Have you ever looked at a stagnant body of water? Motionless. It typically is crawling with mosquitoes and other unpleasant living things, there’s scum floating on the top, probably a piece of trash or two as well, and it smells. If you close your eyes can you see it? It’s an unpleasant and almost eerie scene no matter if it’s a small puddle of left over rain water or a pond that no longer has any form of circulation.
Now imagine if that’s your life. I’m speaking metaphorically and I’m referring to an inner mental capacity that each person carries. When conventional thinking is accepted or even when complacency on any thoughts occurs that is the start of stagnation. We close ourselves off from others, become “stuck-in-our-ways” and that is when division and sexism and racism occurs. We must keep our minds and relationships fluid.
To do this we must not be like stagnant water, but moving water, much like that of a river. We must push ourselves mentally. I don’t mean that brain teasers are a daily exercise that everyone should do, but rather we must always be willing to challenge and be open to those ideas that are different from our own. By being willing to think about something that is different, whether it is an opinion, a perspective, even a religion is key to keeping ourselves fluid.
The only things that are stagnant in life are those things that are dead or dying a slow death. As we close ourselves off from the world it is a slow process in which we harden our hearts and thoughts against all things contrary to our own. Education is the greatest way to keep oneself fluid and education doesn’t have to happen in a classroom or textbook (though it can), it can also happen by meditating, prayer, or open dialogue.
To be complacent is to wish for death-not physical death, but the death of the soul and mind. That is the danger of complacency and when conventional thinking becomes accepted as fact.
No comments:
Post a Comment