The SMALL(est!) Things in Life

Jill Bolte Taylor: Powerful Stroke of Insight
^About a neuroresearcher who had a stroke.. and recounts what it was like to have her brain functions shut down one by one

I've always known that my personality was very right hemispherical in terms of the brain, so to me Jill's story is especially touching.

I remember having a similar moment as Jill a couple of months ago, although in smaller scale cuz it's not like my brain was bleeding. At that time period I was in the process of discovering a new outlook on life and becoming more and more spiritually aware. In short, through an amazing sequence of life events and books I was able to relate completely unrelated events and discoveries to each other. Life seemed to be coming together and coming back in full circles. It was like one big epiphany which honestly, has been hard to follow through after moving to Korea. But I won't get into that just yet.

Anyways, I was really really really high. My right brain must have been highly dominant living my life at that time (watch the video I posted above), so with the help of a fatty ass hit it just took over and my entity was no longer contained in just myself but to my environment. It's kinda hard to explain, but my body didn't feel like it ended where my skin ended. I felt my physical body and my mental body expanded as if I were stretched out like a web that was connected to everything else in the world. It was as if I was a ball of infinite rays of light shooting outwards, connected to everything around me in every which direction and angle possible. I noticed that the location of my consciousness was still in the area where my head was, but within this experience, I was more than myself. "ME" was secondary; in fact it was more like I ceased to exist and my energy just joined the room, apartment, and San Diego. Although I'm trying to describe this in words, keep in mind I was actually COMPLETELY FEELING all of this, without these words running through my head because I didn't have to try to explain it to anyone, I just had to FEEL. It was almost like that nirvana Jill talked about in the video. I felt connected to everything that was, is, and will be. Being at one with the energy flowing into and out of me I felt less selfish, that it's not just me and my complicated emotions all alone in this world. It was kinda scary in some ways, but at one point I just let go and let myself feel that way without making any sort of effort to look or feel sober, and it became peaceful. Usually if I'm THAT high I'm just trippin out and waiting to be less high so I can just laugh at things and be amused by the TV, but this time it was way different. After that I started having more interesting bud experiences in general but even when I was sober I did remember how my physical body felt through that experience, but even more so I remember what I learned from that experience, which is commonly called the "afterglow."

But now that I think about it, it was more than just being sober or not. I hate the stigma that is associated with drugs or being "on" stuff. People too often say "I was just drunk" or "That's because I was high" as excuses for their embarrassing behavior. Besides the people that consume large amounts of crazy ass psychochemicals long term, we are basically who we are. Just because people "black out" and don't remember what they did while they were drunk doesn't mean they weren't being themselves. But anyways, I was illustrating this point in an attempt to defend that my experience wasn't just about being blazed. It gave me a chance to FEEL all the things I'd been reading and learning about, not just understand rationally and catalog it in my drug-ravaged brain.

I firmly believe that everything comes back full circle in life, whether small or big. An example of something small is the refrigerator magnet on my aunt's fridge. Throughout childhood I always remember that parrot magnet being there. It was like an integral part of the refrigerator to my 6-year old eyes. When I pictured a refrigerator, I pictured ours, with the parrot and the other magnets on it. Well, I forgot about it for years and years, not once have I thought of the parrot ever in my life after that. It basically did not exist in my perception of the world, and thus failed to exist. But I was wrong. The first day I came to Korea I noticed the parrot on my aunt's fridge and remembered it. To think it had been living there all this time for 17 years and not lying at the bottom of some dump somewhere as an integral part of my aunt's perception of the refrigerator. This story might have been not that great but when I relate such little things to the bigger things in life, I can derive meaningful ways of thinking to go about life just a little bit easier. This story would be so much cooler if I found the magnet, say, at a random ass place like the gutter in Africa and not at my relative's house, but the moral of the story is that in order to understand life and tackle its "big" ass problems sometimes you just need to look at the small things around you and there you will unexpectedly find the answers.

Just because things don't "exist" in your immediate surroundings doesn't mean they don't exist. And as much so, the things we know to be absolute or true may as well totally be not. We are so quick to make unjustified judgments about life based on the small (but seemingly HUGE) problems that surround us. Things always seem to be apt to change, and sometimes things always seem to stay the same. We just don't know. We say we hate Christianity because church as an institution is so fucked up and Christians are so hypocritical. But what do really know about God? Is your local church or even the Bible even relevant if you think of the scope of what we DON'T KNOW contrasted to what little we think we DO know? What do we know about our world, our nature, or the UNIVERSE? Will science answer all our questions then? If so, what the fuck do we even know about science besides the mere 0.000(infinite zeros)00001% discoveries we've made as a juvenile species? (Think about how old and vast the universe is, and how limited and young we are.) I don't mean to go into a discussion about religion, so I won't talk about it any further, but I just wanted to address the point that before we let the small things in life leave us soooo downtrodden and angry at other people, we must realize that it's PERFECTLY OKAY that life is not perfect or exactly the way you want it to be. It might be, and honestly more often than not, that life will NEVER be what you wanted it to be. Only when you let go of that notion can we even begin to become happy and grateful with what does exist around us.

There is also a rusty ass bracelet and earrings I remember having under my bathroom sink for the longest time. Before I came to Korea I tried it on and decided it was too ugly for me to keep, so I just stuck it back in there. Turns out now that bracelet is my aunt's and it's made of 18K gold and it's been sitting there for years. Cash4Gold! jk.

In conclusion, you just never know about life. All the way from the little things to the big things. However, with the small things we must look a little bit closer. We're always aiming to make big changes in life. We're looking for miracles and leaps of achievement. We're wishing we were magically out of the "mess" we think we're in, always looking for the magic all-in-one product that will eliminate our problems quickly, easily, and permanently. Such things do not exist. EVER. And even if they did I wouldn't take that solution and end my life's journey there. Too easily we dismiss the importance of refining the small in order to get to the good stuff and not topple over when something unexpected fucks you up later. And once you realize that you can start concentrating on the little things you can do to make life better for yourself; it's about the process of it all, not just the outcome, that makes life worth living. Life is a depressing mess if you think that only the results can bring you joy. The little things in life provide for 95% of my joy... and only when you're happy with yourself can you make others happy too.

Despite our exterior differences, we're all in the same boat. Rich or poor, hot or not, everyone at any given time is bound to have a set of problems they wish they didn't have. So you say you're having a tough time, and yes you probably are. But so is everyone else in their own ways and magnitudes. You might be sad now, but you might be happy later. There's no need to ever be jealous of the other "happy" people, because it works vice versa as well: if it's of any comfort to you, they're happy now but they're probably in for shit later haha. You're not alone and we're all in this together.. so let's be happy for each other when good things happen, and support each other when the bad times hit.