Clarity is what i have. i can see things that the regular person can not. i see myself from the outside. i can stop in mid-action and say "wait, control yourself". it is difficult for me to remain angry or sad as i will always see myself from the outside and tell myself to stop because it is doing me no good. if i were to follow through with any emotion, it would be just an act, as the moment and mood of it are spoiled by my watchful eye. when i see someone angry i can't help but to think "why are you acting it out like that, just stop it". where if someone said that to me, i would stop it, i have learned it does not always work in others. it has the potential to work, but they do not know that most of their life is just an act in a play.

"i am the type of person that does and says this". that is a role you assigned yourself to play. you could easily stray from it but you keep yourself focused on that role and play it out to the bitter end. most probably don't know they can stray from it. when you are offended by something, it is just an act you chose to play. "i will be offended by this". you don't really have to be offended but your role says that you must act out the part of the offended.

all these labels that we give ourselves helps us to define our roles. "i am an irish female and will thus act accordingly". if you live by these labels, then you are living as an actor in a play. you are forming yourself into a mold and acting accordingly to it.

how can you take someone seriously when their whole interaction with you is a semi-scripted play? once you know their labels you can pretty much tell what they think and what their responses will be. they make it easy by wanting to conform to their labels.

Many years ago, you never would have conceived that you lived on a hunk of rock that is hurtling through space around an enormous fire ball. Your knowledge would have been limited by the knowledge that your society provides. What we know is based upon a build-up of previous knowledge that we inherit from previous generations.

In pre-historic times, the knowledge of which berries to pick in the forest came from the previous generations who watched tribe members die from eating deadly berries. lack of abundant food supplies, made experimentation necessary. in time, the tribe knew which food sources were safe to eat and which were not. this knowledge was passed down to younger tribe members who then built upon it with new knowledge of newer food supplies.

once civilizations came into being, knowledge of food procurement and general history was not the only information passed on to the next generation. scientific and technological advancements were passed on and built upon by the next generation.

certainly throughout time, humans have had a skewed vision of the world around them due to the limited knowledge of their society. it's as if people see things through tinted glasses with blinders on the sides. They only see in the direction that their society provides by its particular buildup of knowledge and what they see is skewed by their society's limited knowledge. If one is part of a mystical society, one may view events as originating from magic.

some truths or at least half truths are revealed with this limited vision. These revelations are held up as proof to the veracity of the entire limited vision. If this is true then the rest of it must be true, is the common mantra. this of course is nonsense and leads to a skewed view of the world and its constituents. you think you are seeing things clearly, but with the tinted glasses of your limited knowledge, things may not be as clear as you think. and with untruths built upon more untruths, your entire view may become seriously skewed.

most of our time is spent escaping "reality" i.e. books, movies, tv, drugs and alcohol. even the ones who spend their time engaged in "serious" matters are really only playing a game of pretend. "I am a federal court judge and demand the respect and honor that my high position grants me". that person is just another hairless ape like the rest of us playing a part in some grand game of make-believe. reality is completing the digestive cycle while sitting on the toilet.

watch a lot of people play board games or athletic games and you can see them taking the games a little too seriously. in the same way, you are taking the games of pretend that you play in your life too seriously. sure you can play your games and have fun doing it but do not forget what is real. do not get so caught up in the games. all those special meanings that you attach to everything are just pretend. there is nothing more special to a wedding ring than there is to a clump of dirt. the meaning is pure imagination.

when you play games of pretend, people will tend to bend the rules to their favor. children do this all the time with their games. this is not a fair game and one that will not go as you originally intended. it will not go by a strict set of unchanging rules like many expect it to. those that cheat will exploit the ones that don't cheat.

you should find, once you step outside the sphere of pretend, that life becomes a simple process. there are no longer all these intermingling realms of pretend with differing rules. you see what is really going. all those things that used to not make sense are now cleared up. most of them were probably just pretend and no longer matter anyway. and those that weren't pretend, are no longer covered in its shroud and are plainly visible for what they are.

A muscle grows stronger only when stressed beyond its initial capacity. After stress, a recovery period heals and then builds-up the muscle so that it is stronger than the pre-stress capacity.

With too much stress on a muscle without chance for recovery and subsequent build-up, the muscle will only weaken into a conditioned termed over-training.

With too little stress or with too long a recovery period, the muscle will fail to increase capacity due to lack of sufficient stress. Also, gains from the initial stress do not last for long and once sufficient recovery has taken place, a greater stress must be applied within the appropriate time frame to build upon the increased strength.

Perhaps this can also be applied to your mental growth. It may be that without struggle, you will not grow. It may be that struggle must play as vital a role to your life as air and food. Embrace your struggle and learn from it because it will be your only true mentor.

Seek out struggle in order to learn but do it judiciously as too much stress without sufficient recovery will only set you back. Build upon successes with more and greater struggles. Do not sit aside once a single victory has been won for gains are short-lasting and must be maintained.

If you were taught that struggle is something to avoid then were lied to. If you were taught that your life should turn out to be non-stop joy then you were lied to. If you were taught that life is anything but struggle then you were lied to. You will and you must struggle for survival as your ancestors did before you. "Survival of the fittest" is not just a catchy slogan, it makes the point that everything alive today is here because it overcame struggle.

Modern society has removed so much struggle from us that we are flaccid weaklings not fit to survive. You knew back in the day, when we hunted and gathered our food, that every last member of the tribe was a vital and valued member. Daily life was a struggle and if you did not meet that struggle you surely died. If others cared enough about you then you survived for another day. You struggled at food procurement and you struggled to build social ties. Once you sit back and no longer struggle then you are left out to die. There are no laurels to rest upon.

Modern society's removal of so much struggle has also fooled you into thinking that struggle is an unacceptable way to live and that something must be wrong if a challenge presents itself. You are shocked when you find yourself in the middle of a struggle. And if you have no previous experience in overcoming struggle, you are lost. There is no such thing as tragedy; it is called life. A tragic situation is just another day in the game of life. Struggle goes hand-in-hand with living.

Do not shrink away when challenge presents itself; overcome and grow from it. Build up your ability to handle struggle by engaging in it so that when greater challenge comes you are ready for it.