When Transformative Experiences Become Flat or Disappear

Have you ever been going about your day, when some extraordinary moment takes you out of your usual framework, keying you into a state of complete wonder? 

Have you felt like you'd never be the same person again, after having had this experience?

Have you ever watched a movie and felt yourself transform, only to wake up the next day as your previous self?

It's not uncommon for a catalyst to come along & burst a person's view wide open. When filled with wonder and clarity, it seems impossible to return to an old way of being.

However, a shadow of old thinking is often there & at some point starts churning, subtly fueled by what is around it. The old world, internal & external, is still advertising. It doesn't really fight a person & own them outright. In fact the person may feel free and in control.

What it does is sort of creep up & elicit a familiarity or a craving. It can drift one back without a realization of it & without alarm; In the mind that big landmark catalyst is still safe on the timeline. It exists as a real event in a personal story; a place someone can visit in the mind. But, as someone once said, gradually, bit by bit (perhaps with a quarter teaspoon), the mind's old pathways are being dug back out.

Gradually the tranforming experience can become flat and something far out of everyday experience. Its alive enough that a person can differentiate old way from new, but the new way isn't truly practiced anymore. Its like an isolated island in the mind. 

It may seem that the catalyst experience was a idealistic phase gone through before growing up. But maybe the person didn't stay long enough? It can be challenging to stay when a surrounding culture is constantly selling itself.

It's easy to say awareness/mindfulness is key, but it may be helpful to bombard the self with information more in the vein of the new way of thinking.... being mindful of what is watched and read, what environments time is being spent in. 

This counter advertising may nurture higher quality impulses, make apparent a brighter palette of what may be translated into reality.

Are the best ideas and impulses we have really held in 3-D long enough to become real?; Because its not just about the catalyst; its about everyday being. It may be about taking the mind to the gym.

Luckily the new view is likely still there and once dusted off & nourished may push itself up and send out new branches. It doesn't have to be bright, flashy and loud; sometimes if there's too much frosting a taste for substance can be lost...

While it may be natural to rally around shared experience and identity, it can be tricky with symbols, lingo, comradary, competition, emotion, music... anything. Sometimes a collective cause may contain a subtle pull to what everybody thought they left behind. 

People may feel the pressure of keeping up appearances. New flags can be sewn as history repeats itself.

Is the original idea really there? Can intuition be heard through the frosting? Is the fluctuation off the ideal reasonable? Does it average to a quality endeavor, or is it a safe place to be what everyone was before?

Old minds and old thought patterns like to stay alive and may creatively wrap themselves in a new color as the substance drifts away like a paper boat.

Sometimes the original catalyst feels so far out in the ocean that it doesn't even seem real, but perhaps it is real; it just isn't reinforced. And when truly reinforced, maybe it can stick around long enough to become more permanently real. It can become a type of everyday advertising to the internal/external self, thereby creating a good loop. 

There's a quote that says 'repetition is the mother of skill'. And while it may be ineffective to grab on too tight, it certainly may be effective to practice.

People tend to look like the sports they play. What is it that the surrounding culture/environment has a person practice over and over again? What is chosen to be practiced over and over again? 

What framework holds that practice in place, so one may go beyond default limits & become, what would otherwise be, a collection of good ideas... or quiet impulses from intuition that scratch at a person but are mostly neglected.

Did the wonder-filled experience leave you with a subtle inkling that there is more? 

Someone once described (and I don't remember who) a situation where people could choose five movies to watch. One movie was generally some type of documentary or something educational, with potential to enlighten the person in some way. A person had to choose from the five movies a movie to watch right now. The documentary was almost always put off until later.

I think, in a way, this is a great analogy for how we go about our lives. That change to be made, that new experience to be had, something outside of routine cravings, is right there, easily grabbed. We don't grab it for two reasons... We don't have the built in habitual craving for it... it isn't sugar... and we believe that tomorrow exists. So we find ourselves inside of Groundhog Day, living the same habits over and over.

If the day is observed, we can break the habit and just grab the other thing... not because it is difficult, not because it is right or perfect, but because it is a break in our program. The easiness of it is perhaps the trap.

Will we be bold enough to reach for the unhabitual, the potential trigger for the out-of-ordinary experience, the potential wardrobe door... into that world we once visited but did not remain?

This is not about getting high.  It is about getting in touch with the expanse and mystery of life that is before us.  It is to be in touch with what is possible within that.