“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill will, and selfishness— all of them due to the offender’s ignorance of what is good and evil. That people of a certain type should behave as they do is inevitable. To wish it otherwise were to wish the fig-tree would not yield its juice.”
— Marcus Aurelius
What is your reality box made out of? Some boxes are made of iron and nothing can get in or out. Whatever is in there will stay the way it was even after the world turns to dust around it? Those who keep their views of reality in a box like that will never have to be concerned about change or growth. It is a prison cell for their evolution with no time off for good behaviour.
Some boxes are made of reinforced cardboard. Anything that is within can be carried and until the box is unsealed, its contents will stay secured. They can’t stand a lot of rough handling tho. If something outside the box wants in, it will get there eventually. Someone who keeps their reality in a box like that is capable of change and might even enjoy new things. If only they could get through all that damn packing tape.
For me, the perfect box would be made of some kind of permeable plastic. It can be easily opened and its contents exchanged and there is air and room inside for them to breathe. Oh they may get stale after awhile but that’s ok, most viewpoints do when confronted by the outside air. The container only starts to smell bad if there is unwillingness to exchange the contents for others that work better. A good cleaning every now and then helps.
Blessings, G
“The joy of life consists in the exercise of one’s energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.”
— Aleister Crowley
Each moment a new beginning
Each line a new verse sung
Coming alive to the challenge
finding new ones to be slung.
Never want to find a day
that’s like the one before
Never want an end to striving
there’s no call I’d ignore
For stopping to rest
feels like ending the quest
of learning what I’m about
the universe awaits
and I’ll dare all the fates
and I know that I’ll win out </h4
Staying alert to the pathways
I walk along in my day
Embracing the new in everyday life
never settling for just ok
Never want to settle for
a routine that’s safe and non-varied.
I never walk down the same street twice
if conscious, its not necessary.
— G A Rosenberg
“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”
— Hunter S. Thompson
There is a seed of adventure that is planted in the heart of each of us. Some of us water and feed this seed regularly excited at the prospect that just about anything may grow from it. Some even go as far as not letting anything take root besides this seed, worried that anything established in their garden no matter how beautiful or desirable may choke it off and kill off the possibilities that the adventure may offer. When choosing between the known and the unknown, they will always choose the new and different.
Others are more cautious. They will plant things much easier to route and take hold of than a new adventure. They prefer the gardens of their youth and want theirs to look as close as possible to what they have known all their lives. Yet still no matter how they neglect the seed, it will at some point take hold and break out of their staid existence, forcing them to see at least the prospect of something new emerging. Many have been sent screaming to their beds at the mere thought of a flowering adventure. It may be as if they have taken root themselves and will not be moved.
Still adventure flies in on the wind. I will never resist its call for there are many ways to travel and adventures take many forms. I hope yours grow beautifully and bring you where you most need to go.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Satyrday Evening in the Woods by G A Rosenberg
The Stress of Holding on Too Tightly by G A Rosenberg
“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”
— Buddha
I like to think of myself as being pretty open to most ideas. Oh, I can and will cheerfully discuss almost any topic and come at it from one point of view or another, tho I know that often truth lies somewhere in the middle of any given issue especially when it comes to concepts of history, politics, philosophy or spirituality.
There are occasions tho when I read or hear something that someone has wrote or said and it sets my hair on edge.
A friend of mine had brought up the subject of the Middle East, specifically Palestine and Israel on his page and people were discussing it back and forth. Since it is a subject I have researched quite a bit, I brought up a point or two. Someone who disagreed with me first asked me to cite some sources and when I did and suggested a few other topics to research, he replied “You’re contradicting what I’ve been taught in school, you shouldn’t expect me to dig around to support *your* claims.” I was surprised. I was expecting him to examine other points of views yes, but I had no interest in him supporting any claims I was making.When someone disagrees with me, I love to be given a chance to examine where they are coming from. Some of my greater leaps of understanding have come from being willing to look at and grock (understand) another point of view. Isn’t that what critical thinking is all about?
Blessings, G
“Is it hard?’
