I release you...and ask your forgiveness as I freely give mine

I refer here to my true self, the one unafraid to live, laugh, love...to be, do and help


It has always served me well to be myself. Even in such moments where I pay the price of ostracism and loneliness, it has been as a refusal to lose myself at the gain of hollow offerings of companionship or material gain. What need have I of the company of those who sought to remove aspects of me that denied my right to personhood? There is a line between those changes that may enrich or otherwise benefit an individual or society, and the changing of a person to have them simply aligned with your view of them - usually an abasement to serve your ego. This interpersonal colonisation is often not readily recognised for what it is, and indeed can be enacted without even being seen as such by the perpetrator.
I previously wrote about treading softly around the dreams of others. I expand that thought to the treatment of the sanctity of personhood and individual choice: insomuch as a defining trait does not infringe on the rights and freedoms of another, it may be taken value-free as is.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN ONE SHOULD TOLERATE THOSE WHO ABUSE THIS ARGUMENT.
it also does not excuse one from being beholden to ones thoughts feelings and most importantly, the consequences of one's actions and opinions. My generation has taken to feeling their words and deeds, flung carelessly into the ether are at once ex cathedra as well as free of ramifications so long as they bear the "It's my opinion"/"it's who i am" cadence...no

BECAUSE they are YOUR thoughts
BECAUSE they are YOUR deeds
they WILL be used to come to a conclusion about YOU
THEY WILL NOT always be aligned with your true self or even your self-concept
they will sometimes be ordinarily abhorrent to you
but honour the realisation that they will be all persons observing will have to go on
UNTIL they are greeted with the true you through interaction.
It would be lovely if we all waited until we had full pictures before we judged...but the world is not such a place.


So...this rant may be foolish, may be disjoint...even pointless.

I accept all of those likely definitions, as well as the truth that it is simply a rant. it is a manifestation in cyberspace of my current mental ruminations.

All my Mind
CH

hmm...an observation or mindless rant?

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions...and I'm the chief brick lay-er"

I found myself making this observation as I sat in transit to the University campus for my customary Thursday night chorale rehearsal. So often do ill sentiment and malfeasance become the end result of a well meaning thought or action (while I readily admit that in many instances this is brought on by the part motivators of fear or ignorance); usually festering into malice and disillusionment because of misinterpretation.
There was a comic I had read a little while ago that dealt with the artist's opinion of heaven: "...Imagine normal life, but where everyone understands what your intentions were when you screwed up..." (link to comic here: SMBC Comics). I saw it and I thought, isn't this what real life could have been if we all took the time to practice what we preach in moments of non-conflict ?
we never take the time anymore to simply understand someone, to get to walk around from their perspective. I do not look at this through a rose coloured lens - evil exists and persons take joy in personifying it - but so many moments would not become shaded with negativity and ill humour if we simply let go. but then...who's to say we aren't all just paving the expansive walkway to our destruction? Sadly, persons like me do so merrily, unwilling to allow dark things external and internal to corrupt their intent. And then there are others: those only dimly aware if what they're doing is the best choice for all, and willing it to be so, as in the moment it seems like the best choice for them.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams
(W. B. Yeats)

we forgot to tread softly...we forgot we walk among each others dreams.