Who Are You?

Who are you?
By Robert G Parent

Sometime I get to a point where I start to question my life, my choices, where am I going – NO I am not going through a mid life crisis. I wonder why people call it that? I've noticed, at least for me, that the questioning, wondering, pondering happens more than once in my life. I talk about cycles in much of my poems and that is because I know we go through many cycles in a lifetime – cycles upon cycles, to put it into more poetic terms.

The questioning phase is a part of the cycles we go through. And for me, it is usually when I do a lot of writing, even though I'm always writing something or doing some creative work. How can I not? After all, this is why we're here on Earth, to create. Anyway, getting back to the questioning phase. I do a lot of writing in that phase but usually it's a different kind of writing. It's about, or part of, a growth cycle experience, and as creative people – we all go through.

“Who we are” is a question that keeps changing. At different places in our life, we are different people, focused on different problem, philosophies, and do different patterns. We move from one way of thinking to another way of thinking. Have you every thought of why we do that? What are we growing toward? What makes us change? Is it because we don't want to be bored that we keep creating experiences? Here is an exercise: Look back at your life, if you've kept a journal great, read though it. Notice where you've started to question stuff. What experiences where you having at that time? If you haven't kept a journal, this could be a great time to start. Go through your memories. Ponder on what problems you were going through. How has that changed your philosophy? Ask yourself how have you grown through that problem or experience? You can also look at your family and friends and mentally put yourself in their shoes ( so to speak ); How has their problems or experiences shaped their philosophy? Write this out in your journals. This exercise will not only give you insight into your own philosophy, but will help you understand other people and how we come into a belief system or our philosophy.

Here is another challenge for those brave enough to accept it. If you are a Democrat, put yourself in Republican shoes. If you are a Republican, put yourself in Democrat shoes. What experiences shaped their philosophies? You can also do this for any gender or people ( nationality ).

We are who how we think of our experiences. This shapes our Point of View. This helps bring life into our writing. This helps keep the Creative Juices rolling by giving us content, experience, and growth that opens us up to a bigger world, a bigger picture filled with more possibilities to create and create again. Through creating, we discover who we are emotional, mentally and spiritually. And, this is the foundation to all our writing and creative works.

Journaling by Robert G Parent

Journaling by Robert G Parent

Here are 5 stages ( Ideas ) to remember about Journaling.

Your Daily Life. Organize Thoughts. Increase Awareness. A Place to Play. Looking Back.

Journaling will help you learn about and tap into the creative potential that is within all of us. What you learn about creativity will help you come up with new projects in writing, art, photography, and music. Journaling and the exploration of creativity can help you on your job and business solve problems or come up with new products and services.

Your Daily Life. Journaling is a way to record events, ideas, special moments and thoughts about your daily life. Each word and idea you put into your journal is like a seed that is waiting to sprout. In the process of becoming, manifesting into the physical realm, your journal is your potential plan, your guide to a better and more creative life. Write down everything in your journal.

Organize Thoughts. Creativity has to start at an organized place, work through chaos, and bring it back into order in a New Way. Creativity is all about looking at ordinary life in a new way, by asking “What if?” or “Imagine that...” We take what we see and shape it in a new way, reforming it in many ways like Playdough, from that chaos stage we need to turn it into another New Tangible form. How do we do this? By having a place where we can record that journey of our imagination – in our Journals.

Increase Awareness. As we use our journals, we will increase the awareness of our surroundings, emotions, thoughts, and our soul – the higher part of ourselves. A journal is a recording of our daily life. It's what we thought and felt in the past to how we think and feel now. It's about our growth from our past to our present to our dreams that shape our future. Whether we take a walk in the woods, park, city, mall, or wherever, we learn to pay attention to our environment and gain meaning from the places we go. We not only go through life but we go through life with meaning ( beingness ).

A Place to Play. As we write down our thoughts and ideas, we can start playing around, combining, and reshaping our ideas in new ways. This is what I call playing and where thoughts and ideas can start to sprout. In this playing process, start moving around your words and ideas. Combine them in new ways. Pick out some words or ideas and place them with other words and ideas. As the rain and the sun do their dance to create a plant, we take this Playdough mess of the process of playing and look for an image, a New Thing, and focus and put our attention on this image and bring this New Thing into manifestation by adding to or taking away from this Playdough mess.

Looking Back. This works for everyone from the writer to the business person. You are aware of your current problems, whether its a block or business problem. By looking back on what you've written, you can create a new project or find a solution to your current problems. After, you can use your journal to work through the process to create that new work or new solution.

Your journal can be a planner, a therapist, a place to play, place to create or anything you can dream about it becoming. Your journal is your record through life. Your journal is a place to explore your creative potential in your life. Your journal can also be your best friend that you share intimate details about your life. Everyone should have a place to record there creative journey to life. So, what are you waiting for, start your journal today.

First Post

This blog will host all the articles that I've written.

Robert G Parent