Version of Reality

Another lingering reflection, this time following up a bit on my Version of Reality post earlier this week:

I have to wonder if our capacity to construct our own version of reality (and thereby disconnect from what actually is real) is not at the core of the various kinds of addiction we can end up in.  Narratives and stories we create and use to reinforce our version of reality are the pieces and justifications we claim to need in order to perpetuate something (a feeling?) we are after.  In other words, they work for us — we get something from it. 

It seems like many of these kind of things are on a spectrum with a tendency, on one end, to lock in on a subset of things that exist and an addiction to them, on the other end, that actually distorts our perception of what is really real.  We replace the whole with just a part of reality. 

Why is this mechanism so attractive (to whatever degree it is functioning in our lives)? I’m guessing that part of our attempt to locate something that feels real, is actually more deeply trying to avoid something else.  A kind of hurt or pain that we believe we cannot endure and, therefore, justify the smaller existence definition we feel we need (and deserve).

We might say it (or think it) like this:

I need this because of the way I feel.  Something about my life is too hard for me...finish here.

What we find in life is based on where we put our attention. When we focus on the small worlds our thoughts create, we miss out on the beauty and possibilities we are meant to enjoy.

-- Guy Finley

And when we disagree…

The hallmark of a resilient, productive and sustainable culture is that disagreements aren’t risky.

When someone cares enough to make an assertion and show their work, a healthy organization or society takes a look.

The alternative is the brittle, closed culture of talking points, loyalty oaths and unquestioned status quo. It might be a neighborhood social club, a large corporation or a nation, but the principle remains.

What happens when we disagree? Because when the world changes (and it always does) we’ll probably end up disagreeing sooner or later. Being good at it is a skill.

-- Seth Godin, And When We Disagree…

Version of Reality

I’m wondering…about the ways that we create our own version of reality.

We seem strangely, yet consistently, capable of picking and choosing which pieces of reality we want to engage with. And, then, we often inadvertently reshape the significance of those pieces into a form that somehow serves us.

Once that process is well underway, it is difficult to not reinforce it by what we pay attention to and the stories we collect and maintain to keep it going.

When 'our' reality ends up disconnected from what is actually real, we become something generally unable to contribute to the common good...to what IS real.

Nice News: Diamond Ring

I was at a Braves baseball game and got up to go to the restroom. Before I washed my hands, I took off my grandmother’s diamond ring she had given me. When I went back to my seat, I realized I had forgotten it, as I had put it on a shelf. So I went back to the restroom and it was not there. I was so sad. Then I proceeded to go to the lost and found and they had my ring! I couldn't believe it. The nice lady behind the counter said the couple behind me found my ring and was waiting to see if I recovered it. I turned around and gave the woman that found my ring a big hug as well as her husband. They were as happy as me that it got back on my hand.

-- Mitzi C., nicenews.com

Something New Will Be Born

The dance of life finds its beginnings in grief.  It is the way in which pain can be embraced, not out of a desire to suffer, but in the knowledge that something new will be born in the pain.

-- Henri Nouwen

Randoms...?

If you’re just taking somebody else’s word for who the bad guys are, you’re in trouble — we've been lied to over and over about this kind of thing by nearly everyone who has some kind of power in our lives.

In an identity-politics driven world, you really have to work on understanding what your identity truly is and what you use to inform that understanding.

Faith, above all else, is a process — unfortunately that is not how it is currently viewed…by many.

Why is everyone so tired — is it that we no longer know what it really means (or how) to rest?

Prior Randoms...?

On the Lighter Side: Tell Me About It

On the Lighter Side:

 Tribune Content Agency

My Love

'Poem for the week' -- "My Love":

My love has hair

Like midnight,

But midnight fades to dawn.

My love has eyes

Like starlight,

But starlight fades in morn.

My love has a voice

Like dew-fall,

But dew-fall dies at a breath.

My love has love

Like life’s all,

But life’s all fades in death

-- Bruce Nugent

This may seem depressing.... 

But, isn't there something redeeming about acknowledging the truth that all things die?  

Redeeming, really?  Yes, because death is involved in the perpetuation of life.  This is true in all realms of existence.  

Denying it actually creates all kinds of problems, while accepting it allows for wisdom, meaning, enjoyment of the moments we do have...since this is part of what creates life for someone else down the road.  The beauty is that it actually is what helps creates new life.

Fear & Our Purpose

Fear has a very concrete power of keeping us from doing and saying the things that are our purpose.

