Abstractly Concrete

I was playing a mind game to sharpen my wits this morning. One of the exercises is verbal reasoning and the object of the game is to quickly categorize words on the screen into concepts of abstract or concrete. Words like avarice, fear, hat, hate, endearing, fireplace, car, monkey appear. The gamer is timed and then rated on accuracy in placing the words in the correct category. A percentile compared to others in the same age group is also given as a measure for the player. This game got me thinking, which is an abstract concept, about feelings, which are also abstract. People are unique walking talking concrete things. I resisted the urge to say that we are beings because that too, is an abstract concept. The confusion lies in our emotions, our reactions, our perceptions of our existence and experiences in this life. As I type, I click on a computer key board, definitely concrete, about my ideas, definitely abstract. Things and thoughts. Thoughts become things. Yes, highly philosophical. My prevalent abstract thought is that we are in control of our thoughts and have the ability to redirect them to other thoughts. This, of course, can decrease/increase heart rate, blood pressure, salivation, sweating, going hot or cold. Reactions are physical, concrete and measurable bodily manifestations of thoughts and the feelings the thoughts evoke, running like currents through our bodies. You want to know at this point what I'm driving at, isn't that right? Here it is. Feelings and thoughts are subjective and abstract, they are not absolutes. How do I know this, you ask? I know it the same way you do, Dear Reader. Depending on mood or disposition, what makes one person angry, another will scoff and laugh at. Practical jokes are one simple example of varied and diverse reactions. Insults too, are taken either with a grain of salt or feel like salt in an open wound. You can change your reactions by changing your thoughts. This is useful and can be life altering if the patterns you have been entrenched in are causing anxiety and spilling over into your relationships, along with affecting your decision making abilities. Calm, cool and collected may very well be the new you, replacing anxious, fearful and fretting with racy heart and sweating palms. So there you have it, an abstract approach to hopefully concrete and measurable results. You are a thinking breathing brilliantly made human being that can choose how and what you think. Exciting.