Let the stream begin. Some body, some things, life and me, communicated the idea to talk now, not to leave it, to stay, and face up to the past, the places, the people, the pain, the many reasons why I left my home and family, all those years ago, to become a drug addict, an alcoholic, a wanderer, move nomadically from house to house, year to year, to live inside a prison, real and imaginary. I met hell. I met the devil. I met them both inside my head. I found out the hard way that humans could easily imagine evil. The path forward comes from the push to write and to deal. Yes, I felt happy in between the miserable spaces. My family helped me to survive and still do now, even more so than before. Without them, I would not exist, for in the darkest moments I realised that they kept me breathing. I want the virtual picket fence, ideal partner, children and career. They may or may not eventuate. Now as I regroup, look upon me with sober, straight and clear eyes, I can have anything. I walk to a lake, to sense nature, to allow the anxiety to live on these pages, to take shape, and mould into a form that speaks atonement.
I sit on a bench in a sheltered jetty, look over the local lake and write the thoughts that yearn for release. Many years have passed in which I have tried to make sense of locations in time and space. I need to succeed in this endeavour or else I cannot return home. The idea of the prodigal son performing a biblical-like return warms me, yet it necessitates an understanding of me to recover and find the right mental balance to move from the old life to an enriched new one amongst those who support and love me unconditionally.
The watered breeze marks the air as another augments the view, a jogger, young, white sing...
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...arate occasions; first time in the late nineties, as a betrothed, migrating temporarily to the western state; second time four years later, a ring added, and everything else the same. She lured me into her sensuous web with promises of heathen desire. Now U2 plays and other memories from my teens and early twenties come as I race across streets, bang on cars, rush to join a crowd that I no longer see, so keen and now … different. The girl, English accent, cute in my shirt, stands on the front porch after one of the many sexual expeditions, a relationship based on sex, drunken sex, never sober, and I have the customary cigarette while two other friends sit inside my shadowy glow. They feel my passion, or the remnants.
The cool breeze off the lake brings me back to the present, as a duck with a blue bill paddles past on the way to another place. I want to follow.
It was an early Wednesday morning, and I lay still in my bed hitting the REM cycle as I dream vividly about a young lady about to be wed. She was dancing in a field of wheat and sunflowers. She was a country girl of whom I had never seen in my life, but in my dream, I knew her. It seemed I had known her family too, they were hillbillies and she was the pride and joy of their family, a shining star on her family crest. She had long, slinky, dark chestnut hair that was pulled up for such an occasion, Decorated with a fresh flower from the fields. She wore a form fitted white dress that looked as if it was her mama’s passed onto her. In her hands were an array of hot pink, sassy orange, and depressed purple Gerber Daisies wrapped precisely with an off white ribbon. She twirled distantly from her family knowin...
A guide for those who have lost their way, A ship for those with oceans to cross
The Augustian form of the prodigal son path is one of losing oneself and finding yourself once again. The way that one becomes inauthentic is that the person follows what ...
That was something, I just feel off the boat. Lightly, I drift along water. I see a few of my brothers and sisters, but I am very far away from them.
One of the greatest conflicts that every human must face is a conflict within his or her self. These sorts of internal conflicts are created and fought within our minds. The Seafarer, one of the oldest surviving Old English poems, depicts a man, who, despite being wise, is still desperate to find meaning to his existence. He is in exile, and because of this, his mind is in a state of desolation. He has conflicts within his own psyche seemingly questioning his very existence. He is desperate to find meaning in his life, which is full of despair and sorrow. His psychological state of mind develops from a state of desolation and exile, to realization of his Being, to finally finding a new meaning in his life through his manifestation and interaction with faith. Through these psychological phases, a “new man” seemingly arises from the abyss.
Most people would think of consciousness to be their inner thoughts or the awareness one has of themselves and their surroundings. My Introduction to Psychology textbook defines consciousness as,” the subjective experience of perceiving oneself and ones surroundings.” (Kalat, 2011, p.342). According to Oxford dictionary it can be defined in philosophy as “The state or faculty of being conscious, as a condition and concomitant of all thought, feeling, and volition; the recognition by the thinking subject of its own acts or affections” (Schwarz, 2004, p.425). Those are definitions are similar but how can we be sure we have knowledge of what Consciousness is? Epistemology has to deal with the nature of knowledge and if we can have it justifiably without a doubt (Cowan and Spiegel, 2009, p.49) So for the purposes of this paper consciousness is going to be referred to as a belief that can be proved true or proved false, believed in or rejected. This belief of consciousness will be looked at epistemologically in which I will explore it through a skeptical, rational, and empiricist view in attempts to understand whether we are conscious or have knowledge of it.
Nothing has changed my life more since the realization that I had to make who I was something that I chose, and not something that just happened. Since this revelation nothing seemed the same anymore, as though I could see the world through new eyes. It changed everything from my taste in music, literature, and movies. Things of a dark and pessimistic nature used to hold a strong allure for me, and yet I found much of things I once enjoyed didn't seem to entertain me anymore. I remembered the mental state that I once held and now seeing how I have changed, know that I can never return to the prison I came from.
