The Most Important Meal of the Day

I was flipping eggs for breakfast this morning when the act inspired a memory, or triggered it, however you so please to perceive like events.  I remembered, to be specific, what my grandfather told me about flipping eggs: "The secret," he said "is testicular fortitude."  Seeing as how I cracked my first egg into a pan when I was about 10, this punchline flew straight over my head in a hurry.  But as I have gotten older I have realized the importance of that advice, and also what was wrong with it.

There are brave people and there are scared people; those who are brave only earned the characterization because they were once scared and overcame it; those who are scared are only scared because they were once brave and let their dim insecurities eclipse their fearlessness.  Any one can be scared or brave, but you can't be both at the same time.

But as I sat each piece of bread in its reflective toasting slot, the nature and gravity of that conclusion was processed a bit more than it had previously been.  First, I realized my grandpa's apparent chauvinism considering he brought balls into the equation; I put aside gender for this consideration, because I have learned as well as any undergraduate should, that women and men can be brave and scared just the same.  Second, that although these eggs were flipped with "(now) non-engendered fortitude" there were so many eggs that I have cooked and seen cooked whose yolks were scrambled and broken courtesy of someone being scared of the possibility of ruining them--make note that being scared leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy when preparing breakfast.

So upon considering those first eggs that I ruined, I think I ruined them because I was scared that I didn't have the courage to flip the damn things.  So I must give a tip of the cap to unrefined wisdom, in this case, as well as ancestry for guiding me along today's Musing of the Mind.  And as I reflect now on bravery and those who I think are brave, I remember that they had to flip their first eggs to become brave; they are brave because they continue to enjoy their breakfast favorite sunny-side up, or over-easy and know that they can fail--that they can break the yolk--but crack the egg into the pan bravely without concern and with the hope that today fate just might fry them a double yolk.

Is it real?  Do the eggs mean that much? Are my explorations of bravery and cowardice too overstated?

Is it me?  Is all this writing me projecting my anxiety of being scared?

Is it in my head? Is bravery really worth all this jazz?  Beowulf, Evil Knievil, Uri Gagarin: they were all brave, they all changed the world, is it too much to consider my ability to change things (or the way people think about them) as something dependent on bravery?

The answers lay with you, reader.

Finally, let me celebrate remembering the salt and pepper, despite this powerful epiphany.

Taking the Plunge

Is it real? Is it in my mind? Or is it just me?

It is my intention to purge the rushing current of thought from my mind.  Often I find myself wandering along a string of thoughts and find that I ran out of bread crumbs some time ago and cannot remember how I got to where I am.  Much like your mind at work driving a long distance, as John Steinbeck once considered it; he noticed there is an infinitude of creativity when driving: you design houses you'll never build, and plan gardens you will never plant.  Tracing the bewildered mind will not be much like one friend would inquire about life with another, it will be a dive into the inner mind of just one friend.  More than anything: if you had skeptic, thoughtful, existential friend it would be like tapping into his brain.  I am a humble author, but I fight the same fight you do in taking a deeper look into the unanswered questions anyone has about life--Why am I here? What am I here to do? Why does this event and this particular time trigger a dead sprint into reflection and pondering?

Each entry will hold the world to light and examine it for what it really is.  Is it real(ity)? Is it in my mind; is it made up? Or is this train of though a problem of subjection or perception--is it just me?  Think of it in terms of Rene Descartes, "I think therefore I am."  Do I think because I exist, or do I exist because I think?  Consider also the commonly excepted phrase, "Insanity is repeating the same process and expecting a different result."  What if I don't expect a different result, but have the simple curiosity to repeat the process just to see if the same thing happens: am I, then, insane?  Am I anxious because of my thoughts? Or do my thoughts make me anxious?  These are the thoughts and ways of thinking that I want to introduce and examine with you, reader.

Its hard to determine what topic these posts will be about, since the flavor will triggered by a word, or action--call it a synesthesic mixture in my mind, where one stimulation is coerced with another.

Nothing is off limits for these posts, and I hope that pushing the envelope becomes a habit and that learning becomes a staple.

I have a thirst for knowledge and for meaning, and I want to uncover the truth as I hope you do.

With the motivation in ink I ask you to prepare yourself for a journey into (self) exploration.  Pack lightly, though, because the weight of ideas can grow to be almost too much to bear; and the trail too often seems to go cold in chasing a fleeting thought.

Let's try to make sense of the questions and curiosities in life that come with many perplexities or evade us completely.  I am at the edge of adventure, and I am ready to take the plunge; I am diving into the unknown, and I offer a hand to hold if my journey seems to suit you.