Experiential Confusion

If someone were to ask me, "Do you think that you have a soul?" I would answer, without hesitation, "Of course."

Now, if I were to allow a follow-up question and that question was, "What is your soul?"  I would have to give it a bit of thought before answering, "I haven't a clue."

Well, maybe I have a clue but I am far from certain what a "soul" actually is.  This is one of those things that is probably so far beyond my comprehension that I probably wouldn't understand it if God handed me book called "Souls for Dummies"

But there are clues.

At least I think there are clues.  For the last few years, I have been using my emotions as road signs telling me what my soul wants me to do.  If I feel bad about something, either before or after an event, then my soul probably wasn't interested in that experience.  If I feel good about it, then the soul was getting what it wanted.

Some people refer to this as rowing upstream and downstream.  Going upstream is hard work because your soul wants you to go the other way.  Downstream is easy as the soul clears obstacles from your path.  Now, if I am right, and I am certainly not, then the soul is guiding me to experiences that it wants to experience.

Using this idea, I have found that my life goes along nicely.  Sure, things happen that I don't want to happen but the answers always seem to be close at hand.

So why today's title?  What is experiential confusion?  It's a term I made up about five minutes ago.  I sort of took it from this exercise program that they are advertising on television.  This program promotes "muscle confusion" as a way to boost muscle growth.  The idea is that you lift differently every day, not allowing your body to get comfortable with a routine.  I know a guy that followed this program and he said it worked for him.

So, if it's good for your muscles, and if your soul is looking for experiences, then maybe it would be happiest if your broadened your experience portfolio.  Try new things.  Go left once a week on a road that you normally go right.  Watch something new on television or take a walk down a dark street.  Do something outside of your normal envelop.

My guess is that you will discover something about yourself.  I think you may find something that you really don't want to do again or, something you can't wait to do again.  Think of the butterfly effect if everyone in the world did just one different thing every day.

I have purposely done this before, but not often.  It is hard to get out of that life-groove we have created.

But, I think it may be worth a try.  If my soul-guidance theory is correct, you will feel an emotional tug or push to do more or less of whatever new thing you tried.

I shall finish with a nod to my inspiration for today's blog.  This is the poem, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked own one as far as I could

To where it end in the undergrowth

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all of the difference. 

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j