Thoughts on Inventing Your Life

Good evening, I am actually very glad to be here,
and if you give your very close attention to what I am about to say you will also be very glad to be here.

You may think that what I am about to present to you will be just words -- but keep in mind two things: 1) words can convey anything the mind can think that can be communicated by symbols, and 2) words can suggest the nature of anything else the mind can consider.

So consider that the thoughts being presented might just be the chance of a lifetime, because we are here to discuss the value of mental exercises for developing a realistic mind -- and what happens to you if you are living your life with such a mind.

First comes the wonder, and then the meaning;
but the meaning does not replace the wonder, it extends it.
This is a mind with a deep involvement in reality.
This is not "An Accidental Mind",
but one that has paid "The Cost Of Free Will".

When the writer J.M.Barrie was six his older brother died in a skating accident. The brother remained in memory as a boy of thirteen who would never grow up -- and thus was born the masterpiece "Peter Pan".
Barrie died in 1937, bequeathing the copyright of "Peter Pan" to the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, a hospital for children.

At the beginning of the story Wendy, a girl of two, hears her mother say "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" Following this the author writes "henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end."

Something as strong as "Peter Pan" does not happen by accident -- while it may seem a fantasy, deep down you know it comes from real life.

In our current pursuit of a meaningful life we are not going to dwell forever in Neverland, the map of a child's mind, but consider what is really involved in growing up. This will mean we will want a mind that never settles for "never mind". Everything will be given its due, and we will not live in fantasy but grow into reality.

How do you remove a child's fear of the unknown? Usually you can only calm them; in order for the fears to go away the fears must be outgrown.
But what if the fear is of growth? Usually people find a corner to hide in, and grow as much as the corner allows. What does it take for someone to come out of their corner, a corner they have incorporated into themselves, a corner they identify with as an essential part of what they are? And that corner is an essential part of what they are, but it is not an essential part of what they could be.

Perhaps people know themselves too well -- and are strangers to their potential selves.

The likelihood of realizing any of that unknown potential is directly related to how long and how deep you can consider this difference between the you you know and the stranger you could become if you truly lived in reality.
Deep down you must know there is more to life. So the obvious question is: "How does one get a meaningful life?" Be careful of any obvious answers --
this transformation requires a rather substantial change of mind. What is required is a far more developed sense of purpose and far deeper insight, integrated with a rather extensive openness and unbelievable imagination --
a mind prepared to deal with the expected and the unexpected, no matter what their consequences for that mind. This is a mind with no time for fear or wishful thinking.

"Inventing Your Life" is a course in which you learn how to
capture imagination in order to have a life that makes more sense.
The only purpose of your mind is to make sense.
This sense is represented by relationships in contexts.
These relationships and contexts are the results of
awareness and understanding.
Awareness results in the presence of relationships in our mind.
Understanding results in placing those relationships in contexts.
Both awareness and understanding occur in two forms,
so this gives us four dimensions of thought
based upon four ways of thinking:

Chosen Awareness: to be purposefully aware of relationships by means of Purposeful Thinking.

Choiceless Awareness: to be unconditionally aware of relationships by means of Purposeless Thinking.

Modifiable Understanding: to have the insight to see relationships in existing contexts by means of Context
Thinking.

Creative Understanding: to be able to imagine relationships
in new contexts by means of Meta-Context Thinking.

To explore these four ways of thinking and learn how to invent your own life, this course develops a realistic mind with enhanced wonder and meaning.

FRAME, BRIDGE, and FREE WILL

It is hard to imagine what living with increased imagination would be like.

Whenever you form a picture of something in your mind you place that picture in a frame: the context of your past experience. Since the purpose of imagination is to go beyond your past experience there must be a bridge to take you from where you are to where you could be. But even if you found such a bridge, would you cross it? Probably not, as that decision to move on to a really new place would require an act of free will, and having the conditioned minds that we have gives us little actual free will in our own lives. We live accidental lives, caught in the frame of the past, with a fear of change. Our defense mechanisms have so restricted our options that we can no longer afford free will. But lacking real free will keeps us locked in the frame of ourselves, looking out at bridges to what we could be, and thinking too bad we can never see for ourselves what is on the other side of those bridges --and that is a self unfulfilling prophesy.

If you are too busy wasting your life, sorry I bothered you.
If you believe your life is worth bothering about, then the interactive program "ABOUT" will give you a chance to invent an improved life for yourself. Send your name and E-mail address to n.gilbreath@verizon.net and the program “ABOUT” will be sent to you.