Color

“The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny—it is the light that guides your way.”

― Heraclitus

For a long time now, I’ve made it a habit to marvel at the ridiculousness, the hypocrisy, or the absurdity of people’s character or behavior. I’ve always embraced my curiosity, my openness in thought, and my natural inclination for self-dialogue. Although it has undoubtedly paved many avenues towards many realms of knowledge that I now take for granted in my life, I’ve never sought out the idea that it might be holding me back in some way. Like most things in life, it must be held in balance. It may seem trivial—these internal monologues, these whimsical rants, and these petty frustrations I have with the world around me—but, as I’ve always argued, everything we do in this life is ultimately a trade-off. If we decide to do something, we are equally deciding to not do something else. I’ve completely failed to realize myself that this equally applies to thought as much as it does action. If we decide to think about something, we are equally deciding to not think about something else.

I operated under the presumption that thoughts are an infinite resource, that they are things that can just whimsically come and go, that I can entertain a thought in the peace and safety of my own mind without consequence. But the truth is that my thoughts are ultimately who I am. Although I am not jerked around like a puppet any longer—implying that my actions are not overridden by my emotions—we must remember that humans are not puppets. We are not merely what we do; we are as much what we do as what we think. Even if I don’t let my emotions dictate my actions, I am permitting my emotions to dictate my thoughts. And, by extension, that means I am letting my emotions dictate my character. If it doesn’t waste time, it wastes away the soul.

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can't control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

I don’t need to have an opinion about the things that are irrelevant to the mission I set out to do in this life, about people that I have no power or no right to change, about things that I cannot or will not understand. My curious nature cripples me in the sense that it will always capitalize on the chance to reflect upon something, however trivial or inconsequential, however sensational or exigent. But I’m realizing that when I am confronted with something in life, I don’t have to have something to say about it. I have the option to simply move on, to simply walk away and continue doing what I originally set out to do, and to decide that something simply doesn’t deserve to be allotted a role in my life, nor do I have to give it a chance to imbue its nature into my soul.

Is this what my life was meant for? To ponder trivialities, to occupy my mind with the inconsequential, to burden my soul with the manufactured suffering and grief? I may try to concoct an intricate excuse—that these thoughts are merely for fun, for humor, for satisfying my curiosity, but at the end of the day, these thoughts and these feelings are who I am; they are what I intend on presenting to fellow human beings, and they are what I devote my heart and soul into, irrespective of how much is devoted. Even though I’ve done so in a manner that eschews condescension, moral superiority, and insensitivity, I am beginning to recognize that if they are neither contributing to the change I seek to make—whether in myself or in the world around me—these thoughts constitute a meaningless activity.