perspective

Stick out your arm, thumb up. Close one eye and cover something on the horizon with your thumb. It could be somebody's face, a road sign, a mountain. Then close the open eye and open the closed eye. Suddenly that thing on the horizon jumped over a few feet wihtout you doing anything but changing which eye you had open. This week I am spending a lot of time covering things up on my horizon and then letting them hop back into view. There is nothing wrong with re "looking" at things. The sun is shifting, staying a little longer each day. And I am spending a little more time on things I haven't had a chance to see in awhile.

prisoner of thought seeking a new path

"wisdom represented knowledge that was, by contrast, profoundly social, deeply personal, adaptive, and intuitive. It incorporated emotional intelligence." Hall, Wisdom: from philosophy to neuroscience (2010)

I suffer from my own thoughts. They spin, sometimes in a horrible rerun (like being made to watch The Dukes of Hazzard for 12 hours straight). I know I need to release myself from this egoic maelstrom. Why do I need this incessent replay? I don't, but for some reason, like loving a disease, I cling to it.

However the mind is adaptive. Finding a middle-way, seeking truth, understanding self.... or just dissolving into "bouts of bewildering silliness" --- there is hope for my mind, now the truth of how to untwine myself from the stickiness of my own egocentric drama.

There are trees. Like millions of fence posts scattered with no rhyme or reason. But then I see how the seeds have scattered, the young trees sheltered by the old, the sun filtered, the protection complete. Then I understand the divine. I see the path and I travel lightly. Heart filled with understanding. There is hope for me.

Is harmony part of wisdom?

February 2nd I am hard placed to find wisdom in my workplace...I feel like we are at times all lemmings piled in a row, dropping off a cliff, one by one. Communication seems to be key in all patterns of life. How we operate. The choices we make on how to act. To smile and say hi or to look at the floor, sulk, be buried in some past event or perceived turmoil. How we great each day, how we communicate with the world and the people around us. I don't expect a wise person to always be happy, but I do expect to find them with a sort of heart light inside. There are those that have inner peace, and to me that is a sign that balance can be attained as a human being. That is wisdom I seek. Balance is not easily struck when there are demanding children, bills to pay, work duties that seem to never end. Balance can not be struck if our hearts are stuck..in the quagmire of hurt, false love or other imagined pain. I am not saying we need to have lack of feeling but that our hearts must open wider and wider...which may mean we find more pain, see more of the ills we have committed, but from there can there not be self forgiveness? We are human, we are not perfect. We only take steps, one at a time to figure out the next part of our life or path might be. How do we make it a wise one?

I think of the word harmony. Another word for balance. The word suggests that beauty is balance. Harmony is not perfection. But I realize harmony is what I seek. Perfection can be for someone else interested in that. Harmony I think is attainable, perfection a constant slippery slope, always out of reach and quickly disappearing around dark corners. So how do I find Harmony?