Darkest night, brightest stars.

 

help or rise above, but not too far to stretch out a helping hand.

One never really knows; more learned people have said it. When with the ducks, try to do as the ducks do. Even #ApostlePaul tried to be "everything to everyone" "for the furtherance of the Gospel". He even humored the boring philosophers near Athens. You eat with those that need your help, and you do what you can. Beware this clap-trap about "laying down with dogs and getting fleas"; it means you're only an example to others, and that's only if they see you at the right time--otherwise they think you're uptight and arrogant, and you do the message a disservice.

Rise above it all, at some point, but never soar so high that you can't reach out a helping hand to a fellow bondservant.

Spiritual Emptiness

Spiritual emptiness means being completely open to all new experiences.

True spiritual emptiness brings us a sense of wonder at even the least thing. 

Imagine feeling surprise and wonder and fulfillment at the very least of life experiences.  

The more we share....

 

There was a perplexing Bible story: a real miracle.

A woman and son, left alone, were on the last of their food, and the Prophet came.

The Prophet asked for some bread to eat, and the woman told him, it was all they had left, enough for his one small loaf.  Then the woman and boy would starve.

The Prophet gave assurances, and in faith she obeyed, feeding the hungry prophet.  And from then forward, her flour bag and oil flask never went empty, from that day forward, and the woman and her son, did not, in fact, starve then.

if right now was the best time of your life: self-control.

What if right now, was the best time of your life?  What if this year was the best year of your life?

Would you know it?

Would you appreciate it, or would you look back bitterly years from now at time wasted?

Are you wasting time worrying about lack?  Are you obsessing over money?

I remind you that you are far more in control than you want to believe.  You can claim the day for your own mindset and happiness.

Pass It On: Giving Back.

 Show them their worth, and make sure they are pleasantly surprised.

Art: "Cigarettes and Frustration". On the very real need people have for companionship.

A quiet moment, one in which a person could feel awful or worse still, empty, on the inside, and be in part horror at their own feelings or lack of feelings.

When in fact, what is needed is companionship, and almost any variety of it will do.

 

Memes: Nature and Wisdom.

 

When I've learned: truism.

I am only conscious of having learned the lesson, after I look away, the rest is being the bird on the wire, or the ox in the snare.

Dharma July 16, 2023

To Let Go Of Suffering....

 

It occurs to me that huge 80-foot oak tree, and the tiny sampling, are governed by much the same rules of the world.

 

three states of people

The fool listens AFTER he talks.

The cunning listens WHILE he talks.

The wise man listens BEFORE he talks.

Manifestation and Becoming over a period of time, and even after.

If a grain of wheat does not fall into the earth and die, it will abide alone and remain the same. But when it falls into the ground and dies, the death of that grain releases the life within it. We may say that death becomes a release to the inner life of the grain of wheat. Through such a release, the riches of the life of the grain of wheat come forth to produce many grains. The Lord Jesus as a grain of wheat fell into the ground and lost His soulish life through death so that He might release His eternal life in resurrection to the many grains.

-Witness Lee.

Unwitting talking about a Christian manifestation of Becoming, what the Christians call, alternately being born again, and the further process of Sanctification.

We are at once, alone, wheat seeds, but with a certain innate potential engendered into us.  To the heart of the matter, we are so much more than meets the eye, and we grow as we live, and then, the Christian afterlife which is a kind of contented perfection.

Carl Jung had a more atheist perspective on personal growth throughout life, but he hinted so much that could simply be explained by the soul, but he never made such a bold overture.

 

Gratitude and Distance Memes.

 

Gratitude.

If you're not "grateful", then you're just a great fool.

Look around people.  Find something that's worthwhile and think how lucky, how improbable.  In a seemingly random and unforgiving universe, think how blessings have found you.

fetters and chains.....

 

One shot, and Pujols wants to emulate Jesus Christ.

 

A hundred small steps.

 

Most jobs worth doing are made of at least a hundred little steps.

#motivation #mindset #determination #persevere #perseverancepaysoff

Generosity of Spirit and two models of friendship.

It was one of the ancient philosophers who said, "Man is a political animal."  It was an odd turn of phrase that seems to have struck a chord with many thinkers, but it simply means "man is a social animal".

Man is social, and as Aurelius states, we and our fellows cooperate like a row of teeth or a pair of feet.

