Living "In Love"...Life's Greatest Carrot

 

Song:   It Don't Matter To Me

Group:  Bread

Okay, this article is going to seem weird to many.

But, know if it does seem weird...

there is a better way to live.

Once again...

  as I was born at the tail end of the 1950s...

this makes me a child in the 60s.

I grew up observing the Hippie Culture in Silicon Valley 

(before and through a fully blown Silicon Valley)...

and in going to my two favorite places in the world at that time...

San Francisco...the epicenter of the Hippie movement...

and...Santa Cruz...one of the epicenters of The New Age movement...

all through the Psychedelic Age of the 60s and 70s...

and later through the 80s...

through the New Age movement.

I had noticed they all had a central tie in...

an underlying creed which had interlinked them.

They had all stressed having a free heart...

of connecting with the subconscious...

and whether they had known it or not...

it was their real mission in life.

This is what they had in common with pragmatic people...

without either of them knowing it.

They were on the same mission in life...

with merely differing manifestations, parameters, and underlying reasons for it...

as well as different applicatory paths.

On one end of the spectrum were the free spirits of the Hippies...

and the New Agers and the like.

They were dreamers...

and so...

they were creative and innovative.

The drawbacks of such a life too often manifests in unconstrained impulsiveness...

and in the long term...

so many had failed in life because of a lack of discipline

(although on the upper end...they had changed the world through their innovations.).

On the extreme of the other end...

the result was that of stagnation in life...

precisely because of their cautiousness.

Living life with strict and unnecessary guidelines to prevent any possible missteps...

is to eliminate risk at the cost of not taking the necessary risks to advance oneself...

and is driven by fear and/or a lack of personal fulfillment...

both of which increases anxiety...

and of which then stifles innovation.

Just as with anything in life...

there exists a balance between the best of both.

To get anything done in life...

there must be a prime motivator...

and as such...

it either manifests in something driving us forward from behind...

or pulling us forwards from the front.

This, of course...

implies a direction...

a goal.

Our dreams for a better future provide this.

In this...

there exists a similarity between the New Agers...

and that of pragmatic people...

with only the center of their focus being opposite.

And...

in both...

there lies an element of fear pushing them...

as well as an inner drive pulling them

(as with most all of us). 

In the New Agers...

their center of focus lies within...

and with pragmatic (and overly and/or falsely religious) people...

their center of focus lies without themselves.

(I must clarify something here.  I am not, nor have I ever been, religious.

However, so long as the person truly lives his or her religion...

all of it...and not just the advantageous parts...

and so long as it is not a predatory religion...

I not only admire their discipline in life...

I can see they have inner peace...

and so...

if it is good for them and for society as a whole...

it is a good thing. 

And so...I am happy for them.)

This doesn't necessarily make one better than the other.

I am of the mind that it is the actions of a person that ultimately matter in life...

not in how they think...

and of what their prime motivators in life drive them to do...

rather than in what they think they are.

Again...

a person's mind is his or her own.

A person defines him or herself through:

 Their actions in the face of duty

Their inactions in the face of temptation

Their reactions to those somehow at a disadvantage to them.

It doesn't matter what a person professes of their beliefs...

for what they ultimately do...

is the only true telling of what they had truly believed in the first place.

-----------------

Okay...

a little break.

Yesterday...

I had gone into Colorado Springs to conduct some business...

and I had then stopped in at Woodland Park to conduct further business...

and, of course...

to get something to eat (one of my carrots).

On the way back from Colorado Springs...

one of the views I love.

In the background...

is Pikes Peak.

In the foreground...

is the Manitou Springs Incline.

One of my goals for the future is to climb to the top of Manitou Incline.

The line up the near mountain is the Incline...

of which has some 2,770 steps set into the mountainside...

and of which culminates at the peak...

with wonderful views.

The average incline degree works out to some 45 degrees...

and so...

it is quite steep.

But...

it is a local legend...

and some people travel from other states to complete it.

That is not to say that it is especially difficult...given time.

It just takes the will to do it...

and so...

a minor dream or goal.

I had stopped in at a Woodland Park Veterinary to make an appointment for Bandi

for this upcoming Monday so Bandi may have updated vaccinations...

a check-up, and to have her nails trimmed.

Just outside this clinic...

is a fantastic food truck which serves some of the best Mexican food I have ever had.

The only drawback is there are no tables...

and you are subject to the elements.

However, I just ate in the car.

I still had this view to enjoy from the car.

Also...

just a short ways up the street...

is my favorite car wash.

The last time I had gotten my car washed there...

the temperature was 10 degrees F.

They have the car wash sealed as the car goes through...

to prevent the washing liquid from freezing as the car is washed and waxed.

Anyway...

their tacos are the best.

