LIFE IS A SERIES OF IDEASÂ
They say, ‘What you don’t know, won’t hurt you!’, and I will disagree. It is not that the missing information will hurt you directly . . . it is more that the absence of it will cause you to take a long and often painful walk through countless lessons.
These lessons that could have been shortened or terminated by knowledge or wisdom and digested into the flesh and bones of the living being as a canvas of experience. What we learn from others, who are perhaps only one step ahead, casts a valuable light on what is to come, and we are less surprised.
At first, we adopt ideas and adapt ourselves to them in the absence of our own originals . . . and we live them in relief and minimal gratitude. We have become an abdicated people who have not learnt to shatter the ideas of others or begun to create our own. We are too afraid . . . too timid. The idea of who we are is slowly revealed to us as we grow up, and others are themselves the reflections of others who live by someone else’s ideals. We thankfully migrate from our formative ideals to our worldly ones . . . again . . . the reflections of others who live by someone else’s ideals.
Reflections upon reflections until we no longer have a bare and exposed piece of knowledge at our disposal. It’sall smoke screens and mirrors and very little truth to ply out the thorns of ignorance. Truth – as a witness – exposes all that corrupts, covers, adds upon, layers, hides, confuses, mimics and stands naked upon a hill. It is seen and conviction lays the Soul bare, and in the naked stillness . . . the transparency of its acute clarity . . . the reflections and mirrors, the ideals and ideas collapse into nothing.
For they were simply the workings of manipulation and their design induced to fool the foolish. Ignorance . . . can hurt and it can prolong what would have been a momentary experience into a life of heartache.
Learn . . . about yourself only from those who stand naked and leave a trail of feathers so light they are carried by the slightest breeze.
A PETRI DISH OF POTENTIALÂ
Environments don’t make a person!Â
They offer opportunities to everyone who is housed within them, whether it be for a brief moment or a long time. Every environment welcomes people and like a holodeck (computer-simulated physical environment), they showcase certain features for the pleasure or dis-pleasure of the visitor. In one environmenta family lives within the walls of a pleasant house with a garden and five members, and they are generally thought to be ‘happy’. In another environment a family lives in poverty under a bridge and as they struggle to keep warm, they give generously to those in similar circumstances. In a third environment, a dysfunctional family lives in wealthy surroundings, barely seeing each other and seldom expressing terms of endearment, whilst spending money on frivolous things. Whilst these are only a few of the examples, and wealthy people can be happy and poor people can be misers; each represents an environment of potentials.Â
 We find ourselves placed within environments from birth and it is rare to find someone who does not have a gripe about how, where or when they grew up. The fact is . . . they survived the environment! They emerged with something valuable and it is the lack of ignorance that ushers a person towards understanding why they created the environment in the first place! The first step towards self mastery is to acknowledge that you survived your environment, and this applies to past and current ones, too.Â
 Environments don’t make a person! The choices they make about themselves in the environmentmake the person! Every environment is a petri dish of potential. You choose to play on the stage, you act in the drama, in a role which suits you and you are listed in the end credits. Many choose to be the victim, the tyrant, the controller, the snitch, the betrayer, the defiant, the loser, the helpless, the powerless, the jealous and the deceiver. Likewise, the rest choose to be the lover, the helper, the leader, the adventurer, the powerful, the loyalist, the trustworthy, the observer and the achiever.Â
Take your pick!Â
You define yourself in every environment . . . even if you were stranded on a deserted island. You get to choose between the lost and deserted or the solitary and found. How you choose is decided by your thoughts while you explore that particular environment. If you don’t like the holodeck that you have chosen . . . leave. Think a different line of thoughts about yourself and give yourself a role termination order! Go and find a new environment.