The Deer are Like Ghosts

Habit.  Those abiding actions and responses in us that are so commonplace and repetitive, that they quietly slip by unnoticed.     From something as simple as shifting gears on a motorcycle,  to the most intimate instincts that become the method of our interaction.   Habits are the movements and thoughts that time and repetition have cultivated in us..   perhaps our truest version of self.

 When I was young, my mom used to feed me the same line again and again every time I accidentally did something wrong.   She would look me straight in the eyes, and tell me,  "Its not enough that you didn't mean to...  you have to mean not to."      That line always frustrated me.   I imagined that she was being overly poetic.      But now I am beginning to understand what she was getting at.     She was teaching me in a way,  the intolerance of apathy; the value of intentional behavior, an intolerance of building arbitrary habits.    She was conveying the idea, that whenever I respond or act..   my response ultimately becomes my habit - it becomes my agreement with life and my accustomed way of living.    What I am doing is becoming me.      
  
Now that I am older,  I get a glimpse every once and awhile of certain habits.   I see the positive ones,  I see the pain-causing ones,  I see the ones that are remarkable and strong,  and I see the ones that often drag me through the dirt.       Whenever I uncover a habit,   its fascinating to try and figure out "where did this come from"?   Nearly always, after some contemplation, I can track a pattern..  track a path back to the inception.  This particular way of being "Andrew" didn't just happen spontaneously!    Not at all!   
I am the culmination of the things I have been "repeating".   Days, months, years..    They are all adding up.    Every honorable action,  every empty choice,  every compromise, every steadfast decision..  every lie, every truth, every positive roar.     They are becoming my routine.  
The subconscious, true me.  

 



Andrew Tipton