June 23, 2025

Orchid Portrait 15
Making a montage of the wisdom outlets of history produces a "single story" of what it takes to "right the world" over the course of several lifetimes. The elements required read like a spiritual recipe for "the right life."

High on the list are integrity, sincerity, authenticity, but I find the most revered quality is being content with nothing. The secret of success is complete disinterest in succeeding with personal wealth/advancement/acquisition/etc. being the mark of success. This quote comes from "Taking Lessons from Lao" by Han Fei, writing several hundred years BCE, "No fault is more miserable than desire for gain." Jesus would say, "The love of money is the root of all evil." And, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the Eye of the Needle (A Narrow gate way in Jerusalem) than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Having no interest in personal profit on any level is the primary element in achieving perfection in "doing it right." But, why would anyone want to achieve perfection in "doing it right"? What's to be gained for someone disinterested in gain?

Being completely content with how things are here, now, is to be completely immune to fear, anxiety, worry, dread, suffering of any kind. The end of suffering is the end of the desire for suffering to end. And all of the people on the "Wisdom List of the Ages" would qualify for that. So Socrates could drink the hemlock without hesitation. As could a lot of us! No?

And that puts those of us who have no interest in personal gain at the place of being those most likely to be guides for leading the way for the kind of lifestyle that transforms life as we know it. We are the hermits, the recluses, the ascetics, the shamans, "those who know and have always known" of the ages.

We do not live to get anything, but to be who we are, doing what is ours to do, which is that which is called for in each situation as it arises, for the joy of doing it and the satisfaction of having done it, day by day, our entire life long.

When that catches on, the world will be what it has been capable of being from the start. And, I believe, without war! Who would kill over nothing?

Published by jimwdollar

I'm retired, and still finding my way--but now, I don't have to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, serving churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina. I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Austin, Texas, and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. My wife, Judy, and I have three daughters, five granddaughters, one great granddaughter, and a great grandson on the way, within about ten minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything.

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