Control much of life by exercising our mind over matter, but without the heart, nothing will matter to the mind.
Follow me and I will take you away from the everyday.
Tag: passion
In which state do you spend the most time?
There are three states: love, fear/anxiety, and apathy.
The proportion between the states should favor love.
Love requires passion and a curiosity of life. Love also requires confidence that whatever happens, it’s going to be alright.
Let go, and gain that confidence to love.
And when you reach a love at a high enough level, that love will power you into action. And that kind of action is unstoppable, inspiring, and evangelical. It changes lives, and people, and society.
The alternative proportions are not wrong. They’re simply less fulfilling.
Follow me and I will take you away from the everyday.
If this is something you care about, then SHARE it. Let’s get out of the stands and into the game. Let’s interact.
Don’t worry. Try passion, instead.
Follow me. I’ll take you away from the everyday.
Worry is a form of pain.
Why do we so willingly cause ourselves so much pain?
“I’d rather die of passion than die of boredom.”
The din of the cafes was growing with the setting sun as he walked the cobblestone streets of Auvers-sur-Oise. He came around the corner and saw the boys as he always did while returning home. The boys were always quarreling over something, distraught, and he always took time to engage them, and soon they’d be distracted by whatever joke he made. Today they were fidgeting over something which he could not see.
When the boys separated he was astonished to see that one was holding a small pistol. “Be careful there,” he stepped forward, hands outstretched, “that is a dangerous toy you have.” He grasped the gun, but the boy did not let go, so the man pulled at it. He did not expect the sound of the firearm exploding and felt confused at the sting in his chest. Still holding the gun at his side, he looked down blankly and realized that the bullet had gone into him. The boys’ stared in surprise, which quickly became fear and they disappeared down the stone street.
Instead of pain, the man felt a curious, focused energy. He walked slow and calm until he found the doctor’s residence. The doctor had returned from his day of house calls and immediately examined him. “I cannot get to it,” he said finally, after they sat in a quiet room with only a clock ticking in the corner. He put a bandage over the wound with expert care, sealing it and the man’s fate. “It will be fine,” he told the man.
“I’m not worried anymore,” the man answered and sighed.
“What happened?” the doctor asked .
The man looked at him warmly “A mistake. I didn’t know what was happening. But I’m feeling better already.”
“Did you do this yourself?” the doctor asked.
The man did not answer, but laid his head back, and gazed out the window. “We don’t know what we do sometimes. I put my heart and soul into my work, and I have lost my mind in the process.”
The doctor glanced at him with narrowed eyes, eyes that knew how to judge the body, but not the mind. Yet even his professional judgment would not help the sepsis taking root in the man’s chest, the infection that would overtake the man’s health, and in a few hours his life.
Vincent Willem van Gogh.
Born: March 30, 1853, Zundert, Netherlands
Happy Birthday, Vincent.
Creatives don’t get embarassed
Being a true creative takes consistent courage. The courage of curiosity…of untethering the boat from the moor and seeing what lies in the confines of your brain and imagination. It means risking sinking into the darkness of the mind to find the light of your product.
Creating is floating free in a brainstorm and seeing what you find. Hardest of all maybe is letting go and accepting all the imperfections that come from you.
Hemingway: “I write one page of masterpiece to ninety-one pages of shit. I try to put the shit in the wastebasket.”
You harvest the good stuff, not caring that there was so much rubbish churned up in the process. Limiting the flow, editing your thoughts before they emerge into a whole is like getting in your boat with a plan but never casting off.
Boats were not meant to stay in the harbor.
If you want to create something you’ve got to cast off and see how your ideas float in the tumultuous waters of the real world. Limiting yourself is a fearful practice, a practice of no true creative.
To have discipline, training yourself almost like an animal, while fostering the creativity and imagination of being human is one of the grand struggles of humanity.
And creatives are the ones who step up to face this challenge.
Creatives don’t get embarrassed.
“I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate – it’s apathy. It’s not giving a damn.”
The title quote is from Leo Buscaglia. He was an evangelical champion of love and observed many things about the human condition. From my first readings of his works, I was hooked. And I’ve related it to my experiences with death. Among my other readings, his has helped me solidify my opinion that it’s curiosity that will drive us to happiness. Curiosity means caring. Caring, first for yourself (after all, how can you truly care for others if you can’t care for yourself?), and then start getting curious about your environment, particularly the people in it.
Make yourself one of those who care. Because when you care, you become part of that minority that holds power. Someone valuable. We don’t have to change the world, but we can make a difference in everyone’s life that we interact in. Again from Leo:
“Don’t spend your precious time asking “Why isn’t the world a better place?” It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is “How can I make it better?” To that there is an answer.”
And when we do good things, we contribute to a positive environment, and this will come back and create a better place for us to live. Do good, and good things happen to us. But if we wait for good things, wait on others who care, then the environment we end up in isn’t good. It may not be bad, but it is a limp, stagnant environment. An environment in which you may be financially stable, but without love.
We create the environment we are in, intentionally or not.
So care…about everything you can. Don’t get lost in the troubles of the world. Your vicinity is the best place to do good, with your friends, family, workplace, and neighborhood. Do good things, and good things will happen to you.
There’s nothing spiritual about karma. It’s just the way life works when you live in a community.
Occupy yourself
Don’t think and the days go by, never to be done again, except in our heads. If only I’d done this, if only I’d done that…
But doing what? I’m often busy doing things as the days go by, but not really any thing. I’m buying things. Moving things. Cleaning things. Trying to maintain a steady state of constant activity. A mind occupied by everything but my self. Activity is the appearance of production, like a big leafy top to a little carrot.
More important is YOUR thing. That which will make you happy. It will leave you smiling at the end of day. But then I think too much on my thing, and the same situation is created. Stymied by thoughts and words. The paralysis of analysis. I find the best is when I plan. Then do.
The thinking comes first, so that the doing will flow… eternal, unconscious and unrestrained.
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