-- Luvvie Ajayi

Politicians

At the risk of sweeping generalization, politicians want you to be afraid — that’s how they keep their jobs...as the only ones who can protect us from all the bad things out there.

For decades now, the whole country has been arguing over what to be afraid of…the most.  It seems to have reached an unprecedented level in this one due to both the ubiquity of social media and the shamelessness of those leading the way.

Routine rhetoric like "they're coming for YOU..." underscores the point, which now includes the weaponization of patriotism (a favorite of fear-mongers).  They stoke this dynamic when they mostly are just purveyors of fear, especially when cultivated through their sowing of chaos thru cult of personality.

Many (politicians) really don't respect the average citizen, even as they smile like a Cheshire cat and say "I want your vote".  And, maybe they have some good reasons in light of what appears to be some of our collective aptitudes, given the bowels of our consumerism (which they also promote by sucking-up to our money).  They probably know more than we give them credit for about our short, national attention-span and how easily and quickly we swing between public narratives.

We could do SO much better, though, if things were truly about service rather than power.

Which may beg a question about the locus of power — do politicians enable power in the people or do people enable power in politicians?  Something right now seems a bit complicit in the mutually-inclusive dynamic of the whole arrangement.  We seem to be unwittingly willing to use each other (some are not so unwitting about it, as it is pure calculation and the masses are falling right into line).

At some point the stench will be high enough that we will recognize things for what they have become and demand leadership more than partisanship.  We clearly aren't there yet, but there a signs the tide may be turning — as this system will lock in on anything that's hot and just as quickly spit it out when it's not.

...finish here.

Listen to your Life

Listen to your life.

-- Frederick Buechner

Frederick Buechner was asked on numerous occasions how he would sum up everything he had preached and written in both his fiction and nonfiction. 

The answer, he said, was simply this: “Listen to your life.” 

That theme was constant across more than six decades in his career as a “writer’s writer” and “minister’s minister” — an ordained evangelist in the Presbyterian Church (USA) who inspired Christians across conservative and progressive divides with his books and sermons. 

Buechner died peacefully in his sleep on Monday (Aug. 15) at age 96, according to his family. 

Born Carl Frederick Buechner on July 11, 1926, in New York City, he moved frequently with his family in his early childhood as his father searched for work, settling in Bermuda after his father’s death by suicide when he was 10. 

His studies at Princeton University were interrupted by World War II, but he completed his bachelor’s degree in English in 1948. He quickly achieved fame with the 1950 publication of his first novel, “A Long Day’s Dying.” 

When his second novel, in his own words, “fared as badly as the first one had fared well,” he moved to New York City to lecture at New York University and focus on his writing. 

It was in New York City that he had an experience that changed the course of his life and work: He began attending Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church. Growing up, neither side of his family had a “church connection of any kind,” as he put it, but he went because he happened to live next door and “because I had nothing else to do on a Sunday,” he recounted in a video posted on YouTube by the Frederick Buechner Center. 

One Sunday he was struck by a particular turn of phrase by the church’s pastor, the Rev. George Buttrick: “Christ is crowned in the hearts of those who love him and believe in him amidst confession and tears and great laughter.” 

He recounted: “I was so taken aback by ‘great laughter’ that I found the tears springing to my eyes.”  

Continue here....

 -- Emily McFarlan Miller

I’m Not

I've noticed...that I often feel much more aware of all that I’m not, rather then what I am.

Accordingly, this is something I have to consciously work with, to offset.

Tables vs Platforms

Instagram: scottthepainter

There Is Enough

What If...we actually believed there was more than enough of everything we actually need?

No one need starve. There is enough land and enough food. No one need die of thirst. There is enough water. No one need live without mercy. There is no end to grace. And we are all instruments of grace. The more we give it, the more we share it, the more we use it, the more God makes. There is no scarcity of love. There is plenty. And always more. 

-- Rachel and Rosemarie Freeney Harding

Randoms...?

There is the law and there are people who operate like they are above the law.

Our past experiences influence how we see things — we have to be cognizant of how that can get in our way.

There is always a third way — it is often the way we just have not yet discovered.

Do you ever question things — if so, what patterns do you see in what you tend to question?

Prior Randoms...?

