Kilroy J. Oldster

We are the product of our past. We start each day where we left off the day before. Changing the way we dress, where we work and live, or even changing a name does not alter our basic constitution. Transformation of the self requires a radical alteration in the way that we perceive the world and derive meaning.

Change is essential for survival. All life forms must adapt to their fluctuating circumstances. All form of life result from the process of variation, mutation, competition, and inheritance. The universe is in a constant state of chaos. We each have chaos implanted into our bones. Nature wires all of us for change.

Change is part of life. Civilizations rise and fall, the tides wax and wane, the planet undergoes periods of climatic revolution, the young grow up, and the old die. What will come is that what shall be. Survival as individuals and as a species demands fluidity of human thought and the demonstrated ability, temperament, and perseverance to change.

A life of living free and taking endless satisfaction from a person__ promiscuous meanderings entails intermittently retooling oneself to meet a desired future. Perhaps the most difficult challenge of life is detecting when the ground moves beneath us and then nimbly shifting our mental perspective.

We fear change because it insists we discard long held structures that no longer function suitably.

A willingness to let go of an old self and allow creative thoughts to remake a person into a better version of oneself requires an act of courage.

Enlightenment _ whether defined as spiritual awakening, liberation, or other form of illumination and attentiveness _ requires inner transformation brokered by study of our limitations and application of a welcoming spirit of conscious appreciation. Self-knowledge commences by looking for the sacred light of awareness essential to spawn profound change in a person__ character.

Transitional periods in life are unsettling because a person__ latent fears constantly whisper warnings.

Nothing that remains static is truly ever alive. Nature does not abide idleness. All energy sources of the natural world and the cosmos are in a constant motion, they are in a perpetual state of fluctuation. All forms of living must make allowances for the seasons of change. The Earth itself is twirling through space, spinning on its axis analogous to a child__ top. The unpredictable forces of instability brought about by a combination of motion, change, and flux propels the miraculous dynamism of existence.

Scholars postulate that the only thing that does not change is the every varying world. Other renowned thinkers postulate that the natural state of all things is to remain the same. Perhaps both propositions are vital. Perhaps it is normal to resist change because it threatens our present state of being. Perhaps it is natural to attempt to preserve the status quo because we are part of the external world and we wish to persevere, not expire. Perhaps it is inevitable that we all change. The natural forces are impossible to blunt.

The human mind__ innate ability to imagine and create ensures that we never remain stalled out in who we are. We constantly seek to amend our circumference and circumstances, craft and redraft our emotional, social, political, economic, and artistic being.

There are times in life that we ascribe qualities or traits to other people that are inaccurate or fail to recognize other aspects of their being because we are emotionally invested in that person fulfilling a specific role in our life. When we claim that the other person changed it is not so much that they altered their core composition, but we now must admit to ourselves that our original perception of them was imprecise.

Nature is never static. It is always changing. Everything is in a constant state of flux. Nothing endures. Everything is in the process of either coming into being or expiring.

A person must escape artificial constraints and unfold the myth of their own being. There is only one path for a thinking person in life, and that is to assume the role of a compassionate observer. I can only achieve personal freedom _ liberty of the mind, body, and soul _ by stop worrying about how other people perceive me and no longer judge myself in terms of fame and fortune.

Self-questioning is the road to personal liberation and spiritual enlightenment. Self-questioning spurs the mind to consider new opportunities to arrive at truth.

We are condemned to be free people, liberated people who must make life-defining decisions. Freedom requires choices and all choices entail value decisions.

In the blackness of the midnight sleep world, immunized from the harsh glare of daytime reality, the active imagination of the soul dances in the mind of a dream weaver. Safely shrouded in the all-encompassing blanket of darkness supplied by nighttime sleep, our secret wishes speak to us by channeling the collective mythology of the primordial mind. During the wee hours of night, right before first light, we summon our personal muse to tell us in operatic fashion what it means to be human. If we listen carefully, our muse__ heart songs shares with us what it means to experience both the tragedy and comedy of life, and encourages us to unreservedly embrace in a moral manner the banality, brutality, beauty, and splendor of nature that occurs eternally in the cosmic world that swaddles us.

Dreams fuel human beings imaginative response to existence.