trisected

Tag: self reflection

  • Perspectives: The Ant

    There’s a bible verse that reads as this:

    Go to the ant, you sluggard;
        consider its ways and be wise!
     It has no commander,
        no overseer or ruler,
    yet it stores its provisions in summer
        and gathers its food at harvest.

    Proverbs 6:6-8

    It was during today’s short work out in the morning where I saw the ant, and saw its continual work that it was doing. I was up early because I couldn’t sleep. I felt that there was work to do, which I was not yet doing, and I needed to do it. So I got up, started my day, and then went to do some morning exercises.

    But lo and behold, as I was doing pushups mindlessly for my own vanity, an ant was already crawling around the ground, and working for its queen somewhere. It wasn’t seeking its own fame or fortune, but literally working for the better of his society, for his queen.

    I don’t always think this way. I don’t put the priorities of everyone else ahead of mine, to the point of approaching a giant, in hopes of getting food for the day. That’s really mind blowing, and in many ways, it’s highly self sacrificial.

    Starting with a verse, I don’t mean to preach, I just mean to look at the creatures constantly beneath my feet. I look, and I see that I am often no better than the ant. I might have intelligence, and I might have sophistication, but where is my heart for the people around me, and for the society that I exist in?

    More than that, am I a sluggard, that just sits there, waiting for the world to fall into the right shape so that I can follow the well trodden path? Or perhaps I ought to make the first lanes, facing the giants ahead. Perhaps these perilous routes will lead for more to take over me thereafter.

    Perhaps I might need to face giants more often, so that I can be an ant to the groups around me.

    Go to the ant you sluggard, consider it’s ways and be wise!

  • Internalized Thoughts

    There’s different layers that I think we often hide behind as humans. There’s a certain front that I hope people would perceive from interacting with me, there’s a facade of sorts. It’s not bad, but the facade’s usually there because there’s other things that we’re thinking about.

    Maybe it’s the food we ate that we are trying to figure out was healthy or not. Maybe it’s the choice of what we are planning to say next to appear intelligent, or to just allow the person we’re conversing with to talk some more. Maybe it’s the fear of death that looms over our heads, worried of a sudden freak accident.

    The thoughts I have, as I sit behind my keyboards, are not easy to deal with. They’re raw, they’re frustration. They’re sad, they’re just inconsolable. They are happy and just excited to be alive. But the outside doesn’t want to have the emotions outside. Externally, it’s the thoughts can’t exist and have their space to grow, or to finesse themselves. They stay internal for some time.

    Maybe some of the thoughts, and emotions around the thoughts, become well finessed and are expressed in words. The words might appear as a text to a loved one, or a firm command of “Let’s just eat the burger, it’ll be fine.” Some of the thoughts with less shape, but still larger form, pop themselves out as anger, rage, physically manifesting. These would die quickly outside, because they’re not well put together. And the person learns from all this.

    I keep some thoughts to myself, because I don’t think they’re fit for the outside. I keep the facade up, as I choose which to express, and try to finesse the thoughts properly. But because of the experiences from the past, not all the thoughts come out, and some stay internal a lot longer than others.

    And this in itself, is one of my internalized thoughts, now coming to the daylight (or cyberspace).