Tag: philosophy

Smart Car Friday

So yesterday, I took my car to the dealership to have its fluids changed. My car had made the appointment for itself, all by itself. (I’m not kidding. I had noticed that its brake fluid light had come on, and I “was going to” make an appointment, but then I got a text that the appointment had already been made, and there was a link to change it, if I needed to change it, much like my doctors’ appointments.) My car is a 2019 model. It’s nothing new, and it’s not particularly “teched out”. I’m not sure how I feel about this. Is this a convenience, or arrogance and a “control” move on my car’s part? I mean, if my husband had made the appointment for the car, I would have probably been slightly miffed and may have felt that he had overstepped some boundaries. I may have felt slightly judged and controlled. But at the same time, I would have been relieved to have the car maintenance on the schedule, without having to think about it. I definitely have a love/hate relationship with today’s technology. It intrigues me and it terrifies me, all at once. But it’s Friday, so I’m just riding the waves . . . .

Today’s favorite, for Favorite Things Friday goes back to “the good ol’ days.” (the days before inanimate objects started ruling the world) My favorite for today, is one of Sinead O’Connor’s best songs, in my mind. It’s called The Emperor’s New Clothes. Like so many, I was saddened to hear of Sinead’s passing. I know that she was a troubled, controversial figure in her lifetime, but her music and her lyrics and her voice has the ability to strum up deep, evocative emotion like few other artists have achieved. So yesterday, I decided to listen to many of her songs that I had forgotten about. (Unfortunately, Nothing Compares 2U was the only song that came to mind when I first heard of her death). Explore Sinead’s music today. You won’t regret it.

“My creative process is quite slow. I hear melodies in my head while I’m washing the dishes and I allow my subconscious to do the work.” – Sinead O’Connor

“To say what you feel is to dig your own grave.” – Sinead O’Connor

“They laugh ’cause they know they’re untouchable
Not because what I said was wrong
Whatever it may bring
I will live by my own policies
I will sleep with a clear conscience
I will sleep in peace” – Sinead O’Connor ( from lyrics in The Emperor’s New Clothes)

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Pawns in the Game

Did you ever feel like you were a pawn in someone else’s game? Did you ever look way up into the sky expecting to see the puppet strings and the puppeteer? What if you are that pawn, though? What if you are a pawn in the enormous, strong, beautiful hands of a brilliant, kind, masterful, omniscient player? Is it possible that in those times that you feel deep, intuitive impulses to do something for someone else, or for yourself, or to do something about a situation in your own life or in your community, it might actually be “the player” using your individual talents and your particular position on the board to elevate the overall masterpiece of the game? Is it possible that you are a major part of the game that is constantly leveling up?

I am a believer that we are a mixture of our own free will, and the overall will of the point of the game – love, creation, joy. We can be stubborn little pawns and we can say, “You know what? Nope. I’m not moving. In fact, I’m going to take a big step backwards, so there.” And the player says, “That’s okay. You do you. I have other moves that I can make with other pawns. The game will go on . . . . And by the way, I love you and I am happy that you are part of the game. When you are ready to take a step forward again, I’ll be here to lift you up.”

Picture credit: Dicebreaker

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Bigger Than You

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuiqZxeN-1g

I’m sorry to be delayed with today’s post. I’m grappling with a pinched-nerve in my neck which is like having the worst toothache that I ever had, in my neck and in my shoulder. I am sorry for those of you who deal with daily pain for years on end. Pain is so miserable and distracting and annoying.

The above video is part of the best scene from Babylon, a movie which we watched last night. Babylon is about the change from silent films to “talkies”, and it takes place in 1920s/30s Hollywood. The movie is not for the faint of heart. It shows the debauchery and the underbelly of early Hollywood like you would never expect. The film is long (3 hours), but I found it be interesting and entertaining and thought provoking.

The scene above is a monologue from Jean Smart, who plays a notorious gossip columnist who has just written an unflattering feature about Jack Conrad (played by Brad Pitt), a washed up, silent films era star. In the scene, Jean Smart’s character is telling Jack that while he is no longer “spotlight” material, the beautiful thing is that he will live on, indefinitely, in the films that he starred in, for generations to come. At the end of the scene, where Jean Smart’s character tells Jack that his time is up in Hollywood, and there is nothing that he did to create this fact, and there is nothing that he can do about it now, we see Jack Conrad leave the room, disquieted but grateful that the gossip columnist gently but firmly told him the truth. “Thank you for that,” he says, almost under his breath.

I appreciated this scene so much because it so clearly depicts when any of us hear “a truth” that we deeply know, but we have not yet let this truth surface to our consciousness. We don’t want this truth to be the truth, but yet when we finally face the truth, we are also grateful and relieved to no longer have to pretend anymore, that it is anything other that what it is. It is what it is, is the ultimate truth about anything when we finally face it head on. And the truth can be so painful, and yet so liberating all at the same time.

