Engaging in the act of revisiting something written years, or even decades, ago can be a truly fascinating experience. The sensation reveals the profound extent of one’s transformation with the passage of time and accumulated experiences.
My very first entry into a diary dates back to February 11th, 1999, when I was just a few months shy of my ninth birthday. Since that point, I have consistently written my thoughts about people, events, feelings, and the various places I have visited. I approached writing not as a skilled wordsmith but as a curious explorer—often scribbling hastily, with little regard for aesthetics, but always driven by the desire to capture and convey inspiration. Whether it was in the margins of my math notebook, on napkins in coffee shops, on the inner doors of certain closets, on boarding passes, or train tickets, my words found their way onto numerous surfaces.
While I explored profound concepts like love, pain, death, and the sense of not belonging from a young age, my writings predominantly overflowed with my adoration for nature, my fascination with the myriad ways in which our minds and spirits intertwine, and the solace I discovered in moments of solitude.
Within the pages filled with these tightly packed letters I can barely read now, what truly captivates me is the profound realization that regardless of the adversities life presents, the soul has immense resilience. Moreover, regardless of the limited confines of the world we are born into, and the many ways we are exploited by our environment, we are reminded that life itself can expand to limitless proportions based on our perceptions and aspirations.
I also consistently wrote about the importance of finding ways to bring joy into one’s life, even if that would mean playfully mocking ourselves when alone or finding amusement in the simplest, most mundane things. Rather than ridicule ourselves and think of the million ways we could have acted better in certain circumstances, why don’t we just say that “it is what it is” and have a good laugh at ourselves?
Always, always find all the ways you can to look at life like it’s a gift. Nothing is as solid and unyielding as our initial perceptions may lead us to believe.
Your mind, unquestionably, accepts everything you feed it. While this might sound like a notion bordering on delusion, isn’t everything, in essence, a form of delusion? Isn’t the very idea of having a “tomorrow” a construct of our imagination?
“When a bird gets free, it does not go back for remnants left on the bottom of the cage.” – Rumi
THE WONDERMIND 