A Personal Renaissance

Renaissance:
–noun

A revival in the world of art and learning.

That's paraphrased quite a bit from the dictionary, but it's how I choose to define the word. Perception is, in my humble opinion, everything. It's not what a book tells us what something is, but what WE take from it; how WE interpret it. You know the phrase "life is what you make of it?" I think reality is the same. Not in the psycho warp-your-reality way. No, no! I think that reality is fluid, like water. Bruce Lee developed his martial arts philosophies from the same general principle, but I'm taking it to a whole new level here.

"Wait a minute! This guy watches Power Rangers! He's weird and nerdy and kind of an asshole!"

Yeah, I agree. But before you go dismissing what I have to say, think about who I am (assuming you know me well, I mean). I'm a guy who genuinely loves what he loves. I throw myself into fictional tales like they're actual adventures I'm going on. Over the years, I look back and realize that... goddamn... somehow I've unintentionally crafted this really bizarre personality. Endearing to some, loathsome to others, but I don't think there's anyone that ever talked to me for an extended period and walked away with no opinion at all. I didn't try for this, mind you. In my head (as in all of our's), I'm the most normal, down-to-Earth nice guy in the world with a realistic outlook on life. Hah! I think I decided that I was going to fully embrace myself when I accepted the fact that I'm crazy as a loon! Weird, obsessive, quirky, and with a lot of weird and unusual things going on inside of my head that would would frighten, sicken, or just plain befuddle most anyone else!

News flash, readers. You're no better!

Sanity is an at-best loosely understood concept. Genius is birthed from people thinking the unthinkable and doing what others may think as crazy. What is sanity? Hell, what is reality? For that matter, what is Hell? Heaven? Life and death? Beautiful and ugly? All things open to interpretation. Unless you've openly and wholly given yourself over to a particular ideology, you'll always leave the option open as to whether your opinion might just be plain wrong. The inherent flaw in organized religion and the like is that deep down, only something like 6% of the supposed hardcore followers are completely on board with the whole thing. Sure it's nice to feel comfortable in a guaranteed salvation, but could you honestly tell me if the skies opened up, hellfire rained down, and God began his end times, that you wouldn't be scared and fearful for your well being? But why? Didn't you spend your whole life KNOWING that you'd be okay in the end and heaven awaited you?

And that's what sparked this whole thing. I'm not here to speak on religion. I'm here to speak on myself and the fact that I don't know shit about anything. People have said I'm naturally intelligent but unrefined. I slogged through school and did my best to completely avoid classical education, only to arrive in my mid-twenties and realize that people half my age and not even HALF as smart as I am, STILL knew more about the world than I did. Ignorance breeds complacency, and complacency is the birthplace of ignorance. Some personal crises in the past few years had helped me begun to see the larger horizon of the world. The fact that I'm not even the size of a drop in an ocean of existence.

One night I relaxed and I spent the evening breaking myself down. Testing myself on my knowledge and appreciation of art, expression, and knowledge of any type and concluded that I was a complete and total moron. Life a flash, the world opened up to me all of a sudden. It was in accepting how little I knew that helped me see how much more there was. I saw this and I wanted it! As I began digging for inspiration from some accredited theologists and the like, I started to see that I didn't just want to know the world. I wanted to feel it! I wanted to see what existed BEYOND our ken, and no, I don't mean in a ghostly sense or anything like that. I think I wanted to learn more about perception and how to see infinite angles and ways to appreciate everything. If someone can be the master of their own mind, then surely they can take away ANYTHING they want! My own reality is now subjective. I'm no danger to myself or others, but I finally found peace with myself by instead of running from my negative traits, embracing them. I accept that in my head is a creepy world that would make Tim Burton confused.

And now we're at my first lesson! Embrace your faults. Don't act on them, but accept them. If it's in your head, it's almost impossible to remove. People lie to themselves entirely too much and it's unhealthy. If we accept out negative traits and desires, it's something akin to getting used to an annoying roommate who just isn't going to move out. Embrace your flaws, understand them, and then leave them in your head to grow and influence the rest of you. Nobody is fucking perfect! Take the bad with the good and let them build on each other!

I know that the air of pretension in this blog is probably staggering, but at the end of the day, aren't we all a little pretentious and self-involved? We really are the main characters of our own story and we're only as important to the world as we are to ourselves. Next time I'll be talking about how I shook away my disinterest and began branching out into new things I'd never tried before. After I look back on it all, I'm in too deep to quit. Onward!