Save the whales hate your parents

I haven't felt this alive in a long time. Over the weekend, I took the Landmark Forum. It is a seminar on improving quality of life and living authentically. In the Forum, you explore the stories you create for yourself and how these stories or ideas limit the ability to create possibilities in your life. "I'm a nerd". "I'm a morning person." "I'm only into hip-hop and have to eat mochi ice-cream for desert". "I only like Filipino girls and they only like me". You essentially block out the possibility of being or experiencing anything else. You create a story, an image, a persona and all of these things you believe to be "true" about yourself. These are not truths. They are merely opinions or views created by you.

If you view yourself as a "shy" person for example. You have general ideas of what the word shy means, as confirmed by the public at large. The definition of the word is then agreed upon by you. You thereby apply the definition to yourself and create a story for yourself as being "shy". In essence you create a view of yourself as a "shy person" because of your relationship with language associated with the word. Darn language. I need to elaborate on this more but I don't have the brain power.

I think I just went down a rabbit hole. I should get back out. But back to the forum, I've never experienced connecting with other human beings on such a profound level. Over the last few days, I've dramatically reduced my tendency to label and categorize people and be more in the moment of a conversation versus already having preconceptions and ideas about who the person is, what I should say or do to gain approval, etc. Its as if I'm throwing out the stories I have created about people and letting conversations evolve from nothing. I feel in-tuned, spontaneous, and and non-judgmental. I'm beginning to realize what it feels like to be a human "being" - to see through the vale of language and into whatever mysterious shit that's so beautiful.