“To see the fruit in the seed, this is genius.”
— Lao Tzu
To see the coming becoming
is to glimpse the future’s dark
enlightening.
Can you see the apex view
from the mountain’s base?
Visionary impulse
with critical thought
Picking among possible futures
and willing the one you want
While wanting the one you will
Still every seed has its own will
so a slow sculpture ensues
Working to achieve the vision presented
while acknowledging the process
and owning it.
— G A Rosenberg
“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow.”
— Ovid
What do the words choice, responsibility, authenticity, and fate mean to you? At a personal level?
Choice- Something I make every moment of every day.
I am responsible and accountable for the choices I make and their consequences. I may bitch about the results all I want. I can rationalize how my choices were inevitable given my upbringing, my culture etc yet especially at the point of life I am at now. I am responsible for recognizing how much each of those things play into my choices.
Fate is the pattern of our lives. It is the path of least resistance and can be altered.
The more my choices and words reflect my true self, beyond influences of my past or my culture or even my mood, the more I am being authentic.
There is a word in there that you missed, – Accountable.
It is close to responsibility but not quite the same.
When we screw up our choices for any of the above reasons, we still have to say “I screwed up” and try to make it right if possible or at least own up to it. We can’t merely hide it away or blame it on ways we have been abused etc. These are our choices. We have made them. To blame them on anyone or anything else is to give away our power.
“Choices may be unbelievably hard but they’re never impossible. To say you have no choice is to release yourself from responsibility and that’s not how a person with integrity acts.”
― Patrick Ness
There are always choices whether they be good, bad or indifference. We choose to act in one of several ways or not act at all and each choice influences our trajectory in a different way. That trajectory will lead off into several different choices and several ways. If only we could see clearly ahead on the path our choices will lead us. Alas even with guidance we make the choices we do and then with hindsight we may see how each choice has led us to here. We can accept the responsibility for our choices and use the insight to guide the next ones we make. Learning from our missteps is possible and I have even known it to happen once or twice in my own life. Denying our culpability tho is to make ourselves a victim, helpless to the whim of others or to some agent of fate itself. Not everything is necessarily our fault but it does come from our choices.
Blessings, G
“At every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.”
— Paulo Coelho
Caught up in the fantasy of my everyday life
I follow through with no follow through
as the hours pass on
It’s a tightrope and I balance
with no net
between my wants and what has to get done.
There’s a chasm underneath me
and I ignore so much
missing out what other people tell me
One day I may fall
but I’ll catch myself again
I love the risk involved
in reaching for my dreams
yet there’s a nightmare circling my head.
— G A Rosenberg
The aim of human life is to know thyself. Think for yourself. Question authority. Think with your friends. Create, create new realities. Philosophy is a team sport. Philosophy is the ultimate, the ultimate aphrodisiac pleasure. Learning how to operate your brain, learning how to operate your mind, learning how to redesign chaos.
-Timothy Leary
We create new worlds and inhabit our fictions. Our imaginations take us to real places that defy conventional thinking. Each moment is a chance to take something from the worlds inside our heads and manifest it externally. It can be art, music, drama, recipes or ourselves. By recreating the world we defy the rules of standardization. The truth is that while there may be laws the only rules we have are the ones we make for ourselves. That can mean living within society’s laws or outside of them being willing to take responsibility for our thoughts and actions and the consequences that may result from them. Ultimately we have total freedom. This tends to frighten the rule makers and keepers of society senseless but in reality we are the ones in control. That’s a frightening thought for many which is why so few are willing to think outside the box. It can be amazingly liberating to do so however.
Blessings, G
“Our minds are information vacuums. Either we fill them with thoughts of our choosing or someone else will.”
― Ray Davis
I have been paying way too much attention to various sources of news and world events in the last month or two. Not that I think it a bad idea to be informed about what’s going on but wow there’s a lot of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD) being thrown around out there. At any given time we are supposed to be fearful of various terrorist groups, various other governments, our own governments, the illuminati (most of the variations of it that you hear about because no two people who talk about the illuminati seem to have the same idea what it is), radiation leaking out of Japan into the ocean, fluoride, science, various practitioners of various religions, various members of various political parties, the police and a disease or two. Wow there just does not seem to be enough time in the day to be worried about it all so it seems we have to pick and choose. Hmmmm I choose none of the above.
