Talent and luck can carry me in the short term, but those two qualities are fickle as hell.  In the long term, personal growth needs to be fed with discipline and critical thinking in order to maintain consistent efficacy.  So in the end, while the choice isn’t easy, it is simple:  be disciplined, keep applying myself, and ruthlessly subject myself to self-examination.

As people age, I’ve seen them use their accumulated knowledge in two ways:  the first is to buttress themselves with a series of “dont’s,” and hoard the potential comfort that resides in the time they have left, as it all the while slips through their clenched fingers.  While this method may keep them drearily comfortable, it also prevents them from exercising audacity.  The second method is to acknowledge one’s limits by referencing past experience, but also acknowledging the potential in the time one still has left (which may only be a day, an hour, or a second, if you really stop and think about it).  The people who use the second method, rather than counting each second of safe inertia as a pyrrhic victory, will constantly maneuver themselves into positions where they can drink as deeply as possible from the fountain of life. 

When I reach my last day upon this earth, I hope I can say that I qualify as the latter.

Applying critical thinking to myself in order to expose outdated/self-destructive programming is incredibly uncomfortable—one of the most uncomfortable things I’ve ever subjected myself to.  But whenever I’ve done it, the practice has always seems to induce higher levels of effectiveness and speeds of perception. 

Which ironically, make me WAY more comfortable.

For any seeking to hone their awareness into a functional tool, I would advise caution:  at first, those who know you and share your goals will cheer you on.  Then, as you accomplish your goals and sharpen your perception, they will begin to grow nervous; your assiduousness will be taken as unspoken condemnation of their inaction.  Some will  then turn against you, for in cleaning the introspective mirror with which you observe your deepest tendencies, you will inadvertently reveal to them that they only look at a tiny fraction of their OWN mirror.  I suspect they do this so they can continue gazing kindly on an incomplete hologram, rather than sharply assessing their full reflection.  As your perspective clarifies, it becomes increasingly important to exercise restraint and compassion when voicing your opinions, because some people don’t want to view themselves in a true light, whether it’s favorable or not, even though they might suffer from regular malfunction.

When someone’s screwed by life to the point where futility and hopelessness become undeniable realities, I believe it’s possible to alchemize all that disappointment and pain, the shattered idealism, and not only use them to strip perception down to the clearest it’s ever been, but also to internalize the most empowering realization in all of existence:  “If nothing matters, then I might as well get to work on what makes me happy, whether it pans out or not.”

Just from a scientific perspective (though I’m not wedded to science; I enjoy using it because it thus far provides the most predictable and consensus-building model of reality we have to date) we possess an extremely limited perception; our eyes only see the visible ROYGBIV spectrum, our ears only detect a frequency within a certain range, etc etc.  So in the face of our vastly limited perception, I choose to believe that I will most likely never perceive the absolute truth of what is physically before me, much less account for the entirety of the known universe or the unknown multiverse, that I should stop worrying about it, and that I should do my best to enjoy the “illusion.”

“To stand a chance of making it, don’t merge with the vast sea of dignified do-nothings who are so afraid to suck that they never take a chance.”  

—People who stand a chance of making it

I believe the ultimate goal of spirituality is to come to a whole-being realization that if everything is created by divinity, then there’s actually no such thing as “spirituality,” because all divine things are spiritual by default (we arise from [God] and in the end return to [God]; we have no choice in the matter of being composed of anything but [God], because everything we see is an iteration of [God].  The only choice we have is whether or not we want to throw a tantrum about it).  From there, it seems that the next step would be to embrace the illusion of separation we’ve volunteered to take part in, learning how to glean enjoyment and fulfillment from it, all the while knowing it’s nothing but a game.

Without the ability/desire to employ critical thinking, one is destined to be mired in doctrine, completely at the mercy of ever-encroaching obsolescence.  

Ironically, those same doctrines were probably formed through critical thought, but for those who refuse to live an examined life, they serve as shackles rather than stepping stones.

In my slog to re-edit Echo 1, it has never been more clearly illustrated to me that good writing means learning The Art of Omission; in order to create a smooth, delicious story that dissolves on the palate of the readerly mind, I must learn where to dig deep and pour forth description, and when to hold back and let the reader’s mind supply a richness of detail that I as a writer could never be capable of.  

I believe this principle can be applied to any form of communication.