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MAKING CHOICES IMPLIES
USE OF CREATIVITY

What is It?
Good question.

Create implies to bring Into
existence.  Making choices
Involves evaluation of risks
and gains Involved, and making
a determination to pick one
of something over another of
the same type of something.

TO DEVELOP THE ART OF BEING
ABLE TO BE CREATIVE In making
choices, problem solving, or
the fine arts, you need to
unplug your definitive mind and
let It wander a bit.

EXERCISE TO HELP YOU DO THAT
INCLUDE taking a walk, a park
a bike, a nap, singing, drawing
or looking out a pretty window
for a half an hour or so.
TRY NOT TO DIRECT YOURSELF IN
ANY PARTICULAR DIRECTION FOR
AWHILE.  Think of the way leaves
drift on the wind, or the manner
In which rain drops on puddles.

THIS IS AN ACTIVITY OF THE MIND
a regeneration of the stuff of
which dreams and wishes are made
up of.  IF ANYONE ASKS YOU WHAT
YOU ARE DOING DURING THIS TIME
YOU MAY REFUSE TO EXPLAIN IF YOU
WISH.  That's part of your right
to make choices!
 

You see something you identify as beautiful, and you lock in. Eyes freeze on the spot, and you begin to carve deep encodes of the details, mentally.  Time slows for you, and the object fills your inner world.  Physically, you go on alert, pupils expand, heartrate increases, you narrow your attention to a pinpoint and record every minute detail.
 Years later, that moment stands clearly out in your memory. The scents, sights, sounds, feelings, and colours of that instant are easily accessible to you, and you can more or less live in that moment from time to time, forever.  You were absorbed. The pleasure was intense.  Use that scenario as a measure of just how sharply your attention can focus, and how long it can comfortably stay on one topic. Attention has several aspects.  First, focus, can you get there to any one moment? Then, duration, can you hold yourself to a topic for long enough to establish some sort of event?  And, lastly, switching.  When you have finished on a thought, can you move on?  We have all had the experience of trying to have a conversation with someone who did not do any one of the previous three activities.  They never got there at all, or they wandered all around the topic in general without making any sort of point, or they kept on the same statement for hours without being able to move on from there. The trick here is to operate your mind in a variety of those three modes, putting your attention to focus where you want it to, keeping it there long enough to accomplish what you can, and being able to move on after the event.  Are you still paying attention?

For thousands of years humans have searched endlessly
lovingly
hungrily
for the source of joy, or energy, in hope of being able to increase their feelings of bliss.

This strikes me as being the same scenario as looking for your glasses
when you have put them atop of your head.

Being puzzled, finally, you reach up to scratch at the place where the memory of where-you-put-your-glasses is seeming to have failed you.

A random gesture?
A surprise solution tucked silently inside!
And how did you react to this latest information?
Disgust?
Amusement?
Did you call yourself a nasty name?
Did you laugh out loud?

Two people
same situation
different reactions.

And who is it that is doing
the choosing of this feeling?

And how on this sweet green earth could any one person make that switch from self anger to self acceptance?

Well first I think you need to smile.
Wherever you sit or stand at this very moment
Please smile now!

Gosh, you look happy when you smile!
 

Humans
search for energy "out there" in corndogs or movies through music or drugs and being quite civilized "go shopping" for compacted energy in
chocolates or wine, or through other people hoping to catch a buzz of joy from a youthful lovers or a clever comic and they do it because it sort of works for awhile, which is of course
 why a usually sensible human would do such a thing.

Unfortunately, the drugs wear off and you can't stay in that bed all day and the hunger for happiness or enthusiasm or completion returns.

Being habitual creatures (and aren't all creatures?) well gosh we just try again and try some more and pick another potential joy-source and keep consuming. And the effects keep wearing off!  Darned! (Sometimes leaving unpleasant consequences, don't you know?)

Inside silently some instinct knows their should be feelings of perfection or bliss or joy.

So what's the deal?
Where is IT?
What do I have to DO to be "up there" in my emotional outlook?

Well
permit me to suggest that you stop reading for a moment and smile.

For those of you who are already thrill seekers, you might like to smile again!  For those of you new to smiling,
take it easy at first it takes some getting used to.

Now listen here.
You don't need crystals. Crystals are nice, but you don't need them.
You don't need another sufi workshop. Sufi workshops are nice, but you don't need them.
You don't need another drink, smoke, hug, lesson, shirt, car.
All of those things are nice.
Have some now and then!
(And don't forget to smile and say Thank You.)

Of all the thought I have ever been given the most confounding notion was the notion that I was somehow responsible for the content of my thoughts.
Initially
I was quite certain that I was not.
I made some pretty impressive excuses, I thought, mostly silently in empty rooms arguing fiercely with this idea.
Most of the excuses began with other peoples names..
"But Barney But Charley But Mom.."
and ended up justifying my feelings of confusion and anger and helplessness.  Which is important, because the world
 made (if unhappy) sense to me and one needs occasional reassurance at some times that the world does indeed make (if only occasionally) some kind of sense.

I spent many a year just a squirming' and a fussin' with that approach
and was shocked to discover that as long as anyone else was responsible for this wild confusion I had for a life well
only someone else could repair, or restore peace, to it.
And guess what?  No one Did!

I now look at this style of thinking as my "mechanical" phase.
Something was happening and I was correct to assume that someone somewhere was the cause of it all.
I just had the wrong pronoun.
Wups!
And as long as Buffy or Tony or Zak was driving I was forced (by my own thinking) to just ride along through life.

It was a nice ride.
I just wish I would have been driving.

So if someone Else is not responsible for the quality and quantity of my feelings, daydreams, life-style and limitations
well???

