Anyway, I believe this someway related to “label”. By believe in what you have become will help to attract what you are becoming, this is law of attraction.

What a coincidence that you think reading is an obstacle to writing. It’s a coincidence because I encountered the notion of reading as obstacle for the first time only a few weeks ago in the book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julie Cameron. The book is meant to help blocked artists.

She says that reading is soothing to an artistic mind. Words are like sedatives. But reading keeps ideas and inspiration at bay, and creativity isn’t acted upon when reading. So she suggests depriving yourself for one week. Faced with open free time, the artist will be driven to do everything but read: clean the house, organize the videos, go out with a friend, do homework, cook their own meals. Halfway through the week, the artist will run out of alternative activities, and without the soothing effect of words, will feel driven to create something.

I tried it, and after four days I was finally (finally!) drawing again. But I broke the deprivation the next day with an eleven hour binge of reading. It was almost like an addition relapse. But I plan to try again after the summer school session is closed.

Best of all, we aren’t tied to many labels, so as changes come we can embrace them without fear.

I’ve always thought that if we all realize that we are the same species (as in human) the world would be a much better place.

Terry

Our inclination to label everything in our life makes us look to the label from the bottle rather than to the actual content of the bottle. A great advice that Osho kept repeating in almost all his books, was to stop labeling and categorizing the things and the people, and simply look at them. In that moment we would be able to see what is actually around us.

The idea you can categorize and label people is strange. Who or what am I? Nobody can define me, not even I. If I could I would have been enlightened. In fact, Osho wrote somewhere that one of questions most helpful to wake you up (in the Buddhist conception at least) is “Who am I?” with the variant “Where am I?” In my life, I have experienced ups and downs, periods of wealth and periods of lack of money. However, all the time, I was the same person, so trying to put a label on me would be totally pointless.

I understand, though. I learned a valuable lesson from my mother about the ridiculousness of it all: She was a rabid Democrat (capital “D”, mind you) and once asked me how could I be so close with my best friend from college because she is a — horror!!! — Republican! How could I trust such a person? How could I be friends with her??

The absurdity of it hit me like a rock. The person in question was (and still is!) one of the best women I’ve ever had the honor to know. To write her off just because of that stupid political designation was stupidity squared. And my Mother was a brilliant woman, she just blinded herself with that mental poison. Absurd.

If removing labels from yourself frees you to do what you need to do, I think that is powerful and good. Anyway, I’m pro anarchy! Go Steve! :::wink::::