I fancied I had some constancy of mind because I could bear my own sufferings, but found through the sufferings of others I could be weakened like a child.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It is not my mode of thought that has caused my misfortunes, but the mode of thought of others.
One day I looked at something in myself that I had been avoiding because it was too painful. Yet once I did, I had an unexpected surprise. Rather than self-hatred, I was flooded with compassion for myself because I realized the pain necessary to develop that coping mechanism to begin with.
I have never had a current state of mind. My mind changes a great deal. I am very affected by any sorrow or sad thing, and I am very affected by joy and beauty.
I was always incredibly obsessed with germs and cleaning and taking shower after shower after shower. Even when I was very young, I wouldn't tie my shoelaces because they had touched the ground. I had continuous repetitive thoughts that I couldn't get past. As a child, my mind was a lot busier than I was.
Since my accident I am a little more mindful of the suffering of other people.
For years I had lived in my body half-consciously, ignoring it mostly, dismissing its agendas wherever I could, and forever pressing it into the service of mental conceptions that resulted, almost as a by-product, sometimes in its pleasuring and sometimes in its abuse.
It's soothing to realize that my mind's processes are inherently uncontrollable.
Any feeling that I was enriching my mind from those surrounding me was unfortunately rare with me.
There is, I conceive, no contradiction in believing that mind is at once the cause of matter and of the development of individualised human minds through the agency of matter.
I don't know about you, but I find it exhilarating to see how vague psychological notions evaporate and give rise to a physical, mechanistic understanding of the mind, even if it's the mind of the fly.