Where is the blasted source?
It must be around here somewhere
because it follows me everywhere I go.

(And I Swear I Have Looked Everywhere For Those Glasses.)

I am still caught by surprise when my friend says she is always late because her boyfriend has her car.
I stammer.
I try to be gentle.
I understand the need to have the world make sense and in this way, to her, now, that makes sense and I don't want
to argue with anyone's sensible little world.  It's not polite.

I try a dash of logic
A little reason and try to step gently through the obvious "Why do you keep giving him the keys?"

I know there's alot inside and behind it all. There's a need for love and acceptance, fear of loneliness, concepts of needing to Help Others, all wired into her actions.
In frustration, I sometimes slip into brutal honesty.  Go get a guy with a car. And I feel we have both missed the point.

I guess you need to blame others for what you are doing until it dumps you so bad (Lose a friend, Lose a job,)
 that your denial just gets ripped off.

And in the abyss you grab for some warmth or salvation and find only the truth can help you to correct a situation
gone ragged.

I just wish we could grow more gently, take a few less hard knocks, and maybe an extra smile break or two.

(Ok ... it's okay..go ahead and smile.)

Okay
so now you are in the driver's seat or at least considering sliding over toward the control.
Where do you want to go?

Well here's my favorite! It's wave your magic wand time!!!
Would you really choose to keep your job?
Your home?
Your spouse, cat, shirt, or do you have the feeling that your selections just "happened" to you that the marriage was someone else's idea or the home never quite felt calm, anyway?
Oh here's another good one:
"If I am creating my own life why am I making such A Mess of things?"

Well
the law of behavior says you must be getting something out of it, or you would stop. It must make some kind of sense to you maybe you always thought your home was nervous, so this one being nervous makes sense to you. Maybe you thought you would never deserve to be loved for your self, not for the free transportation you provide to your lover.
Hey, feel free to jump in and argue the point.

I mean, why would anyone, for example, keep driving to a job they claim to hate?
Answer number ONE: (all together now) FOR THE MONEY
but but but
there are thousands of jobs you could switch to so choose from the hidden agendas listed below:
I want to suffer I like pity.
I am fearful of change.
Pain has been in my life so long I wouldn't feel good without it.
I am totally lazy and refuse to put out any effort.
 There are no other jobs in this small town, (Pack and move)
I can't afford to move. (sell your car)
I need my car to get to work. (Ride a bus)

I say
what you can't afford to do is to live a life in needless suffering.
I say
choose what you will, just admit that you chose it.
And
Smile
A lot.

Arguments are, by nature, endless.
Every point Has an implied counterpoint.

Let's just step away from the debate here
Let's just slow this down for awhile ...

HEY
How about another one of those nifty, free, pleasant, non-habit-forming

                 S m i I e s ?

Okay
now you get the idea.
You be the one from here on for the rest of your life who determines
when you choose to smile.  Okay?

              G o s h
just do that, and I'll feel I did something
with myself!!!

I taught you to smile more!!!!
And you love smiling, don't you?

Are you happy because you are smiling or are you smiling because you are happy?

What difference could it possibly make
if the result is you feel happy?

Its a silly debate!!!
I will smile at it!!!

Okay troopers, you made it this far it's time for the ugly truth. You will have to participate in your own thinking process. It's tough at first, but it will get easier with practice. Start by talking to yourself out loud and be gentle now,
 you're talking to someone you care for!
You will also enjoy the experience of being listened to By someone who cares for you as well!

At first, to court your own favor, start by telling yourself whatever you want to hear. You want to make a good impression! (Hey..are you smiling on your own now?  I THOUGHT so!  Way to go)

Now,
if you are growing, you will find you have some challenge facing you in your life now, so discuss it -
Be reasonable
Stay Calm
Find Solutions and try to carry them to action. You'll find some of your best ideas suck. Hey, it's part of the plan.
If your life is stable enough but mmmmmmm just not juicy or exciting or amazing or anything well then weed your garden!  Don't like something?  CHANGE IT.
Like something ALOT?  Get some more in there!!!
Stuck in neutral?  Just don't know WHAT to do or think?
Go read ten or twenty good books on motivation and organization
get all jazzed up
slap on the boom box
and spray paint the shed
Because you chose it
so just dig doing it.
I choose to love my job, and dig it in it's cool moments.
I work with some people who drag themselves in by the hair, looking
blurry and depressed, and they just suffer through every day.
I just won't go into that mode.
It's always whatever it is but how you think and feel about it hey, there's your option again!
It's what it is.
Now what are YOU?

We are in whatever Here we are in for whatever behavioral-reward type reason and the fact is Here we Are.

The next and vital step is What exactly do you intend to do about it?
Suffer?
Loudly?

The point of all this being that everyone has the ability to have the power to change how the world around you is.

You don't need prayer beads, although prayer beads are nice.
You don't need a sanskrit mantra, although mantras are nice.
It's alteration of consciousness from sorrow laden to joyous without changing anything other than
What You Are Telling Yourself About it All.

A complete reorder of your outer circumstances comes from changing the voice within.

This morning I awoke and sat
(coffee steaming on the sofa)
in the crossroads
looking casually though a selection of
1000 or so potential today's.
Not knowing which to choose, I selected
All Of The Above.
First
I took a scoop of magic, and cast a few very casual spells
on the home
on the cat
on the sky and myself and later
a splash of love
and a study in human contrast provided by some casually passing unhappy souls (these can always be acquired for contrast studies)

Later
I added creation
laughter
meditation
snacking
some candle light music and relaxation.

By midnight
(the official deadline of the day)
I had managed to dip my soul
in every joy and sorrow
the sweet earth has to offer.

After a good sound nap
and a theater of night wind dreaming
I get to choose again.
(maybe)