Conversations with my Mother

Scenario:

The trees are billowing in the breeze and the smell of coffee permeates through the air. My mother and I sit on the porch on a sunny Saturday morning having breakfast.

Tilly, our cat, makes an entrance and leaps onto the balcony to have a better viewing of some birds nearby.

My mother exclaims that Tilly is a majestic cat (truthfully) and that he loves birds, so much so that he brings them back to her alive as presents.

Confused, I ask why Tilly would go against his very nature of being a cat, which is to capture and kill prey. My mother replies that he is just a sweet cat.

I, of course found this amusing for several reasons- the first being that my mother had assumed that Tilly had a sense of morality (similar to her own) and that it was enough to override his feline instincts.

The second reason was that I’ve only ever seen poor, dead birds dangling from Tilly’s piercing grip so I reckon that my mother may have imagined that they were alive (maybe in a euphemistic way).

With respect to my first point, it was intriguing to me how much my mother projected her sense of morality to Tilly, whom she felt such a deep connection with. On an objective level, it is clear that cats are hunters and evidently kill their prey; cat homes are notorious for being graveyards of victims of felines. Yet, my mother projected these feelings of mercy onto Tilly as though he acted on her plane of free will and choice. Living beings all have different views of this thing called morality- which is very subjective to said being.

Tilly may very well have some feline principles which he abides to, but it isn’t quite the same as to what my mother may view as wrong or right. Cats give in to their primordial instincts, yet paradoxically, it's these same animals who show levels of compassion when us, humans fall short. Tilly never fails to know when someone in the house isn’t feeling that great and shows the utmost levels of love and companionship; traits that are as human in nature.

Musings on our cat (who isn’t just a cat) may seem a bit mundane, but it points out some very beautiful points about we know (or think we know) about morality and levels of empathy in singular beings. As an animal lover, it’s beautiful to see animals beyond their basic primordial instincts and display kindness, love and empathy.

Maybe we can all learn to be more human by learning from other living creatures.

Charlie xx

Raison d'être

There’s always some debate whenever that question comes up.
“What is the purpose of life?”

The atheist: There may or may not be one…just don’t go looking to some Higher Being for it.
The nihilist: There isn’t any.
The Believer: To carry on whatever duty you have to do.

It’s easy to get caught up in this never ending debate, but there is one thing that is true. Life goes on, and with it is all the experiences; dullness, happiness, excitement, anger, contempt, pain, contentment….the thrills and lows that life itself consists of.
What I’m about to mention may also be the most relevant point for today’s world. Life involves you AND everyone else.

Too much of us are caught up in a shallow sphere of social media where our self worth comes from ‘likes’ and seemingly validating comments. Constantly seeking attention from people who may only know you through a system of binary numbers (that is the internet) seems void of any human value. It makes you lose yourself into a blogosphere (jab at self) of ‘look at me’s and ‘you want to be me’s.

The fact that there’s so much more out there for you to discover and contribute may seem alien to some, but it’s a norm in today’s society.

Self love is extremely important but receiving validation for insecurities perpetuated by social media isn’t love at all.

To be content and happy in this world, we ought to savour experiences in all its tangible essence. We need to feel emotions for what they are; raw, instinct, clawing at the human soul. These emotions need to come from experiences that are fulfilling; albeit a beautiful outcome or a lesson learnt.

To fulfill life’s purpose, one has to have a much broader perspective than just oneself. One should see the human scope and try to understand the many different journeys of life. Talk to people in different stages of life; your grandparents, little ones, a divorced couple..anyone. See for yourself their point views and develop an understanding of their journeys.

Emotional intelligence is often taken for granted but is one of the most important traits we can possess.

What is essentially important is to see the world through other’s realities, not just your own.

What can make you happy is the understanding of said realities and then the transcendence scheme of helping others.

Sometimes, help can be by lending an ear, being empathetic, rather than joining charity groups etc. What matters is that you try to help in any way that you can. Nothing can quite change a person more than seeing the gratitude and sheer happiness on someone’s face whom you just helped.; to know that someone is better off, since you’ve done your part.

