Kenneth Rexroth. ^
I've been contemplating a phrase my faith says a lot... "Act, or be acted upon". I always viewed this in the spiritual nature, but never took into account different perspectives until recently, watching so many people mold to either their actions, or lack thereof. I'm not sure where specifically to begin addressing my thoughts but I'll try to keep this organized and understandable.
I'd like to think my thought process worked backwards linking me to my understanding, or rather, expounded understanding of the phrase. "If you're not growing in God, you're being taken by the devil". But, not everyone would agree with that. So I took a step out of religion, "If you're not making progress in something, you're going to go backwards in it". That seemed a bit more universal of a phrase. This is where I started applying it to smaller things, like "If I don't practice my guitar, I won't make progress in it", or, "If I don't practice Icelandic", the language I'm learning, "I won't progress and slowly forget it", or at least lose it somewhere in my mind.
There is so much benefit to practicing the things you learn, and working towards things you want. I really want to be a good singer, but I don't stick to constant practice and focus, I lose those muscles and muscle memory and I can't make progress. And if I don't practice long enough, I lost everything I'd gained entirely (in a general sense). And along with thinking about the singing, I began to focus on the physical sense, "If I don't take care of my body, it will decay", basically.
This concept isn't one I know how to expound much more on. In my Cognitive Psychology and Physiological Psychology classes I took this semester at Utah State University, I learned a lot about the brain, its plasticity (the ability for neurons to create new connections and store new memories and such), its role in memory, and the body in general regarding "what happens if...". It was absolutely amazing to see the molecular level at which acting, and being acted upon effects us, in body, mind, and spirit.
I have a goal this week, to focus entirely on memories of all sorts, and acting all week. Avoiding being acted on at all costs, and I hope to have something more to share about it by the end, which I will hopefully add into this.
