Prose by Sam Yang - Get similar updates here

It's hard to feel bad when I think good thoughts. It's hard to feel good when I think bad thoughts.

It's impossible to feel good if I only have bad thoughts, just as it's impossible to feel good if I only have good thoughts.

There is a need for wholeness. A complex balance of all aspects of my nature. A need not only for self-acceptance, but whole self-acceptance. An acceptance of my very being.

I am not my thoughts...

That is to say that I am not only my thoughts. I am many things, my nature has many pieces.

I am not my mind.

I tell my mind what to think and do. Though it's difficult to control my mind, difficulty does not erase my control. I preside over my mind, however difficult the task.

I am not my mind nor my body.

I in a way supersede these elements. I can tell my mind what to think, then my thoughts tell my body what to do. My mind can think, my body can do. But my body does without my thoughts; my mind thinks without me knowing. I trust this process.

There is still room for spirit—a matter of semantics. From consciousness, sentience, to soul—I am more than the amalgam of my brain and body. More than the fabric it's printed on.

I don't know what the "afterlife" is; however, I do know in essence, we are all stardust and we will return back to stardust.

Perhaps one day we'll recombine again into something with sentience. Perhaps pieces of us will recombine to several things with sentience. Or it won't.

Or it will be a combination of sentient and non-sentient things.

Or perhaps we are just reflections of light from a long dead star, traveling through the universe. Like the rest of space, happenings without material. A universal being.

Yet there is no way to know. However, what is assured is that we will continue.

When I have these moments where I believe I am only my body or only my thoughts, despair creeps in. And if it does, I accept that, too. It's fleeting.

All things change. That's the only truth I know. If I do not accept, I fixate. Lingering. Creating an environment for more despair.

The more I deny my nature, the stronger despair's foothold.

Western religions say, "This too shall pass."

Eastern religions say, "All things must pass."

The Greeks say, "There is nothing permanent except change."

Science is the study of impermanence.

My nature is like multiple streams traveling in contrasting directions. Trying to reduce myself down into a single category is like trying to find the center of a universe that is infinitely big and infinitely expanding.

I am more than any one thing. And I can know all things from one thing. Rather than dissociating, it is more relevant to think of myself as a part of a continuum. To think of my parts as parts of a continuum.

As much as I have an ability to control, wholeness also submits and lets go.

Nature commands and nature yields. This is the ebb and flow. This is the frustration. This is the art.

I am not my thoughts.

This is the wholeness of being.

I am not my body.

Self-wholeness is living art.

I am beyond measure.

You are beyond measure.

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