Day 3

going on the 72th hour, that's seven two hours since the start of this challenge. challenge. what a word. challenges are expectations. expectations that are not being met to our, well, expectations lol. like you all, i have my fair share. and they come in the ways of a woman. it's the first time since my young days of being married that i've made this kind of commitment to someone. the commitment to stick through and weather the emotional ups and downs with a partner. some of the girls from my past would probably say i had commitment issues. maybe. i just never thought they were worth the personal investment to commit to. to make the commitment to someone means that you are emotionally, financially, and psychologically putting in work and energy to help out the other individual.

i guess that's the keyword. investment. we expect (there's that magic word again) that by putting our effort into this individual, our efforts will be rewarded by a bigger return on our original downpayment of energy. where does this idea come from? why do we call relationships, which are always defined in relation to ourselves, because what else is more important than us, something that has to benefit us?

when we look to nature, and all her creations, we see that for the most part, species tend to find an equilibrium of giving and receiving, and these parts are greater than the sum of all. trees, for example, put down roots into soil, which holds the soil, and keeps it from disintegrating into rolling sands. these roots form a network with other plant species, sometimes sharing nutrients from the soil. these roots then extend outward reaching towards the sky receiving sun from our central star, the sun. it just so happens that we human beings conceptualize the root system, the tree trunk, the branches and the leaves as separately functional pieces. when really, they are all the same being.

it's easier for us to think of the world in discrete chunks. it's not as overwhelming. it also helps us process the world. by labeling reality and its many pieces into easily processed words and their meanings, we give ourselves the illusion of knowledge. by calling the leaves of a tree the part of the tree that receives photon energy, we make assumptions as to what is going on. we can't help but to. reality is a vast and sometimes unknowable place that exists both inside and outside time, both in and around space, and everything else in between and outside the boundaries our imaginations fail to reach. but just because we can't conceive of it, nor imagine it, does not make that unknown any less real than the leaves on a tree.

what am i trying to say here? i really don't know. i only know that i am a human being that has invested time and energy into various individuals over the course of my life time hoping to achieve a nice ROI. other times i didn't even want to put in a minimum amount of myself into them. overall, i guess what i'm trying to discover, or rather, decipher, is the current challenges i have before me, because i expect that with enough determination, the little struggles i face on a daily basis become rather obvious challenges that can help grow my own potential as one of many consciousness constructs, in order to reduce the entropy i bring into the world, and help improve the quality of my own relationships, in whatever stages, into fulfilling, loving interactions.

this is day three. and i've already gone back to the voice that lead me on this crazy ass path when i started asking the big questions about life, like what is my purpose here? why am i experiencing reality as such and such, and can this be changed? if so, how?

i used to study cognitive science back in college. now i'm studying life hoping to achieve the degree of understanding that makes that college degree look like some simple piece of paper with fancy text on it. the irony. if only i had the wisdom back then to realize studying the mind from books can only rabbit hole so deep.