I like to write down themes in my writing journal so I can refer to them later when working on a new story. The following are some themes I wrote down yesterday along with a brief note on thought.
Themes to write on:
- The role of the teacher
- Tolerance as an intellectual covering for intolerance
- Division as conflict: as long as there is a division between observer and observed, there is division and so conflict
- The observer as the observed: I am not separate from my anger, I am anger
- Thought as pleasure
- Thought as something dead, the past
- Thought giving vitality to something that is dead: possible raising the dead metaphors here
- The conflict created by the me and the not me
- Love and relationship as the destruction of dependence, ambition, and comparison
- The deceptive nature of desire
- The selfishness of desire
- The violent nature of living: consuming other living things, overcoming others to get what we need, etc.
- The deception of perception
- Objective happiness versus subjective happiness
- Humanity’s capacity for change
- Mind over body
- Accepting what is
- Helping oneself
- Personal inquiry
Note on thought: Thought sustains and gives nourishment to pleasure as well as to fear. Fear of the present, the future, death, the unknown, of not fulfilling, not being loved, wanting to be loved — there are so many fears, all created by the machinery of thought.