Generosity of Spirit means a kind of "active concern" for others: not just worrying from afar, but at times getting one's hands dirty for the well-being of others.  So many of us confine this to a select few people, and indeed, the world gives us enough cause to mistrust others, which prevents us from expanding our own social circles.

I'm talking about help without payment, aid without reward, but to simply know the other person is better off thanks to our efforts.

Before, I've spoken about different models of interaction/friendship.  The "transactional model" and the "sacrificial model".  I have a good friend who believes openly in the transactional model, yet so frequently sacrifices for closest friends.  I've seen some make severe costly sacrifices for "new friends" who are next to strangers, and then later, they are embittered when the good turn is ignored by the false fair-weather acquaintance.

 

Hope.

Being Sunday and all, here is a line from a quasi-religious Country/Western song:

"There will be peace

in the valley

for me

someday."

This is pure hope, people.  And where are we without hope?  There is a line, "let love have its perfect work", and I would add to that to let hope have its work.  

Hope can push us towards better things in life, different things.  Surely it can be misdirected into healthy directions, and it can cause us to waste time sometimes on empty dreams.

However, throughout history, hope has driven people to strive for the impossible.

Hope has made a difference in the lives of so many through invention and seemingly super-human feats.

Paul the Apostle, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius and King Solomon on the Chief Good of life, or "well-being"?

"Who has bewitched thee, foolish Galatians?"

-Paul the Apostle.

I'm not one of those that thinks all people should believe the same thing, but yet, one can find wise words in a variety of sources, even the King James Bible.

Are we not often bewitched by our own notions, or things we take up from the outside world?

Paul continues to say:

"..the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness and faith."

You have to balance all those nouns together, not just pursue joy, or not simply to sue for peace, nor simply worship the concept of love, but all the things together, co-mingled.

Marcus Aurelius has a similar listing in the The Meditations, substituting notably the archaic English word "longsuffering" for "temperance", and "gentleness" for "forbearance".

It is King Solomon in his own writings that proclaims, at a wise old age, that the chief good of life is to love God.

Meanwhile, in a similar epoch, Aristotle state the goal of life is to pursue virtue, and virtue is any and every trait that goes towards the "good", perhaps, and I speculate, that in modern parlance, we call this "well-being".

my little Friday swerve.

There really are people that only feel loved through financial transactions.

But we're above that

mostly.

A tv pastor has "offering Friday" and Maria Popova of Brainpickings says "donating is loving".

Im asking, with no threats of duscontinuing make content for the site, no repercussions at all.  Just asking, Casual Reader.

If youd like to donate to the site, here are the details.

Venmo: @netmissionary

Paypal: @origen84

Cashapp:  $origen1979

The site continues, either way, whether there are donations or not, but donations can help the site evolve.

Whatever you think on the matter.  No pressure.  

And have a great weekend.

Pass It On: on collective freedom.

True freedom is the freedom to be yourself, without much constraint.  They might tell you, "that's not the way Darl does it", but never you mind.

As Chuck Berry said during a live recording of the Ding-A-Ling song, "you be you; its a free country, baby."

As Jean Jacques Rousseau points out, government and its rules are a thing that the people consent to uphold.  Even when Socrates faced the death sentence, he was offered the chance to escape as a fugitive, but he said no, that the law of Athens had always been his cause, and he would remain true to that, even if it cost him his life.

As such, I wrote a paper on this very subject in Philosophy 201.

Nelson Mandela himself faced a long term in prison, and he remained ever true to his ideals all the while, suffering for his cause rather turning his back on his principles and those of his fellows.

A Social Contract.

Jean Jacques Rousseau:

'I suppose men to have reached the point at which the obstacles in the way of their preservation in the state of nature show their power of resistance to be greater than the resources at the disposal of each individual for his maintenance in that state. That primitive condition can then subsist no longer; and the human race would perish unless it changed its manner of existence.

But, as men cannot engender new forces, but only unite and direct existing ones, they have no other means of preserving themselves than the formation, by aggregation, of a sum of forces great enough to overcome the resistance. These they have to bring into play by means of a single motive power, and cause to act in concert.

This sum of forces can arise only where several persons come together: but, as the force and liberty of each man are the chief instruments of his self-preservation, how can he pledge them without harming his own interests, and neglecting the care he owes to himself? This difficulty, in its bearing on my present subject, may be stated in the following terms—

"The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before." This is the fundamental problem of which the Social Contract provides the solution.