This scene in Babylon is the ultimate scene of letting go of ego, and of realizing that the idea of life is bigger than any individual life in it, even the lives that are lived out in the spotlight. Life has gone on longer than any of us can fathom, and it will continue to go on, long after each of us departs. Towards the end of the scene Elinor St. John (played by Jean Smart) says this:

” . . . It’s the idea that sticks. There will be a hundred more Jack Conrads, a hundred more me’s, a hundred more conversations like this one, until God knows when. Because it’s bigger than you.”

Elinor does leave Jack with a hopeful thought about people seeing his movies long after he is dead, and in that regard, his memory lives on. On a broader scope, that’s how anyone of us continues to live on after our deaths, for generations and generations in families, and in close groups of friends, and even in societies. Our stories become lores and legends. Our mannerisms become traits in family genes. Our habits and rituals become customs and traditions. Our creations and treasures become heirlooms and antiques and springboards for more creation. The ideas of any essence is what sticks. “That which is bigger than us”, never ends. We are each just small waves of an endless/timeless ocean, and this truth is both frightening and liberating in equal measure. It is what it is.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Two Questions to Erase

I wrote this post yesterday morning, because I knew that we would be out early for one of my daughter’s tennis events. After I wrote my post, I read this article/interview (see below). I continue to be in awe of the Zelenskys and all of the Ukrainian people. I love this quote from Olena Zelenska, the first lady of Ukraine, taken from the article and I just had to share it:

Madam First Lady, given everything that is going on, how are you and your family holding up?

“It’s like walking a tightrope: If you start thinking how you do it, you lose time and balance. So, to hold on, you just must go ahead and do what you do. In the same way, as far as I know, all Ukrainians hold on. Many of those who escaped from the battlefields alone, who saw death, say the main cure after the experience is to act, to do something, to be helpful for somebody. I am personally supported by the fact that I try to protect and support others. Responsibility disciplines.“

I think Olena Zelenska is spot on with this. I love the comparison to a tightrope. When you are in the middle of a ongoing crisis, I think the last thing you should do, is to get your head wrapped up in thinking about all of the details and “what ifs” and the extremes of the crisis which you are currently weathering. I always follow ODAT (One Day at a Time), and even sometimes, “one minute at at time” when I am going through something extremely difficult.

Here is the rest of the article. It is an excellent read:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/12/europe/olena-zelenska-ukraine-first-lady-amanpour-cmd-intl/index.html

And here is my original post for today:

“Intelligent people are those who agree with you.” – Alan Cohen

We all think that how we specifically think about things, or how we view things, is what is right. We know the right way of how to do everything. We know the right way for everybody to do life right. We are shocked when other people see things differently or don’t handle things the way we think they should (“should” being another troublesome word). Don’t these people know what is right? We see this again and again on political forums, where conservatives and liberals go in circles, trying desperately to prove to the others just how right they are about things. And of course, we watch these scenarios and we sigh, and we think to ourselves the old adage, “Would you rather be right, or be happy?” If we changed the question to “What is right for me?” we avoid the going around in the pointless circles. We save ourselves a lot of grief. And it is even better if we tweak the question to, “What is right for me, right now?” Because, as those of us who are in our second half of life have dearly learned, often what was right for us at one time, often changes to something different, down the line.

Now, you may think, “Well murder isn’t right. Most people agree with that statement.” Of course murder isn’t right. Or is murder right in self-defense? Is murder right during wartime? Is murder right when it comes to capital punishment? Is abortion murder? I don’t want to debate these questions here on my blog. This type of debate will never be the purpose of my blog. The point that I’m making is that “right” is a nebulous subject.

We belong to societies where the rules and laws are created and enforced either by force, imposed by a dictatorship (who has decided what is right for their subjects), or by a democracy, in which what is considered right and enforceable by laws and punishments, is determined by a majority. And these determinations often change over time. What was right for one era in time, no longer fits. (Look at how many states have legalized marijuana usage in recent years.)

Which brings me to the second question that we should remove from our vernacular. “Is this normal? This question is better asked in this way, “Is this healthy?” In years past, it was normal for smokers to smoke in their cars with their windows rolled up. So what if this was “normal”? We all know that smoking, in any condition, is not healthy. This is much like the old question so many of us heard from our parents growing up, “If everyone was jumping off a bridge, would you do it, too?” It might have been normal for all of our teenage friends to be “jumping off bridges”, but is “jumping off bridges” healthy? In short don’t worry about being “normal”, worry about being “healthy.”

In the natural world, there are no definitions of what is right or wrong, or good or bad, or even normal or healthy. In the natural world, you do an action and there are consequences to your actions. It is as simple as that, and not really complicated at all. If you walk in front of a raging bull, you are likely to get trampled. Even if you are a moral vegan and you have never, ever eaten one bite of beef, if the bull is angry and you are in his way, you will get trampled. And you might think, “Wow, that wasn’t right for that bull to trample me! I’m a vegan and a champion of animal rights!” And nature replies, “A bull is a bull. Getting trampled is a natural consequence of getting in front of a raging bull.”

