Category Archives: Wisdom & Knowledge
Addicted to Technology
Today’s guest article, written by long-time friend Peter Vajda, takes a close, careful look at the hair trigger we’ve all developed – a hair trigger that responds instantly, unquestioningly to all forms of electronic communication. You know what I’m talking about. You’re sitting with friends enjoying a leisurely dinner and your phone rings (chimes, plays, sings, announces, barks, or whatever your ringtone is), and you go, “Oh, excuse me. I have to take this … hello?”
Same with email coming in, facebook notifications and all the rest. It’s become an instant, kneejerk reaction.
A Long, Barren Winter’s End
We enter, each year, a season of autumn when the beauty and lush growth of summer begin shutting down, preparing us for the austerity and cold of wintertime.
Just as the leaves of summer fall to earth and the trees appear to die, so it also happens with the human spiritual climate. We see much of the plenty around us wither and fall away, and we, as a race, prepare ourselves for yet another centuries-long winter of the soul. It is a season when many things drop away and leave our landscape barren. But out of this falling away, many new things will eventually be born.
When Life Has Scarred You
Whatever You’ve Got, Be Glad of it
The old proverb goes, “Into every life a little rain must fall.” And I always thought – a little?!! You ain’t been payin’ attention here. Most of us can manage to get through the bad times, but we don’t have to like it, right? And we ain’t forgetting the struggle – that memory stays with us. And stays.
On the other hand, some few people always seem to come out the other side of turmoil with their peace, their equanimity, still intact. How do they do that?
Getting Stirred Up Isn’t Growth
AND EXCITEMENT ISN’T REALIZATION
There’s a reason why many politicians, preachers and pos-think gurus fire up their energy to a fever pitch before unleashing it on their audiences. It impresses. It gets immediate attention, usually uncritical attention, and the audience gets focused and swept away by the excitement. When we’re cranked up on adrenalin and dopamine, we’re much less likely to question things, less likely to carefully examine the ideas and information being handed to us.
But Not a Pet Pig
Problems ‘n Pigs ‘n Plain Common Sense
Life’s problems, puzzles and predicaments don’t come when we’re all set and braced and ready to deal with them. Nuh uh. They almost always come tippy-toeing up on our blind side and give us a quick kick or two before we even know what’s happening. And then without thinking, we’ll usually react to that kick, that sneak attack, with an instant, flat-footed response that may or may not make things better.
Reality’s Wrapper
Hey! That’s not Self Help … Is It?
Usually the ideas for my blog posts are centered on helping folks get themselves through life a little better, a little easier, a little more happily. But occasionally something flits into my head that’s totally off the wall. In those cases, I generally just play with the idea but keep it to myself because it’s off topic – way off.
Once in a great while, though, a concept comes (and there it sits) but some of the words needed to describe it just don’t exist, not exactly, not yet. What you’ll read below, however, keeps coming back, increasingly insistent, as if it really wants out.
Nature Abhors a Vacuum (and So Do Bloggers)
Speak to Me.
So there I was, talking away into thin air. Sitting on the front porch, my eyes closed, telling Brenda May all my hopes and dreams, my private aspirations for the future. Somewhere in the midst of my musings, Brenda May must have gotten hungry or sleepy … or bored.
Finally I asked what she was thinking, and no response came. Just silence. That’s when I opened my eyes and discovered I was alone, except for Gramps, the old blue tick hound down at the other end of the porch, who was eyeing me soberly. Except for him, I’d been talking into a vacuum. Believe me, vacuum sucks.