MMmm, jelly donuts...

(Pre-Script: To consciously expand your mind while reading this post, please read it as the song, "Little Wonders," #55 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

Are we always learning and growing, even when we don't think we are? Children grow even in their sleep, even as they play and giggle, whine and hide their broccoli in their napkins. You look at a baby, then blink twice, and the baby has become a 5 year old child. At some point, you try to stop blinking, but the kid keeps growing anyway. You can't really will yourself not to blink; it is one of those unconscious movements, like growth. But at some point, growth has to become conscious, or it leads to stagnation and mold. You are still growing, but the growth is now more like a growing weed or bacteria complete with stench. There are people who grew and grew until they were 900lbs. 900 lbs is not a healthy weight on anyone under about 15 feet tall or so. Beyond a healthy BMI, it is unhealthy growth. There was a point when the conscious act of growing needed to take over for the unconscious growth which led to a 900 lb person. "Gosh, if I keep eating only garbage and never exercise, I will become enormous, which means I need to make better choices, which means if I can't make better choices, I need to consciously grow in knowledge and emotional intelligence to figure out why I need to eat like this and not move like this, and I need to seek help and healing, and be healed from this emotional cause, otherwise, I will become a 900 lb bitter angry person."
This happens mentally, too. If I say to you, "What are you learning?" and you say, "Oh, lots of things, new things all the time!" but can't actually name one, it's possible that there isn't one, and you just think you are learning. Your mind is still growing, but it is just mind blubber, regurgitating and chewing it's own cud over and over, like a bovine, and growing 900 lbs of mental blubber, like a bovine...meaningless commercial jingles and break up song lyrics, and what's what on the Soap Opera.
All of these things have a place. Sappy love songs and commercials have a place. Even jelly donuts have a place. But it is a place, and you visit it, and you pass through it, it is not the place where you live, the home in which you reside, the bed in which you lay, the comforter beneath which you lull all 900lbs of your mental or physical mass to sleep.

-XOXO,