The beauty of tweaking these two pointed questions in your life, is that you get to decide what is right and healthy for you, with the understanding that you will bear the consequences of any of these decisions that you choose to make. You get to choose what you do, but you do not get to choose how people react to what you do, nor do you get to choose what other people think or do in their lives. You do not need others to decide for you, nor to validate your choices of what is right and healthy for you to do. You don’t need anyone’s permission to live what you deem to be a rightful and a healthy life. And they don’t need your permission or validation, to live what they see to be right or healthy for themselves. In short, as my grandmother loved to preach, it is best to “tend to your own knitting.”

Anytime you are stuck in a quandary these are your best “go-to” questions to ask yourself. “In this situation, what is the right thing for me to do, for me, right now? And secondly, “Is what I am doing a healthy choice for me?” Trust that these are the only questions that you are responsible to answer for, which will bring about various consequences for yourself, and for your own life. The rest of it all, is not yours to concern yourself about, and is out of your control anyway. Save yourself undue grief. Don’t have concern about being “right” or “normal”. Follow your own intrinsic moral code, and make healthy choices, and you will do just fine.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Meditation Musèe

I’ve mentioned that I see my blog as a “museum of thought.” Today’s exhibit is a sampling of a collection which I have been curating in one of my many journals and notebooks. I strongly encourage you to curate your own thought collections. They are inexpensive to amass, easy to keep, and yet, they quickly become invaluable to you – easily among your most prized possessions. Your thought museums give you more of an inroads to yourself. They help you to see what truly resonates with the truest part of your own self.

What would you call your own thought museum? The Musings Menagerie? The Socratic Salon? The Gallery of Inward Gospel? The Phantasmagoria of Philosophy? (Hint: you can have more than one thought museum. All it takes is a pen, a journal, an open mind, and the insatiable desire to read, and to learn, and to understand, and the desire and ability to be awestruck with delight.) Here is today’s exhibit from my Meditation Musèe ( a beautiful, well-worn, pink and gold, leather-bound journal, with the international symbol for hospitality, the pineapple, embossed all over it. At this point in time, this particular thought museum is about half full. What I love about my thought museums is that mask wearing is not required to enjoy perusing them.) A sampling:

“Your failures are nothing more than research and development.” – Dean Graziosi

“I like it when a flower or a little tuft of grass grows through a crack in concrete. It’s so fuckin’ heroic.” – George Carlin

“A standard is a yes. A boundary is a no.” – Thomas Leonard

(Edit: One of my dear and loyal readers, Kelly, asked me for further explanation on this quote. I answered her in the Comments section, but I decided to put my interpretation here, as well: When you set standards for yourself, you are saying this is what I want, and what I expect out of a relationship or a job or an experience. You are saying “yes” to what you want from something in your life. A standard describes what IS acceptable to you. A boundary says “no”. It says these are lines that you cannot cross with me in any situation. Remember both standards and boundaries are for YOU, and for your life. Others don’t have to share the same standards and boundaries as you have set for yourself, but if they don’t fit into your standards, nor do they respect your boundaries, they (person, job, experience, etc.) probably aren’t a good fit for space in your life.)

“Participate in the night leaving, participate in the evening coming, participate in the stars, and participate in the clouds; make participation your lifestyle and the whole of existence becomes such a joy, such an ecstasy. You could not have dreamed of a better universe.” – Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

“You come any closer, I’ll turn you into poetry.” – Umi, Twitter

“Do not confuse character with ego. Character is like an iceberg. It’s massive, solid and unmovable. The Titanic will sink before an iceberg even notices its been hit. Most of the iceberg mass (around 90%) is under the waterline. Those with big character do not usually need to show off. The 10% that people see is impressive enough. When critics shoot arrows into character, very little happens. It’s possible the arrow could chip the ice, but more than likely it bounces off and falls into the water.

Ego, on the other hand, is inflatable. It’s made by the hot air of its owner’s breath. It’s pumped up with talk and can be brought down with the slightest pinhole of truth. When critics shoot arrows into the ego, the ego-owner huffs and puffs to compensate. The ego looks everywhere for more hot air attachments – any blower will do.” – Holiday Mathis

I hope that this sampling has inspired you to start and/or to continue with your own collections. Remember to only keep in your galleries, what completely resonates with you. Thereby, your museum collection will be as incredibly interesting and unique as you are – truly a one-of-a-kind spot on Earth!! You will notice your own evolution as you look back at all that you have collected, throughout your experiences and times in your life. You may certainly have any of the above samplings for your own thought museum. In this world of thought/ideas/philosophies/musings, as long as credit is given to the proper creator, exhibits on loan are highly encouraged!! Like love, the more often thought creations are shared, the more their resonance multiplies!!

Are you passing on love, or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.