They are twice the size of normal street tacos...

and are jam packed with meat.

I had gotten Carne Asada (steak) tacos.

The reason I love street food...

is that they cannot rely upon service, ambiance, or comfort.

Their food HAS to be good in order for them to attract customers.

I had also tried their Carnitas Torta (shredded pork sandwich).

Their Carnitas Torta was also packed with meat...

and was very tender and juicy.

I had also gotten a Carne Asada burrito.

As with the others...

it was just so full of meat.

I had shared my meal with Bandi...

minus the onions...

of course.

---------------

Later that evening...

I stood on the loft deck to watch the sunset.

Again...

because of the unique positioning of my house high up on a mountain ridge...

I may view, both...

a distant horizonal sunset, and sunrise, from the comfort of my home.

Bandi loves being out on the third floor loft deck as well.

Viewing a beautiful sunrise or sunset is one of my carrots in life.

For me...

it is a time of reflection and serenity...

and it is not only free...

it is one of the great simple pleasures in life.

----------------

Now...

back to my thoughts on one of the universal carrots in life to us all.

Love

Love is not necessarily a romantic one.

I love music and other great simple pleasures in life.

My subconscious uses my great loves in life to motivate me...

as it does in almost all of us.

To live life filled with love...

is to live it being pulled towards something...

instead of being pushed by something.

It is...

by far...

a superior way to live.

It is to live life filled with hope and deep fulfillment...

rather than being pushed out of fear or anxiety.

Now...

just briefly...

on romantic love.

For me...

as far back as I can clearly remember...

I had always been "in love" with a particular girl at the time...

usually at school.

I had never not had one girl in my heart...

sometimes for years at a time...

and always from afar...

of course.

I remember being in love with a girl in first grade.

All the girls throughout school had always seemed so mature.

They were ladies in my mind...

(of course, I had also "fallen in love" with grown women

I had just seen for brief moments or with a female teacher...etc.)...

but...

I also knew I was a child...

and that I couldn't act upon my desires...

besides being far too shy to do so anyway.

However...

to have such a motivator in life is not only wonderful...

it promotes wanting to become better so as to be desirable 

to a possible mate later in life.

To have the deep heart wringing experience of just wanting 

to get a glimpse of the object of desire...

simply made me happy deep inside.

And so...

had set the seeds of future in my mind...

of wanting to become a man worthy of such a lady in my later years.

Anyway...

a combination of the most desirable traits I had seen in females 

all of my life had culminated in a "perfect" female...

my dream woman...

of which had kept driving me to become a better man.

Again...

I was always "in love" with a woman...

at every point in my life...

whether in reality...

or merely through a manifestation of my mind.

However...

it had always been a prime motivator in my life.

My point is that I have always been pulled by love in life.

Fear has never been much of a factor in my life.

Now...

pulling out from the realm of the romantic...

love is something which gently wrings the heart...

and of which focuses on something outside of yourself...

while reflecting upon the inner self.

It is a manifestation of the subconscious precisely

because it reverberates within the soul (subconscious).

Our goal in life is to connect with our "soul"...

to know what truly makes us deeply and serenely happy...

and to then use our intellect to engineer our lives to eventually achieve it.

This is where the Hippies and New Agers had gotten it correct.

Now...

as where so many had simply attempted to shortcut life...

had simply thought that merely living in their dreams

through drugs and an unsustainable lifestyle was the goal...

they had ultimately failed themselves by not being practical enough to know 

that the dream is only the starting point to living a fully realized and soulful life.

This takes a realizable plan...

and the disciplined lifestyle necessary to make it a reality.

And so...

it is the balance between dreams...

and the stoicism to make it an eventual realized reality...

that is our ultimate goal.

But...

were I to err towards one way of life to another...

to live without a constant love of life...

a soulless existence filled with anxiety or fear...

or even worse...

the mind numbing hell of an unfeeling stagnation in the absence of love...

in search of alleviation of pain, anxiety, and fear...

I would opt for living life in love with it.

However...

we have the option to have the best of both worlds.

To think otherwise is a false dichotomy.

And...

neither is it a compromise.

To get the best of both worlds...

you need not sacrifice one for the other to any degree.

Always be in love with life...

and think of the future and map it out.

In this manner...

you will always be running towards life...

and will be living life in deep serenity.

This is the best of all worlds...

that and by defeating death through your words and deeds...

which will then guide others to a better life...

and so...

by living and loving through the projected future as well.

------

I plan to express and illustrate more of these thoughts

in a series of novels of which I still have in the planning stages.

And...

yes...

one of my great passions and loves in life...

is writing...

and so...

why at age 65...

I am still excited about the future...

and why I still feel so alive...

and in love with life.