Our spirit grows and develops traits in each incarnation that it passes through, and then collects and carries the essence of those traits into future lifetimes. In Buddhist Yoga we refer to our multi-life karmic traits as samskaras.

If we get too caught up in the rhetoric of meditation, we will miss the point. The point was to go beyond rhetoric.

You only become funny when you have a complete reverence for life.

When you're happy it's pretty tough to knock you over. You can handle whatever comes along in life.

Since you're going to die anyway, why not go do whatever it is you are in the mood to do. To postpone anything is ridiculous, if it's important to you.

Your mind is turbulent because you're filled with desires, frustrations. You want too many things. You are afraid of too many things. It is necessary to overcome both attraction and repulsion to still the mind.

I would encourage you to follow the pathway to enlightenment, to learn to meditate, to practice mindfulness, and not to really care what anybody thinks about you, including yourself.