/ground/ verb: prohibit or prevent (a pilot or an aircraft) from flying.

The mind is a petty tyrant. It is a complex thing and is uniquely created, I think, to be one of the most frustrating parts of existence. It is a dictator. Multi-faceted, it is all-encompassing, and there is no escape from its influence on yourself. In fact, it is yourself. Like looking in a mirror, you know it and of it, but can you fully ever comprehend it? The way that you perceive the world is at your mind’s hands, or the mind is at yours, whichever way you would like to think of it. Which one is the master and which one is the subject is up for debate, but one thing is true; it can be either an accomplice or a foe, and can be one of the most pleasant ways to escape life or the hardest thing to escape from. The funny part about it though, is that as frustrating as it may be, the mind goes with us on all of life’s journeys. It truly is a friend indeed. But it is a noisy friend. There is hardly a moment when words aren’t running through my head. Chasing each other back and forth in constant communication. And even while my mind is entertaining me in the present, it is also at the same time compressing memories as they pass by my eyes into little snippets that can easily be brought back up at any point in time. But the mind doesn’t only do this for functionality, (so I’m not a mentally blind goldfish), but also for sentimentality. Because it understands the need for both.The mind creates new things, it clears out the old, it controls the way you feel.

To me, and many others, there are pretty much two axis to base your life on: the physical and the metaphysical. (I like to think of the metaphysical as including your relationship to God, your identity and being, your soul, etc. etc. The physical could be your body, your relationships, this world, and your general physical-like things.) And the mind is the queen of the metaphysical. Now, there is a level of stability, or presence, you could have in either. Where one is favored, the other is neglected. And the constant fight of life is to find the balance between the two, (because I don’t think they were ever intended to be completely separate.) But the points at which the two of these meet has always been murky to me. And if you’re anything like me, your inability to make these two meet as a pair has left some destruction in your wake.

At any given moment, I could believe two things at once or nothing at all because what is happening around me isn’t agreeing with what is going on inside of me, and this is constantly changing. Is there really any point to contemplation when all I come up with are muddled temporary expressions of what I think is right in that very moment but maybe I won't fully agree with it the next? I mean, there are of course the standards that have remained timeless and true; God is faithful and a constant presence that someone doesn’t easily, or actually ever escape. And gravity always, without fail, in the best of ways, pulls down on me. Down, down, down, and deeper yet. In fact it is sometimes the only thing that is keeping me grounded, and this is a comforting thing. To have one reliable solid thing to tie yourself to. To be able to look down and see your boots firmly planted on a sidewalk somewhere in Small-town, America. And there is nothing revolutionary about this. You already knew you were standing there. But you weren’t conscious of it because your mind was a million miles away until thankfully gravity pulled you back down and grounded you when you needed it most.

The main reason why my mind is such a frustrating thing to me though, is how I manage to use it as a weapon against others without me even wanting to. The way I am able to hurt people with the decisions I make, that often are simply just mistakes that I wish I could go back on so badly. I know what I want, but there is always reason in my head. that convinces me otherwise... but it's not even good reason.There has to be a difference between good intuitive reason, and just reason of what we think is right and wrong. And I tend to fall on the latter end of the spectrum. I could have something so good in my life, and pull myself away from it because it terrifies me. I use my reason as a form of defense to excuse myself from what is in actuality a streak of cowardice. But I’m not here to harp on myself or anyone who does the same thing. It's human nature. It's fight or flight. And yes, making up your own excuses of why you would like to live alone inside of your mind is a form of cowardice…And no, living contently with fear and constantly running away is not fulfilling because you can’t run very far away from people mid-air in your imaginary mind-clouds. And there will be a time when you will be brought back down to Earth again and reality will once more become your acquaintance. And reality likes to hit hard.

Maybe finding the balance between the physical and the metaphysical isn’t just ever one point that we constantly have to struggle for. Maybe they are overlapping. Maybe it's all mixed up, maybe they are actually the same and we don’t know it. I’m not sure, but I don’t think it’s meant to be as hard as we make it out to be. I feel like as Christians we, (I), oftentimes put a high focus on what is morally good and attaining to it. Especially what is going to help us grow the most “spiritually.” But maybe spiritual growth comes when you are mature enough to understand that there is not really always a separation between the two. When you learn that you need to live in this physical world, and spiritually thrive, without just running away from it. There is a difference between living within the world and indulging in everything it has to offer, and there is also a difference between living in the world and keeping everything and everyone at arm’s length in order to protect your Christian purity, or even just yourself for that matter.

Maybe we should learn to grow with God, and more importantly, with God and other people too. Alongside them. Maybe that’s an alright and healthy thing to do. And maybe if you are spiritually stagnant or finding yourself too physically or emotionally dependent, that is a problem within yourself and doesn’t really reflect on anybody else, or anything else, except you and how you handled the situations you were put in… but also your mind and the way it thinks, and sometimes closes itself off. But the antidote, it seems, is rather easy. Ground yourself. Wake up to the earth on which you have the great chance to live. Don't close yourself off. You could convince yourself of a million things, but you can only have one perspective on your own. And take your time. Time will test and prove truths for you, you don’t need to make decisions right there in the moment when you think something is wrong. Because you may have realized that through time, after you’ve made some pretty big flighty decisions, that you’ve misinterpreted what you thought was true. Or misunderstood what was happening. Or maybe you were just plain wrong. And that is okay. No one ever gets to know all of the answers by the age 20, and no one should ever be expected to. So I’m guessing it's okay to take your time and wait things out and take a few breaths. Because maybe, sometimes the thing that is wrong is actually yourself. And everything else is okay. And that's okay.