This morning, upon my waking moments, nightmarish cloths woven of circular thought patters comprising the future, the past, and everything in between, showered down on me.

As is the case with many recent graduates, until the day comes where our shit’s finally sorted out, the thought of a futureless sort of future looms in over our heads like a virus inhabits its host. Burgeoning quickly, relentlessly, without relief.

Granted, in my case, this sort of mental dilemma’s not something new. It’s not the first time I’ve experienced these sorts of mornings, where the sun’s shine resembled more closely the end of the world rather than the brink of a new morn. No. I’m a manic-depressive Rambo. These mornings have been with me since I was three. It’s genetic, yo.

And so, I’ve learnt some stuff along the way. Not much. But a little.

Our imagination makes this picture instantly. In the real world it’s made one single stroke at a time.

For instance, life is lived on a step-by-step basis. If you were walking to your local grocer, you literally, yes literally, could not take two steps instead of one to get there. You could jump. You could take longer strides. But it is a simple impossibility to take two steps at once. You’ve got to take one step at a time, one foot before the other. Ya know?

Sure, that’s the sort of thing that a lot of people who’ve no idea what they’re talking about, generally, often say, as though their pseudo-philosophical theories are scrumptiously important. I’m aware that this isn’t an especially enlightening expression, and I know that you’ve probably heard it before. However, that does not negate its truth.

No matter how much we comprehend the reality underlying this relatively irrelevant concept, our minds, on some warped subconscious level, have a hard time grasping it. In those waking moments, your mind doesn’t want to take that first step toward the local grocer. It indeed wants to take two, and acts like it is capable of it. No, scrap that. Our minds are fuckers. They want to reach their destination without any effort at all, without any steps.

Because our imaginations are so expansive, and drawn with quantum-like pens, they often miss reality’s mark. The laws of the physical world that we live in and abide by do not apply to human brains. No sir. Your brain can see the grocer in its eye. It can feel it. It can smell it. And so, it thinks it’s already there. Meanwhile, your legs are still wrapped up in your sheets. Your head is rested on your pillow. And your jocks are still hugging comfortably at your hips.

And thus a gap between your imaginative mind and your body is created.

I should be at the grocer already. I should be there. Why aren’t I there? But I’m just so tired now. It’s such a mission.

The mental illusion. Sometimes useful. Sometimes not. But always unreal. A land we shouldn’t give so much credence.

The gap highlighting exactly why we shouldn’t credulously believe everything our mind’s tell us.

It is a mental type of delusion that is grounded half in “reality” – whatever reality is said to mean – and half in your mind’s-eye, that sneaky little bugger who’s got an agenda of its own.

Dorian observing his picture.

And what’s more, you, the conscious “me” observing this phenomenon has very little to do with the matter.

If you watch a horror movie, and you go to bed weary of a psychopathic, axe murdering, cookie munching, Jiggly Puff grabbing at your foot and tearing you from your sheets, you didn’t consciously choose these morbid thoughts. No. These thoughts have had life breathed into them from the movie you just watched. Your imagination has taken a couple of seeds from that movie and has now baked its own horror pie. You, insofar as you are you – an artificial ‘self’ – did not choose these thoughts. They chose you. Just like a fly buzzing at your head. You didn’t choose Mr buzz-buzz as a personal pet; he’s the one who chose you.

You see?

And so, though I’m only 24 years young and haven’t had so much life experience, if I ever felt comfortable giving advice that I felt certain of to anyone, it would be to not take your thoughts so seriously. They don’t mean much. They’re misleading. And they’re a fucking nuisance.

So when that white wash of chattering mire slimes over your brain, try not to pay it so much attention. Let it be. It’s just your quantum-like imagination drawing a delusional portrait. Let it paint in the confines of your mind, and then laugh at it. Giggle, gulp, and gurgle at these random words, and pictured thoughts affecting your tepid spirit and leading you astray.

Cause they – the meanings and messages wrapping them – don’t mean squat.

And always remember. Life – in all its splendiferous oneness – is far too important to be taken seriously.

Humans-are-imaginers. A world of pure imagination is almost what we all live in. Almost.