01
Shel Silverstein nailed it with his, "Some kind of help is the kind of help that help is all about-- and some kind of help is the kind of help we all could do without!" I miss Shel Silverstein. He was the kind of help we need in our life. What we don't need is the kind of help that flows from Those Who Know Best (That is a Truman Capote term that never got enough press-- from his book, "A Christmas Memory," which you should look up and read right now because I know best about things like this). But, I'm going to get out of your way, and leave it up to you, which is something those who really know best never do. And it is up to us to hang out with them or give them a wide berth. We help ourselves most by choosing the right kind of people to hang out with. Or, maybe they are choosing to not hang out with us. We all have to be worth hanging out with, and if we are not, we need to work on that. To be worth hanging out with, we need to be mostly invisible. Not loud. Not intrusive. Not invasive. Not prying. Not muddying the water. Not directing/insisting/demanding. Just putting it out there in a "take what you need and leave the rest behind" kind of way, and letting people make their own choices. Nobody can wake anybody up, and being awake is all everybody needs to be. So, what good are we to each other anyway? We are all Passersby. Respecting each others' boundaries, choices, decisions, ways of being who we are... Working on being a safe, welcoming, place to be, and letting that be enough, because it is. It also helps to be worth talking to. And, a light touch goes a long way. If you know what I mean.
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02
See what you look at. Hear what is being said. You can't do those things without getting out of the way. Getting out of the way means seeing your seeing and hearing what you are listening to, tuning into how you are interfering with what you are seeing and hearing. That is all it takes to know what's what and how to respond to it in ways appropriate to the occasion. Do that in every situation as it arises, and you will have done as much as anybody ever could do. And that is all that is ever asked of any of us. Know what is happening and respond to it appropriately. Jesus couldn't do better than that. Neither could his father.
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03
Optimal is always coming and going, never staying, moving on, passing through, hello goodbye in a single greeting. Or, maybe, we are the ones on the move, always looking for something better, somewhere else. Adam and Eve were stuck in paradise for a while, until the notion of a better life struck them out of the blue, and moved them on in the endless search for improvement and happiness ever after. We're all looking for something better. That's the rock we push like Sisyphus up and down the hills of time. Whatever it is, this isn't it. Move on, move on, is all we know. Here we go. Again. Every religion that has ever been has sold something better to all buyers. Without the promise of something better, where would religion be? Without desire, not as preference, but as constant craving, where would we be? We are addicted to something better! To the escape from boredom! To the unending flight away from this! What? We don't know what-- just Not THIS! Make it a source of meditation. Become fascinated with your yearning for what, you do not know. Sit with it. Observe it. Get to know it. Become curious about it. Lose yourself in it knowingly. Get to the bottom of our incessant restlessness, our unending quest for equanimity, balance, harmony, peace and contentment.
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04
What's your specialty? Your shtick? Your forte? Your thing? About what would you shout: "Gimmetheball! GimmietheBALL! GIVEMETHEBALL!!!!"? How often do you do it? Have you built your life around that? In service to that? With that at the heart and center of what you do? If not, why not? If so, take a bow! It all starts with and flows from what we do best. What we do with all our might. What makes our little feet tap and our little toes dance, and our little heart sing. How long has it been since your little heart sang? Your sole goal in life is to live in ways that make your little heart sing every day. From now until you stop breathing.
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05
The right kind of conversation is the doorway to reflection and realization by way of articulation. As we work to say what needs to be said, we struggle Truth into verbal form, are guided by the resonance vibrating in our body, and words that leap into consciousness, from the dim world of mystery and creativity, and something new comes forth into the world, just because we moved beyond what has always been said, known, understood, in order to search out for ourselves new meanings and found new questions that demanded different formulations/responses. Nobody is the Teacher in the right kind of conversation. Everybody is the Student, the Learner, the Seeker, on the Quest for more than we know, more than is known, more than can be known. And we help each other along The Way to "more than can be asked, or thought, or imagined," for now, but not forever, if we keep talking.