We actually all do have duties- to oneself, family, the community, the nation and so on. These duties are all to abet our fellow man and this is what makes us who we are.
How do we know our place in this world, nay, Universe…nay, Multi-verse? It is by fulfilling our duties; seeing the world in all our different realities and aiding someone to do and be better.

Life is a journey but arguably, not everyone strides to actualize their purpose.
So don’t get lost in the musings of your reality and its accomplishments or shortcomings. Realize that there’s much more out there than your hierarchy in the social sphere or any tantamount musing focusing solely on thyself.
There’s a great big World. We are in it, and life goes on.


Charlie :)

Comfort in Chaos.

There's always been a certain
Sense of placidity
Amidst the brewing Storm.
The ever-strong tempest
Beckoning to you,
A holler you can't forego.
The towering waves come crashing down
And the thunderous songs throng
Yet there's a feeling that this is where you belong.

There's a power to the Storm
But a whisper to its song.
A comfort in chaos
A feeling that this is where you belong.

Charlie.

Human.

Sometimes do you ever wonder why it is that you're so sad?  It may hit you in waves; these listless moments when you feel as though all the happiness is ripped through the skin and you don't know what the trigger was. You just know it happens. We're a paradoxical generation. We have so much at our feet and yet, we are haunted by demons in our heads. We fight for what we want, we make our voices heard, and we do incredulous things once we set our minds to them. At the end of the day, we retreat to our private shells. Only there's no sound of the ocean or beckoning of home. There's the sound of emptiness that resonates and reminds us that we are so alone. A world plagued by networking yet there has never been a more hollowed out mass before.  So what makes you so fucking empty inside sometimes?  What makes the sadness creep in?

Sometimes I wonder if it's the authenticity of  relationships.  Maybe we don't try half as hard as we should. We care but sometimes it's painful as far as relationships go. Family and friends are people just like you; trying to get by in this haphazard world.  It's not their fault that they stumble or fall short in aspects of their lives.  Give the people a break.

It hurts when you invest in the wrong people. The time and energy in that isn't worth the return. It hurts  when you don't invest in the right people. You'll have lost out on good net worth.

People say they want to understand you.

They act as though they really wish they could.  Only tell them one of the deepest thoughts in the recesses of your subdued mind and they go running.  No one wants to hear your problems. Everyone's got their own. Truth is, everyone is equally fucked up in the head. Just no one admits it.

Maybe that's why we're all so sad. We're all chasing away demons that we figure we alone have.


Yet, society is a mirrored image of these looming Beings.

-Charlie

"What is it all about? It's like asking: 'What's the pit in the middle of an onion?' And, you take off all the skin, and so on, and so on, and so on… And suddenly you find you've got a litter of skins and no pit. There wasn't anything in it. You might say: 'Well, that's a hoax. Life is a deception; a tale told by an idiot.' And yet, what you had missed, in looking for the pit, were the beautiful skins. See, that's the edible part of the onion." ~Alan Watts in audio "Zen and the West - Early Chinese Zen"

Revelations

Revelations happen at night

In the darkest hour; 

From Contemplation, pours forth light.  

Wish you may and wish you might 

Things that were occluded are  now within sight. 

So what is it about quiet reflection 

That makes sense of a thought? 

It is in the lonely  moment 

That an idea is brought forth. 

You wrapped up in your own essence,

Nothing to dilute the thought process, 

A naked canvas of intellectual stimuli, 

All draw from the power of 'I'. 

For the answers  were always deep within,.

Layered far below more than just skin. 

Buried in the chamber pots of the heart and soul,  

All it took was Darkness to unfold. 

~Charlie 

Age is just a number

They say my age is just a number,

Rather than a measure

Of who I am.

But what if I told you

That the significance of such

Is filtered by the webs of a spiderling.

That my age isn’t just a number,

It speaks the Truth.

 

~Charlie :)