The clauses of this contract are so determined by the nature of the act that the slightest modification would make them vain and ineffective; so that, although they have perhaps never been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised, until, on the violation of the social compact, each regains his original rights and resumes his natural liberty, while losing the conventional liberty in favour of which he renounced it.

These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one—the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others.

Moreover, the alienation being without reserve, the union is as perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything more to demand: for, if the individuals retained certain rights, as there would be no common superior to decide between them and the public, each, being on one point his own judge, would ask to be so on all; the state of nature would thus continue, and the association would necessarily become inoperative or tyrannical.

Finally, each man, in giving himself to all, gives himself to nobody; and as there is no associate over whom he does not acquire the same right as he yields others over himself, he gains an equivalent for everything he loses, and an increase of force for the preservation of what he has.

If then we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms—

"Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole."

At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body, composed of as many members as the assembly contains votes, and receiving from this act its unity, its common identity, its life and its will. This public person, so formed by the union of all other persons, formerly took the name of city,[1] and now takes that of Republic or body politic; it is called by its members State when passive, Sovereign when active, and Power when compared with others like itself. Those who are associated in it take collectively the name of people, and severally are called citizens, as sharing in the sovereign power, and subjects, as being under the laws of the State. But these terms are often confused and taken one for another: it is enough to know how to distinguish them when they are being used with precision.'

---

Ostentation and Edaimonia.

"One who is disillusioned by poverty has first been deceived by prosperity."

-Marcus Aurelius

"Ostentation" is what they call lavish shows of wealth or ornamentation.

Isn't it the way, people, that the main person that deceives us is our own self.  No one else can tell us such pretty lies, and lies that we desperately hope to be true.

But prosperity often re-centers a person, after he or she doesn't have that to be worried about anymore, not finding the next dollar:

onward to other business.

"Eudaimonia" is what they call good well-being.  And as my college reminds me, well-being refers to many different disciplines that involve our total health, and not just physical, mental, or productivity or anything like that.

Indeed, by many metrics, even financial health falls under the category of "well-being", being part of our overall state of being, our overall mindset and health.

Write your own story; make your story what you want it to be.

Don't simply feel your way through. Feelings can be powerful, but you can also consciously decide what to think and believe. Indeed, feelings can guide you, and intuition can be a powerful tool, but we also have our intellects to help guide us.

We can be intentional.

And most importantly, you write your own story.

Try your darnedest, and don't settle; make your story the one you want it to be. 

"Too close to the problem" or in need of fresh perspective... on the struggle

Most of the time, we don't welcome the opinion of others, but when it seems the walls are closing in and there's no way out, a fresh perspective can lead to a novel and different solution that might be the answer you were looking for. There is some truth to the old idiom, "too close to the problem". #perspective #thestruggleisreal #mindset

 

Happy Fourth of July. United States Independence Day.

 

seneca on perspective

"...what has a man gained if he has not escaped from himself?"  -Lucius Seneca

 

There are times in everyone's life where each person's own perspective fails to serve them; during those times, a fresh set of eyes on a problem can be very beneficial, often revealing overlooked solutions to even the most daunting problems.

desires and motivations

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

-Jeremiah 17

One of those times when the "verse of the day" from Bible Gateway and Thomas Nelson Publisher coincides rather neatly with our own mindset journey.

The heart can indeed be jealous, and greedy: in a single word, wicked.

Let us be more mindful and parse the roots of our intentions, our motivations, and learn to be more conscious of our actions.  As seneca said, a man that guides himself has a wicked master.  Not much has changed since his day;  lets strive to be more diligent in dissecting and choosing objects of desire, more selective about our motivations.

Humility.

Humble?  Yes, sure, and show humility to our fellows, but be humble to problems?

May no problem be as big as your faith, or big as your work flow, or big as your ambition!

When assailed by storms, let us remember the blessings of a sunny day, and during the heat, we remember the cool after the rains; everything has a season, and the mountains in your path might not be there to hinder you at all, but to improve your viewpoint when you scale to the top and look over the earth.

Imagine it: a daunting mountain range ahead, and us, walking in the wild.  What to do?  Sound like a of work doesn't it?  Climbing a mountain?  And potentially deadly.

But imagine how small and insignificant everything else will seem from atop that mountain.