My life seemed pointless and I was stuck. I could not see a way out, and sometimes didn’t want to. Everything changed
By knowing that the consciousness is what allows humans to know the difference of the observer from what is observed , it allows people to realize that they are able to understand many complex things that other living things cannot. The consciousness may come from the brain , yet humans cannot pinpoint where exactly is it.
‘Stream of Consciousness’ is a technique, deployed by modernist writers like James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, which is supposed to authentically document the mental process or to capture the ‘atmosphere of mind’. This technique is used to explore the inner reality or the psychic being of characters. Virginia Woolf makes use of this technique in her novel Mrs. Dalloway. For Woolf “life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of the consciousness to the end.” As a novelist she wanted to “record the atoms as they fall upon the mind…trace a pattern, however disconnected and incoherent in appearance, which each sight or incident scores upon that consciousness.” Woolf’s writing of Mrs. Dalloway is a form which breaks away from contemporary form which she reviled for not doing justice to life and character. What she seems to be arguing for is a representation of the life of the mind, in all its vagaries, idiosyncrasies and indeterminacies, in all its complexity and in its fullness. She emphasized the need to move away from the public to the private, the social to the introspective, the political to the individual. (The political and the public that do come into her writing are only through individual psyches). Woolf’s true subject in the text is consciousness, awareness, action and reaction, what we remember and say and keep hidden, the distance between the interior and the exterior, how very differently we appear to ourselves and to others. What she wants is what E.M. Foster said to her in praise for Jacob’s Room, ‘to get further into the soul’. Woolf celebrated the representation of “inner life” and attempted to capture in lucid prose, the unrestricted flow of thought; and so she deemed the non-...
Everything seems like it’s falling out of place, it’s going too fast, and my mind is out of control. I think these thoughts as I lay on my new bed, in my new room, in this new house, in this new city, wondering how I got to this place. “My life was fine,” I say to myself, “I didn’t want to go.” Thinking back I wonder how my father felt as he came home to the house in Stockton, knowing his wife and kids left to San Diego to live a new life. Every time that thought comes to my mind, it feels as if I’m carrying a ten ton boulder around my heart; weighing me down with guilt. The thought is blocked out as I close my eyes, picturing my old room; I see the light brown walls again and the vacation pictures of the Florida and camping trip stapled to them. I can see the photo of me on the ice rink with my friends and the desk that I built with my own hands. I see my bed; it still has my checkered blue and green blanket on it! Across from the room stands my bulky gray television with its back facing the black curtain covered closet. My emotions run deep, sadness rages through my body with a wave of regret. As I open my eyes I see this new place in San Diego, one large black covered bed and a small wooden nightstand that sits next to a similar closet like in my old room. When I was told we would be moving to San Diego, I was silenced from the decision.
The water beats at the bank feel gently, and resides carefully to avoid over soaking it. The air is fresh and overwhelming with cool gushes of wind blowing past, provoking the trees to yawn and some times sleep. It was a lovely Valentine day and perfect for a picnic at Lake Lavon.
It's funny how weeks pass so quickly and so much fills this life; I can't remember how one day is different from the next. Lately, a moment's peace means a falter of plans. My order is changed. Emotions, actions, events, and things go on around me, and I live through them not know how it was done. Sometimes there's reflection; it's haunting until tomorrow, and I have no idea what tomorrow is. Strangely, I think of why I'm here and wonder who I am behind this façade, this name-looking for a balance and a connection, never knowing where to find it, and nobody else knows either; voices talk on the telephone about it for hours, or sit there drawing some strange parallels one afternoon. It all ends up somewhere in an unconsciously dreamworld; alas the perplaxity in distinguishing truth from reality is plaguing. Thinking of how to connect the two, three, and forty thousand images that fly by me day in and lights out, waking up and shock hits. All I want to do is do what I want to do, and do what I have to do, and like it, and get something out of it. Never does a thought cross my mind that there may someday be disappointment. And, when the sun rises every morning, more things muddle some understanding and shake my order, catching me by utter surprise. Secret hopes that will one day lead me to whatever i think I am going to find, lie before me a mystery.
I wandered around the path near the lake because it was always peaceful and quiet there in the morning and the trees that hung over the wide walkway only drew me in more. The cool wind blew continuously, and some of the leaves that barely hung on to the branches were pulled along with it. They floated while dropping slowly, and one of the leaves chose my head as a landing spot. I brushed my hair with my hand, not caring if doing so messes up my hair, since the wind already accomplished that job the second I took a step outside my house.
I pulled into the driveway and staggered into the loud, large and mysterious place. I was surprised at how many people were there. It could have been about twenty or so. I would not know because I am not highly educated. My education actually collapsed after being involved with you. I put all my attention and focus towards you. I can’t count the amount of times I missed class or skipped school. Whilst thinking of this, a young girl came strolling over. She had dark, long hair, brown eyes and a slim figure nearly identical to my own appearance. She wore a white garment matched with pure, silk shoes. Her glamour attracted people from all directions. She looked about twenty five years old.