The Stream of Thought

10-22-17 Kurosawa – Dreams

We have been watching Kurosawa’s Dreams, a collection of 8-9 short stories – dreams. Some pleasant, some horrifying, but all speaking to the fears of human beings.

I completed The Thin Veil of Personal Existence, a simple drawing with the theme pointing to the Universal ground beneath the human story.  It reminded me of my painting, Oblivious to the Universal Mind.  I am slowly getting a handle on the recurring themes that I engage in.  

I have in the last few days been feeling the pull in this direction, (the personal within the ground) as the primary direction. It is so easy to get caught in the net of personal concerns, national concerns, and endless stories. This seems to reflect our lives and yet something is beneath this and fundamental to our being.

How do we acknowledge this – or isn’t it important? Should we just carry on with social values, trying to make the game work for us, trying to fit in, saying the right things, not revealing too much, not acknowledging the obvious?  Communication is so limited and so what we experience and feel is buried. By the time one is my age, there must be a full storage of psychological sediment.

There never seems to be enough time, enough room, and enough interest to fully express what one sees and feels, especially with another person.  And for some reason, the other seems necessary to the expression.  To be heard, to be received seems important.  Does expression clear away the accumulation, the sediment, the misunderstanding, the frustration, the layers of hurt and anger?  Or do we just try to express this to other people with the hope that they will accept our story, but still the sediment remains? Often I hear people telling the same stories, their favorite observations of How Things Are. They seem proud of their constructions despite the hurt they often carry.

There is certainly a template of thought that humans lay over their existence. With it, one sees a very particular kind of world, with meaning and personal significance.  Without it – no description, no summary, no story that reflects the personal experience. Thought, like oxygen, is vital to our participation in the world and ensures a particular kind of experience and understanding, however, is this limited interpretation, this personal worldview, the only reality possible? Do we believe blindly in the contents of thought and refuse to acknowledge the ground of our existence that goes beyond story and fragmentation?

(Image: The Stream of Thought)