Urges to Run Again

From earlier this week:

Trump’s hold on the Republican Party is strong enough that his chosen candidate defeated Representative Liz Cheney in Wyoming primary by about 34 points. Cheney voted with Trump more than 90% of the time during his term, but she took a stand against him after his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In a concession speech, she told her supporters that two years ago she won the primary with 73% of the vote, and “could easily have done the same again. The path was clear. But it would have required that I go along with President Trump's lie about the 2020 election. It would have required that I enable his ongoing efforts to unravel a democratic system and attack the foundations of our Republic. That was a path I could not and would not take.” Observers noted that the defeat of Cheney marks the passage of another establishment name from the ranks of Republican Party lawmakers. The Lincoln Project tweeted, “Tonight, the nation marks the end of the Republican Party. What remains shares the name and branding of the traditional GOP, but is in fact an authoritarian nationalist cult dedicated only to Donald Trump.”

-- Heather Cox Richardson, Letters from an American

6 Healthy Habits to Maximize Your Mental Health and Get You Through Your Worst Days

About a year ago, I resigned from my day job to address mental health issues and their increasing impact on my life. For as long as I can recall, I've struggled with self-worth, image and the desire to be liked by all others. Later in life, I would be diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Cluster B Personality Disorder.

As an outcome of my disabilities, I created a character of who I wanted to be, convincing myself the persona would conceal my insecurities and encourage my confidence. Instead, it spiraled out of control as reality and fiction blurred, convening in a complete mental breakdown a week before news outlets began to report on me.

I was condemned as a fraud and portrayed as a con. To add insult to injury, nobody was interested in hearing my side of the story.

Through trial and error, I've adopted six habits to fortify resilience:

1. Embrace the Moment:  In our daily trials, we get so wrapped up in the past and future that being present is almost like a luxury. But it's not a luxury; it's a responsibility.

If you can't be accountable for your current situation, you will find resistance moving forward. Regardless of good or bad, little or large, the choices you made have all brought you to the present. You cannot go backward and have little control over what tomorrow holds. What you can control are your immediate actions.

Radical acceptance is a concept formed around the idea of one's suffering being directly associated with the subject's attachment to pain. The healing process begins when you stop dwelling on the past and projecting fears toward the future. If you can't take care of yourself in real-time, you're good to nobody, least of all yourself.

...continue here.

-- Christopher Massimine

When You Get Reactive

When you get reactive, get curious.  You have a wound that is asking to be healed.

-- Mark Groves

Change Your Mind

Another lingering reflection, this time following up a bit on my Change Your Mind post earlier this week:

It seems that one of the more significant influences in the change-your-mind issue is religion.  We often feel a sense that because of something in this domain, changing your mind is a bad thing.  Holding on to something, under the premise of truth, is idealized.

But numerous passages in the Christian New Testament Scriptures seem to describe something quite like the necessity of changing your mind.  Some have even noted that changing your mind is at the base of repentance; in other words, if your don't change your mind your mind you can't repent.  The emphasis with repentance often focuses on behavior changes.  But, what drives behavior changes?  How you think about things.  

Several examples come to mind, including the parable of the rich young ruler; Peter's vision with Cornelius; Jesus' admonition to Nicodemus — "You must be born...again"; passage after passage where Jesus says something like — "It has been said...but, I say...".  And, then, there is the whole context for the his parable about new and old wineskins.  

Changing our minds is hard, often even painful.  It pulls on the tension between holding on to things (especially ideas) and letting go of them.  It is reinforced by our desire for control, predictability, certainty.  

And, these kinds of things often end up at odds with something like...faith. — trusting in something, especially in the context of the many tensions we feel in life.  What am I trusting in?  What I believe in or Who I believe in?  Sometimes, often surprisingly, that can be a big difference.

Finish here....

Chains We Wear

We forge the chains we wear in life.

-- Charles Dickens

Change Your Mind

Ever noticed...that it seems harder for people to change their minds as they get older?

Why is that?  Perhaps this is because it took a while for people to form their minds in the first place and once they do, all the related dynamics involved inhibit the process of doing it again.

There are, of course, people who seem to always change their mind.  So, there is no one-size-fits-all rule on this.  But, the formation of the mind and the subsequent elasticity of it is a rather conspicuous thing.

It is not hard to observe that when someone does change their mind, there are often significant relational events that seem to be involved.  As much as we would like to think that our minds should be like fixed points, they really aren't.  We change our minds routinely, especially when certain factors are involved.

