The Power Of Mind

When I was younger, I didn’t know for a fact that time was relative, but understood it intuitively. I would always think about how fast time would move for me when I was sick v.s. sleeping. How in one case an hour could feel like a week and the other an hour could feel like seconds. Then I would wonder about other people and their relative experience of time. Obviously everyone couldn’t experience time in the same way, so I would think about where people would be in time, based on their experiences. If I was in recess while a friend in detention, I would reason that their present moment is different from mine. In these cases it would be pretty obvious to me that they were in a different place in time from me entirely, possibly a few hours behind my time. If someone wasn’t even in the same moment as me, how could I have any chance to interact or connect with them. Think about people who have experienced something like war, with all of its atrocities and horror. Could someone from the c...

There is a state of transcendence which many athletes have the good fortune to experience. In this state, you come closer to yourself than you ever have. Lose yourself to find yourself. This transcendence can be imagined as a blissful flow state, and I have experienced it in multiple different sports including weightlifting, yoga, bouldering, capoeira, and BJJ. It requires you to push past the furthest place you have ever been, beat both mental and physical fatigue, and step outside of your comfort zone, owning every second of it. In a society lacking of ritualistic transitions from childhood to adulthood, these transcendental moments are rites of passage (reference “King, Warrior, Magician, Warrior” 1 ). Put simply, redefine your limits and Shatter your self image! What happens when this transcendental state is reached? We break out of the narrative which was constructed largely without your consent. Emerson (reference “The Spiritual Emerson” 3 ) says “infancy conforms t...