Earlier this evening, I had been talking with a few friends about some odd topics. The exact premises of our conversation eludes me for the moment, but they are not the reasons I am noting this down. There was an underlying current, a subtle message for me hidden throughout our talks. One which I have heard many times before but which I still have yet to fully digest and incorporate into this thing I call `me'. Truly it is an old lesson and one known by many but, I dare say, well practiced by few.

I was, without a doubt, having a difficult time communicating my thoughts and ideas easily and coherently to my friends. Likewise, I was not assimilating their responses very well. For a while I dwelt in the frustrating delusion that they were being hard-headed and not really listening to any of my suggestions. Maybe in some ways they were, for we all have our own convictions. But I don't think that was the source of the problem.

After a time of battering my head against my monstrous ignorance, I sort of withdrew from the conversation, which had got a tad heated. I decided to look for the source of my problem instead of doing who knows what kind of harm to the topic.

I came to the conclusion that I was looking at the thoughts of the others and not even comparing them to mine. It seemed to me that I was looking outside myself and judging, and then voicing those judgements as facts. Which is, of course, anything but the truth.

Our judgements are not fact, fact and truth is the plain and normal reality. The judgements that we make on those realities can be as clouded and confused as an overcast day. Which is where my mind usually dwells. Just try to be aware and tuned into everything that you do for one day. ALL day. As in every moment through the whole of the day. I can't do it, it is hard, and that just shows me how unfocused my mind is.

But there was a deeper level to this rampant thought. It was that I was feeling a certain power from having been correct in many such discussions before. And that was making me lazy. I would not take the time to bring a new idea into my mind and play around with it. Essentially, I was not trying to find the truth, the mirror-like wisdom that underlies all those thoughts that fly around us, of which each opinion is but a small, sometimes fleeting reflection.

I have made this mistake before, and I always try to correct it and make sure it doesn't happen again. I always tell myself I won't do it again now that I have realized it. So far, I have yet to reach the level where I achieve that `perfection', but the reminders are coming quicker when I lose the clarity, so I cannot say the work has been for nothing.

Once I had recalled that bit of wisdom, I remained silent for a while more, just listening and weighing each thought as I digested it in turn. After a time, I suddenly realized that they were both talking about one big concept, but each person had his own way of labeling it, and neither was willing to admit they were wrong, or, at least, that they were not right.

The funny thing was, they were discussing this one thing, on the verge of arguing, both of them being correct in their own ways of perceiving, but neither of them quite willing to accept the other's way. For the simple fact that each of them thought the other was talking about something else. Precisely because they were so hung up on their way that they didn't take in the other way and look at it openly, both were getting flustered.

In order to grow, mentally as well as physically, we need to take in sustenance. For our minds to expand we must digest and internalize all the new things and thoughts we come upon in our lives. Even if it is just a new twist of lemon on an old dish you've had many times before, it might be just the thing you need to break off of your old plateau.

All I did was offer up a basic concept that fit both of their ideas and within a short time, we all moved on, satisfied.