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There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
You may be saying to yourself, how ostentatious of the author of this blog to start with a quote, and a David Foster Wallace quote at that. Then to refer to himself in the third person? This isn’t starting well. I am starting this blog as an outlet for myself. Challenging my own thought process and ideas. Something about the unexamined life... Further, I hope to develop my writing. If in this process my writing speaks to you, challenges your own beliefs, or grants you a new degree of freedom in your thought, I will have gone beyond what I have set out to achieve. To be clear early on: while these are my words, to a large degree they are not my ideas. I may add my own colour, perhaps a small twist, however great thinkers have come before me. I make my contributions standing on the shoulders of giants, as they say. We must challenge our cultural conditioning; the water to the fish. All-pervasive and deeply ingrained, the water goes unnoticed and utterly unexamined. In fact, we are not even aware that there is something to be noticing or examining at all. Sometimes, I may post ideas that I whole-heartedly disagree with. Even ideas that appear implausible, unnecessary, or unknowable are important to consider and discuss. A brief example: to ponder the vastness of the universe may appear unnecessary. However, if the result is a momentary deflation of our ego-centric view of the universe, the exercise of contemplating something so vast becomes useful. A wonderful person in my life in recently quoted Krista Tippett, “Intellect does not function in opposition to mystery; tolerance is not more pragmatic than love; and cynicism is not more reasonable than hope. Unlike almost every worthwhile thing in life, cynicism is easy […] It judges things as they are, but does not lift a finger to try to shift them.” Here, we avoid cynicism and acknowledge that questioning, even the ‘unanswerable’ questions, brings a greater degree of freedom from our thoughts. In this freedom, I hope you can find space, and in this space, I hope you allow yourself to experience the ease of being. General housekeeping: I will write as often as I have ideas. To begin, I will post to this blog. I may share the posts on Facebook from time to time. It will very much depend as to whether I feel like it is benefiting anyone or whether I feel as though I am cluttering your newsfeed. I encourage comments if you have anything you believe may benefit other readers. However, I would be ecstatic for you to message me directly if you’d like to discuss anything in specific. I will also try to mention any inspiration I draw upon, whether it was a small idea or something that perplexed me in hopes that others can be inspired by them as well. I am excited for this exercise in self-exploration. With love, Nat |
Navigate The Ocean (Create image for this)
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