Saturday 31 August 2013

A labour of love.

Ever heard of M. Scott Peck? He was a psychotherapist who wrote a book called 'The road less travelled'. It's a book about life, love and discipline (maybe some more stuff, I'm only half way through).

He talks at great length about spiritual growth and how only an action which enables or causes you or somebody to grow spiritually can be called an act of love. A labour of love is something which takes effort, but rewards you in kind. Something that you push all of your time into, but doesn't require any effort (something like television or in my case, tower defense games) is nothing but a time sink. It gives nothing back to you.

If it requires your effort, if it is an exercise of will then that is only half the requirements. At least, that's what M. Scott Peck says. He says the second requirement is that it somehow extends your boundaries. What I believe is that your boundaries are largely defined by the strength of your discipline and will, and by exercising your will, you strengthen it. In this way every act of discipline is an act of love. Love for yourself or love for another.

This blog is an exercise of will. I stumbled a couple of weeks ago when I did not post anything at all. The week before that I had written a blog entitled Gender roles in a broken world. It got just 7 views. I felt like I had failed because nobody had read my blog and this depressed me. I felt like my writing was not worthwhile and couldn't motivate myself to continue writing. I felt like I was not worthwhile and couldn't motivate myself to practice my guitar or my saxophone! It wasn't until two weeks later that I finally picked up the courage to write again and even longer before I picked up my instruments again. What I now realise is that my failure wasn't in writing a blog post which was not widely read, my failure was to let slip my discipline. To let such a thing as my number of readers affect me was to forget the true purpose of my blog, which is written for me.

I suspect everybody has their own reasons for writing. I write to solidify my ideas. To make sure that I understand what it is that I am saying and as a learning process. The reason I post them on the internet and show all my friends and family is so that I can stand by my beliefs no matter who reads them. I often write about overtly sexual or left-wing subjects. Things my parents and grandparents don't always understand or agree with. I sometimes write things which are overtly controversial like Was Adolf Hitler a Bad Man... Not sure how many friends that one bought me... but the fact is that my opinions and how I view the world is my ultimate labour of love, my search for the truth. It is this dedication to the truth that I will stand by my whole life if I can manage it.

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