What? Not be scared or upset or traumatized by any of it? How can I be so apathetic? Well the simple answer is I’m not. Of all of those things I’ve listed, there is a percentage that I can personally affect. Some of them I do either directly or through donations to support others that do. Other things I can’t affect personally. What is the number of concerns I can change through fear and worry?. Let’s see zero divided by zero, carry the zero and add zero. That would be zero things I can affect in the world by either being worried myself or spreading FUD. Minds cluttered by fear aren’t good for much else. I would rather focus on creative and practical solutions. Well that and working on my own self-development. If enough people did that, it may catch on. A world in which the majority of people focused on becoming better people and taking responsibility for their own messes would be a damned sight better than the one we live in now. It also would be a world with far fewer things to be concerned about.
Blessings, G
Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I didn’t have the courage to say “yes” to life?”
― Paulo Coelho
I want to make mistakes. I want to have messes to clean up and things to make right. I want to know that I have taken chances in my life and tried new things. A life free from mistakes is a life that is stagnant. For how can one learn to do something correctly without first making an error or two along the way. Luckily for me this has never been much of an issue. I just take responsibility for it and move on. It’s usually just that simple. I would rather make a thousand errors than avoid trying something new out of fear. How about you?
Blessings, G
“When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”
–Edith Hamilton
History like most things goes in cycles. Much the same thing that Edith Hamilton said above could be stated about many countries in the modern world. Whenever we give up responsibility for our own actions whether it is seeing ourselves as a victim, to avoid consequence or just to let someone else do it because it is easier we surrender so much more. Loss of self does not happen all at once but in a series of momentary decisions.
On Thursday we visited Athens. What an amazing sense of history. The Acropolis deserves everything said about it and the Archaeological museum shows the development of art through each step of the way. Looking at temples that were erected over 2000 years ago and museum pieces that predate that by another five or six thousand was inspiring. I can’t wait to make my own art out of some of the pieces I saw.
As we were walking back towards the bus we saw soldiers and riot police descending on a protest that was taking place. I am not sure of the exact circumstances tho it seemed to have something to do with how people were being represented. Perhaps they were taking some notes from old Edith.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Parthenon
Greek Street Dude
Minotaur Bust – Athens Archaeological Museum
Mask of Agamemnon Bronze Age- Athens Archaeological Museum
“When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”
–Edith Hamilton
History like most things goes in cycles. Much the same thing that Edith Hamilton said above could be stated about many countries in the modern world. Whenever we give up responsibility for our own actions whether it is seeing ourselves as a victim, to avoid consequence or just to let someone else do it because it is easier we surrender so much more. Loss of self does not happen all at once but in a series of momentary decisions.
On Thursday we visited Athens. What an amazing sense of history. The Acropolis deserves everything said about it and the Archaeological museum shows the development of art through each step of the way. Looking at temples that were erected over 2000 years ago and museum pieces that predate that by another five or six thousand was inspiring. I can’t wait to make my own art out of some of the pieces I saw.
As we were walking back towards the bus we saw soldiers and riot police descending on a protest that was taking place. I am not sure of the exact circumstances tho it seemed to have something to do with how people were being represented. Perhaps they were taking some notes from old Edith.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Parthenon
Greek Street Dude
Minotaur Bust – Athens Archaeological Museum
Mask of Agamemnon Bronze Age- Athens Archaeological Museum
“If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.”
― Richard Bach
No one else determines my happiness or sadness.
I am responsible for what I feel and when.
I will not blame anyone else for what I am feeling. I will not surrender my power in that way.
If I react badly to something another person does, that is my responsibility and a gift for it shows me my shadow.
If someone reacts badly to me and they communicate it, it does not mean I have to change. It is my choice. That does not mean I won’t modify my behaviour just that I don’t have to.
No one has to change for me.
I will be open to learning from all.
Since kindness and love brings me and others joy, I will be kind and loving as often as I can.
Curiosity is better than anger always.
Open communication is better than silence.
From time to time I will screw up these practices. I will not beat myself up.
Blessings, G
Click on images to see full-sized:
Opening Night at the Theatre of the Rose by G A Rosenberg
Within the Crystal by G A Rosenberg 
Forest Conjuror by G A Rosenberg 
