meet in future, and who I'm yet to be changed and influenced by.

CONCEPT 003: ONE OR THE OTHER

In life, we often have the choice over how we process input, and what we decide will be our output. And this typically goes on to shape your personality, and how others perceive you, as well as what they think of you. It's normally a one of the other kind of scenario, in that you can be happy or sad, fast or slow, selfish or selfless, truthful or deceitful, caring or cruel, mature or immature. Everyone is faced with one or the other, and we have to decide which way we'll go. It's like inside of us is a whole  factory full of switches, and we each choose which way to flick each switch. And that creates a unique pattern that to an extent identifies and represents who we are. It's like creating a billion different recipes from the same ingredients. 

I find it so interesting how everyone is essentially made up of the same concepts, same components, yet they're all in varying degrees and quantities. Even the finest of distinctions can completely distinguish one person from another, and it means that no-one is ever truly the same. I love comparing people's personalities, or comparing them against my own, and seeing what's the same, what's different, how a mixture of their qualities makes them who they are, and the qualities I have make me who I am. It makes you realise how unique each individual is, and how none is better than the other. People aren't a varying degree of classification. They're a continuum. 

CONCEPT 004: COMPARE AND CONTRAST

As I just mentioned, I'm particularly intrigued by comparisons and contrasts. Lately I've been thinking about my immediate family and my close friends, and the impact of being similar or different. My mum and my dad are complete opposites personality wise, and they perfectly balance and complement each other. I can't picture one without the other. They each bring what the other is lacking, or has less of, and they're like ying and yang, together creating a perfect whole. And then I think about how my sister and I have been fortunate to inherit the results of that perfect union. How we're both a half and half split of our parents, and how being around mum or dad brings our the respective parts of our personality. With mum we're more opinionated and confident, with dad we're more calmer and peaceful. Even with my sister and I, we're the same in so many ways, yet we're also very different, and again that helps us to understand each other, as well as balance one another. She's a realist, I'm a dreamer. She has a healthy dose of pessimism, I have bucketfuls of optimism. She's shyer, I'm more confident. And I think it's so beautiful how other people can help complete you, and round you off as a person. How we can give each other that gift, this special, incredible gift, just by being ourselves.

I think that contrasts are great, because they show you what you're lacking, what you may need to work on. They help you to understand and know who you are better, by helping you to know and realise what you definitely are not. Some of my best relationships with other people, are those with people who are very different to me. The contrast helps grow me as a person, and become a better version of myself, as do they help me to better understand other people who may be different to me. But likewise, some of my best relationships are with people who are very similar to me. Those kinds of people who implicitly understand you, and seem to be on the same wavelength. Who re-assure and re-affirm and reflect parts of who you are. The ones with who you don't need to explain yourself, because they already know it for themselves. Contrasts and comparisons are wonderful concepts, and I think it's so important to have both types of people in your life.