Why am I describing one of the most popular shows ever as “hidden”? People love and adore the show but how many can really pinpoint what exactly do they like about it? They like Aang but what makes Aang likeble or what makes the Ba Sing Se episodes so memorable? Many fans watched the series as kids when their minds were still relatively pure and more “silent” which allowed the show’s message to reach and touch their hearts. Few years later came “Legend of Korra” which continued the story while using the same formula with slighly more matured themes and yet a lot of people didn’t like it. Why is that? The upper mentioned kids became adults. The brain got involved and what is the number 1 enemy of the brain – not knowing how something works. Usually with the increasing reliance on our thoughts comes a decreasing faith in everything else. If we love something than the brain(# the Ego) needs to understand why! Without the required life experience and with the Western filter being “On”, its pretty difficult to spot and understand many of the Last Airbender messages. The mind is unable to “trace” your love towards Aang to his growt by overcoming fear, change and shame or to his connection with the world by not dividing people/nations when everyone around him did it. All that is lost and the only think that the mind can deliver as an answer .. you “simply” like Aang. The unknown but full love that kids felt was replaced with a nostalgic love, a memory that the mind connected to Aang and the series. When Korra came out, people didn’t care to notice that all those foundations that made the Last Airbender were still there. The only think that mattered was that Aang wasn’t. Its perfectly alright not to “like” a show for your personal reasons but to me its kind of ironic people claiming that Aang was better, stronger, smarter than Korra when his whole story ark was centered around not to view the world in such manner. There is even a hour and half video on You Tube named “The legend of Korra is garbage and here’s why” which is viewed 5 mln times.
Tag: Satori
The frames of our consciousness
What do you see on the picture above? A “black dot”, will be the most common answer. Immediately our brain informs us that the “black” is something of notice, an object of interest that is worth pointing out. However did you spot the “white” that surrounds the dot? Likely your brain labelled it as “nothing”, an empty field. It was trained to do so. Can there be a black dot without the white field that surrounds it? Now that I have pointed it out, you probably consciously rose above the fixed thinking and saw the obvious – the “wholeness” of the picture was cut in half by your mind. This is something necessary for us not to overload and go crazy BUT we should be consciously aware of this “cropping” technique. We should keep it in check, provide it with a healthy doubt and ensure that the limit of our horizon never remains the same. Life’s complexity is beyond us BUT our brains will never admit it. Knowledge is their only fuel. They will cut the World as much as possible, put it in frames and stubbornly claim “this is Life”. Is it though?
A simplier perspective
Life is simple. Life is complex. Both are .. true BUT we tend to give the later a lot more weight thus our inner balance gets lost. It becomes harder to enjoy the “smaller” things – a tree, a bird, the weather, people around us. In order for us to be happy, things need to be ambitious, “bigger”, “prettier” and far away in the future while the years until then become just a mandatory inconvenience. All of that just to catch an idea. Does person “A” have the ability to experience more happiness than person “B”?! Society says “Yes”, the Universe says “No”! We are made even, no matter of social rank, love status or wealthiness – the amount of happiness that each of us is capable to experience its even, 10/10. A person could be enjoying his simple meal or could be misserable on a table full of food. What makes the difference? The way that we view the Present Moment. And what derails us from the capability of enjoying the later – the Mind and its constant bombardment of thoughts towards us.
Inception
For those of you seen the movie, remember the wild and incredible worlds that people created in their dreams? Our memories from the past and thoughts about the future are basically the same, minus other people being able to enter them. Imagine that you have the power to go in some parallel dimension and draw the whole reality by your liking? In a way you become a god … but you are all alone. We may be able to “put” people in our thoughts, they may even have 99% physicall resemblance with those from our reality but bottom line – they would never be more than a souless dolls. They cant think, they cant behave on their own and there is never an unknown factor with them. They are just detailed pictures you draw with your brain. What makes us unique its the hidden energy we normaly call a “soul” and that you cant recreate via thinking.
What is the problem of being too often inside your memories or project illusions about the future? For starters, we create the laws of nature and there is nothing that can threaten us. We become comfortable and we begin to get used to it, to like it. Once we go back to our common, shared world there is a lot of unknown and unpredictability involved. When we face them, that often creates fear! Often instead of trying to overcome it, we tend to withdraw to our safe illusions. Why you should go speak to the girl that you like and face rejection, when you can recreate her in your own imagination?
I want to believe that a big part of Life is about sharing it with other people! The next time time you project inside the comfort of your own thoughts, ask yourself this:
Do I want to be the lonely God of an empty world?!
Satori
In terms of taste, which is the opposite of sweet? Person “A” says bitter/salty from his personal experience of eating. Person “B” while never trying bitter/salty foods gives a similar answer, formed from his experience of reading and talking with people about the subject. For the sake of argument, lets say that we are in a classroom and both receive an “A+”. While being the same on the surface and receiving similar grades, those answers are nothing alike! One is living through action while the other is taking a shortcut/cheating through his brain. Person “A” answers by looking through the glasses of “life” and person “B” the glasses of ” the Mind”. Can you understand the difference? Between actually feeling water going down your throat and the sentence ” I drink water”? If you do, dont try to explain it with words. Let it grow inside you.
The brain is the most addictive drug in the world, very few people even realizes that and the danger coming with it. Western society openly invites us to use our brains more and more while we proceed to lose touch with life further and further!
Althrough I have read plenty of books on the subject, I dont possess any degree in psychology. On paper, I dont have the “needed” background to stand in front of 1000 people and say “you should listen to what I have to say”. What I have … the personal experience of being closed in a cell. That cell being deep down inside the mental hell of my body and mind. Part of me is probably still there BUT if before I had 100 padlocks holding me down, today they are reduced to let say .. 30. Being at the both ends of opposites, a person starts to see/understands things more differently. I dont want to make unnecessary long first entry so if there is interest, I would be happy to share my experience and views with other people.
Bukmeikara 