Soaking it up like a sponge

I am currently reading Life in Letters of John Steinbeck and finding it endlessly fascinating, clubbing it with blogs on 'finding purpose and meaning and happiness' I am amazed at the degree of good thought that people have spent on it and their findings. It gives me hope, tho I was actually asked if it left me with despair - ha! It gives me hope because it says I am what I settle for, I am ONLY what I settle for; because it says one doesn't realise the Self because one works for the Self, one realises the Self because one CHOOSES the Self. How does one choose the Self - that wonderful boy Nachiketa shows what it is to choose the Self!

Sometimes I feel like a sponge, absorbing all these ideas, they all make sense, they fit together - it is amazing how everyone who has given it some thought tend to agree. They are all saying the same thing, it is still I who has to walk the path if I am to get anywhere.

Sometimes doubting becomes the easiest thing, but 'to believe everything and to doubt everything are two equally convenient solutions, both dispense the need for thought' said Henri Poincare, and I believe he was right. The only solution is to not give up, to be constantly aware of all that the mind is upto, the world is upto, where we heading, and why do we think we are heading there - we can fool ourselves for a short while, it is true, but to do it constantly is impossible.