The Ways in Which I Dream
I can’t read sheet music anymore
But the music within me still continues…
The Music of My Mind
I would write you a song, but I’m not good at rhyming, nor do I think song-like thoughts. I’m not sure if there is really a beat in my words, but sometimes when I write, I feel like my mind is singing. Let me play you a song from my past; they’re all stored in my brain, I don’t need an app to access them.
My heart knows how to sing. Do you ever feel like you are in a musical without the music? Sometimes I like being alone because that’s when I can really hear the music of my life. I don’t know anything about music; I just know what I like and what I don’t like.
I tried to play the trumpet and the harmonium as a kid and failed miserably at both. But there’s still music in me. I don’t know how to get it out, though. I sing my heart out in the car, where no one can hear me. Is that what they mean by living out loud?
Sometimes it’s the small words like the that really mean everything to me. This that you me. All of it. I don’t know what note to sing in. I don’t know what the soundtrack to my life should sound like, but I know it should be full of poetry that shakes my soul.
Because it is my soul we are talking about when we speak of music. Music should play me, I should not play it.
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Now this is absorbing yourself in books!
I don’t want to just read books, I want to be them…
Reading the Literature of my Soul
When I read, I take myself to another world. I live inside other bodies, read other minds, think someone else's thoughts. I’m living many lives by reading many books. I experience things I have never experienced. I have feelings that are new to me. The more I read, the more I become a full human.
Someone who understands that humanity is all connected. Sometimes I become the main character, sometimes I become the author. Their story becomes part of my story. Reading makes me more interesting.
Words create a reality within me that is more real than the reality outside of me. Inside the pages, I live and eat and sleep and can finally breathe. My soul becomes awakened by stories. The characters are like my friends. I know them, I am some of them. I understand them better than I understand some people.
Time is different in a novel; it goes at all kinds of speeds, the future and the past sometimes converge altogether with the present, and you have a conglomerate of time that goes beyond what anyone can experience to what the mind can imagine.
I can imagine what the author is creating, I can see it, I can feel it, I can be it. I am in the soul of the pages, the spaces between the words.
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Writing Reality and the Imagined
When I write, my various personalities emerge. There is a beauty in using language to create people, lives, worlds, and experiences. There is also a beauty in creating thoughts and ideas that lead me to personal inspiration. I don’t always know what will come onto the page; sometimes I just close my conscious mind and let myself go when I write.
Words are not actually ideas; they are simply symbols for the truth. The truth is there, in the air, and words allow the truth to be known. Writing allows me to be whoever I want to be, and sometimes who I don’t want to be. It gives me freedom to express anything.
I can be witty, I can be intelligent, I can be stupid and ugly and beautiful and smart. I am all those things and more, and I can relay that with words. Words are my friends, but my best friends are my readers; they are the reason I do this, not the only reason, but a very important one.
When I’m typing, sometimes I feel like I’m playing the piano. The sound of the keyboard that scribes my words inspires me. The click click, can take me to another world, to another personality, to another inspiration. I am these words, but I’m also not, and I am more as well.
You are these words; it’s almost as if you wrote them as well with me, because you and I are one. Our souls are connected. When I share my innermost feelings, you understand me, and all of a sudden, you merge with me for a moment.
Sometimes I fight for these words, sometimes I fight to get any words out that make any sense at all. I have no idea what I am doing here, but I know that I can connect with you and another you and maybe even another. One person is actually enough.
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Image courtesy of Maksim Chernyshev via Scopio
The Art of Meditation
I don’t know if meditation is an art or a science. It is scientifically proven to reduce stress, but it is also a very esoteric practice. It once cured me of depression a few years ago. Literally, I started meditating, and the depression lifted as if it were some kind of magic spell.
The quiet mind is full of peace and sometimes bliss. I have felt both those things during meditation. I have felt my soul, and I know myself better because of it. I understand my true nature is beautiful, free, and wise. I have learned from meditation. I have learned who I really am.
Who am I, you ask? I am a spirit that has a body and a mind. My spirit is connected to you, all of you. I am more than one person, I am part of the all, and I am also the all. When I am deep in meditation, I recognize the all in me, and me in the all.
You don’t have to believe in god to meditate. You don’t have to believe in anything. You don’t have to do anything, except breathe, really breathe. Sometimes I don’t even close my eyes when I am meditating. There is walking meditation, and you can even meditate while washing the dishes; it’s about your mindset.
In meditation, my soul sings from the inside. Meditation is how you read yourself. Mediation is how you write your story. Meditation is the most important thing I do in my life for myself.
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These are the ways in which I experience catharsis, release, and peace. These are the things that lead me to love and happiness. These are my ways, what are yours?
nina