Not if you have the right attitudes. Its having the right attitudes thats hard.”
― Robert M. Pirsig
Whenever I see, much less use, a phrase like ‘the right attitude’ or the right anything else for that matter, I find myself pausing. Right for who and in what situation. Surely what is right for me may not be right for someone else. Is there such a thing as objective right?
Well I have yet to find an answer where love and compassion were not the right attitude to have. Of course I’m using loaded terms here. By love I do not necessarily mean that new age soporific kind of love. Sometimes the most loving thing you can do to someone (for example someone who is about to harm others purposefully) maybe to injure them severely. Also when I say compassion, I definitely DO NOT mean sympathy. Sympathy is when you feel sorry for someone and want to give them what they want out of pity. Compassion involves awareness of who people are beyond what they show on the surface. When we feel compassion for someone, we tend to give them what they need, which is something quite different than what they want.
What other attitudes may be considered right? A key one for me is the realization that my answers are not complete and that there is always a new viewpoint to consider and integrate.
No matter how much I believe I know, any of it or all of it may be wrong. I’ve been wrong before and will be again and that’s ok as long as I don’t get so positional that I am unwilling to consider a new point of view. I love exposure to new ideas and viewpoints and when I come across one its like my birthday and christmas rolled into one.
I don’t have the arrogance to assume that love, compassion, an open mind and willingness to change are the right answers for everyone but they do tend to be the largest tools in my arsenal.
Blessings, G
“I do not know how to find out anything new without being offensive.”
– Charles Fort.
To discover.. to look at something and see it for the first time… to discover it in a new way…upsetting the old and the ones who held it— the ones attached see me as wrong for my new eyes..my real eyes..my realization? … most can’t see… Galileo said the earth went around the sun… offended many… did he have the right?… how did he not? People like their Dragon spots and their fear and mystery… removing it…even tho the map may be better scores few thanks..how brave must one be to face the unknown even inside themselves? we’re looking for beings of courage…map makers to a new tomorrow… even if it means we have to throw out our old ones… Aww but the colours were so pretty too… that’s ok..we’ll create with even more pretty colours and it will be true..neophile- lover of the new, neophobe-one who fears the new… I know which one I will be…will myself to be..and if in the end my eyes offend and I lose friends.. i still will see the new..
Blessings, G
“I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it.”
― Vincent van Gogh
I love to learn new things. Most often of course I learn by doing it wrong until I get it right. To this end I have made mistakes in art, poetry, writing, parenting, relationships, sales and so many other areas but gradually in some I have improved and continue hopefully to do so. My partner despairs that I’ll ever master some of the subtleties of doing laundry among other things but as I said, hopefully I learn from my mistakes.
For a long time I was afraid of trying new things and failing. It has taken me a long time to learn that as long as I am trying new things I cannot fail nor grow old. This has been a learning that has been long in coming and probably one of the most important things I can ever pass on to my kids.
Blessings, G
“I love to disturb people, because only by disturbing them you can make them think. They have stopped thinking for centuries. Nobody has been there to disturb them. People have been consoling them. I am not going to console anybody… Because the more you console them, the more retarded they remain. Shog them, hit them hard, give them challenge. That challenge will bring their full capacities to the climax.”
–OSHO
Another quote about something that I become more clear about all the time. We learn best when we move outside our comfort zone. It’s the reason why so many people fight to stay within it so hard.
I consider myself a neophile. I love things that are new and different and love exploring places and people I have never experienced before. Only recently, has it occurred to me that the new and different is my comfort zone. What is much more difficult is dealing with my past. My family and some of my past exploits. Not that my past was particularly difficult but behind the surface layer of “been there, done that” is some deep discomfort about how I am viewed and how I view others. To think I used to look down on neophobes who have an aversion to anything they havent done before and refuse to stretch themselves. Perhaps their turf, small as it is a lot smoother than my pathway strewn with ghosts. Perhaps noone’s road is easiest and all carry truth.
Blessings, G
Bas Relief by G A Rosenberg 
Chaos Denizen by G A Rosenberg 
