Still recovering, 2 and a half hours later, from seeing the movie A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. An excellent movie. Is not for everyone, though. Violently graphic, gory, language, sex, nudity and violent sex. And a strange ending.. which couldn't have been any other way.

Today, I think I am looking for new meaning.. for something of greater meaning.. of deeper purpose.. where the choices get tougher and the mind finds its challenges to be no less than earth-shaking. The daily struggles become more intense.. even the mediocre no longer is such. My choices affect my household, not just my life.. attitudes mine alone are by choice, and under my control.. let me not give over control of my attitudes to others, not to another human, not to any "group", not to any influence which I do not wish to be influenced by. To keep my mind on those things which please God, is done so by keeping the mind working on those things outlined in Philippians 4:8. By following these "instructions", how could I ever let depression or anger take hold in my mind and life, let alone take over..

The challenges to elevate the level of thinking at which I have been working, are ever present. The challenge to lift up my thoughts and mentality.. my intellectual and spiritual and emotional abilities.. is ever present. I know that by prayer, meditation, and concentration & reading good books, beginning with the bible.. these are the tools which begin the upward mobility, the fight to improve, to move onward and upward to a more productive thinking life and therefore greater satisfaction.

The efforts to improve the thought life are rewards in themselves. And even better, we become people who can endure greater trials, persecution, trouble and turmoil. In times of duress, in times when life becomes wreckage because of natural disasters, fire or sickness, the mind which has been well-cultivated in spiritual avenues is the mind of a man or woman who will stand up to the test, and say, "He has enabled me to endure."

Challenges to the daily living come in a diverse multitude- not the least of which are people with attitudes which are less than desirable to be around. People with attitudes of angry disposition and an inclination to confrontational behaviour, which are extreme and hard to deal with but there may be no escape from.. how does one handle this part of life? This part of life is sometimes unavoidable!

Stand alone? Maybe so. Alone but never alone.. that is, if God and Jesus are at work in your psyche by invitation.. after all, whatever is in the make-up of your mind, is there by invitation only.

Wide awake and looking for the trapdoor into the bunker where sleep might be found! But, this coffee tastes like mud so it must have been freshly ground this morning. It sure grinds out a thought a minute.. a word per nano-second.. entire volumes at the pace of the speed of light. Its amazing to be able to even get a word in, edgwise. The pace is entirely too fast..

I had better go lay down.

The more creative you are or become, the more you discover greater and greater competition from others who are thinking along the same lines as yourself. In getting to this place, for this writing, I found that a web-name creation was conflicting with another by some other.. and "you cannot use that, it's taken".. amazed me. One may think he (or she) is quite creatively original.. then you notice that the world is so crowded, that several people may be tapping into the same fields of energy- and their minds vying for words of originality. Just at the time you may think it, speak it or write it, more than one other person in this world may very well be finding those same words and thoughts flitting through their own minds!

Who has ownership of any particular line of thinking? Ah! Thinking cannot be owned.. cannot be copyrighted.. or else people would have to be put to death or "re-programmed" for thinking someone else's thoughts!

But, as we get past thinking and thought-forms, and begin to jump into the world of writing then it is a whole new ball game! We can copyright! Ideas leading to inventions can be trademarked.. the "invention", that is! Not the ideas. Putting ideas on paper though- text is created, and may become a written peice which can be copyrighted.

Intellectual property.. yes, now there is a hot topic! Been reading any of the material out there, concerning laws and ownership of intellectual property? There is a lot more than you would think.. more than you can shake a mental stick at! Arguments run hot, run wild, everyone has an opinion, an idea.. violent passions run amok.

Searching for meaning in your life? Intend to write about it? Do it! But do it knowing that a lot of other creative people are searching for meaning in their lives and they are writing about their search or searching.. and the outcomes. No one has "dibs" on creative thinking.. imagination runs rampant among the masses of people like you and I.. lots of great thinking going on out there and in here. How much is truly unique is witness to a thousand minds out of a million- and who creates something in verse, fiction or not, which has not quite been said that way before.

Uniqueness.. we are all patterned after the same first man and woman, yet in each man and woman are the genetic seeds to be entirely individual and separate from everyone else. Each one of us is so different from the other. And so much alike. So alive, so vibrant, so full of passion.

So full of thinking!