Nice News: Turtle

I was driving on a 40-mph four-lane main street divided by a grassy median when I saw what I thought was a bag blowing across the street, but what actually was a small turtle. As I passed over it, I came to a stop and looked behind and saw it turn around and continue its slow progress. It would have been difficult for me to exit my car with my cane, but behind me a light was turning green, so I put on my flashers and waited. Two lanes of six cars stopped and sat there. A young man got out of his vehicle, walked over, picked the turtle up, and carried it across the median and the other two lanes and put it down headed into the trees on the other side. Once he got back into his vehicle, everyone proceeded on their way. A good day in my part of the metropolis!

-- Kathleen P., nicenews.com

Holiness - How Jesus Saw It

Instagram: richvillodas

In our minds holiness is usually about what we abstain from.

But Jesus saw holiness as what you give yourself to. (Namely, justice, mercy, compassion, love & hospitality.)

In the end, the holiest people are the ones who love well.

-- Rich Villodas

Randoms...?

Sense of purpose is most powerful in local places.

Don’t overthink things, but don’t underthink them either.

You always are only where you are, so be sure and be there…mentally, emotionally, spiritually.

What If...we woke each day with the question, where can I add a little beauty to the world today?

Prior Randoms...?

Gasoline

Bloomberg

AXIOS

Present vs Perfect

Let’s talk for a minute about perfect. . . . Perfect is brittle and unyielding, plastic, distant, more image than flesh. Perfect calls to mind stiffness, silicone, an aggressive and unimaginative relentlessness. Perfect and the hunt for it will ruin our lives—that’s for certain.  

I’ve missed so much of my actual, human, beautiful, not-beautiful life trying to force things into perfect. But these days I’m coming to see that perfect is safe, controlled, managed. I’m finding myself drawn to mess, to darkness, to things that are loved to the point of shabbiness, or just wildly imperfect in their own gorgeous way. . . .  

And so, instead: present. If perfect is plastic, present is rich, loamy soil. . . . 

Present is living with your feet firmly grounded in reality, pale and uncertain as it may seem. Present is choosing to believe that your own life is worth investing deeply in, instead of waiting for some rare miracle or fairy tale. Present means we understand that the here and now is sacred, sacramental, threaded through with divinity even in its plainness. Especially in its plainness.  

Present over perfect living is real over image, connecting over comparing, meaning over mania, depth over artifice. Present over perfect living is the risky and revolutionary belief that the world God has created is beautiful and valuable on its own terms, and that it doesn’t need to be zhuzzed up and fancy in order to be wonderful.

Sink deeply into this world as it stands. Breathe in the smell of rain and the scuff of leaves as they scrape across driveways on windy nights. This is where life is, not in some imaginary, photo-shopped dreamland. Here. Now. You, just as you are. Me, just as I am. This world, just as it is. This is the good stuff. This is the best stuff there is. Perfect has nothing on truly, completely, wide-eyed, open-souled present.

-- Shauna Niequist

Courage & Strength

It takes courage and strength to be empathetic.

-- Jacinda Arden

Health & Helping the World

Who are the people that are most able to help the world?

What characterizes them and how they go about living their lives?

We all know people who are significantly unhealthy. Do any people in particular come to mind? Any that are mentally, emotionally, psychologically or physically unhealthy? Several come to mind for me, in both my local context and at a political or celebrity level.

Not to say that such people can’t get anything done, but they often are mostly unable to do very much more than advance their own interests. Whether that be a simple function of the quantity of effort it takes them to overcome something physical or the narcissism that impedes their capacity to imagine the needs of anything or anyone else around them; they are often incapable of doing much to actually help the greater world.

Unhealthy people don’t (can’t?) really help people (especially those who need help) very much.

And, so, each of us needs to learn about the kinds of things that enable us to be in a healthy state (of mind, body, and spirit). And, we each need to learn about the kinds of things that prevent us from being so.

There are some clear patterns for people in general that enable health of all kinds. And, then, there is a version of those patterns that is unique to each one of us. It is important to recognize, know, and understand how these particular versions work for each one of us — because it’s pretty obvious when a lack of this understanding individually impacts our collective understanding.

We are influenced by what is around us, and much of the time what is around us is really a choice about where we put ourselves. That choice can be subconscious, as well as conscious. Either way, we can choose (or make choices about) where we’re putting ourselves and what we are surrounding ourselves with — things that help and nurture us or things that harm and tear us down.

If you are preoccupied with your own existence, you generally end up in an unhealthy condition.  Why is that?

Finish here....

Deep Listening

Deep listening is an act of surrender. We risk being changed by what we hear.

Listening does not grant the other side legitimacy. It grants them humanity — and preserves our own.

-- Valarie Kaur

Information & Reality

I'm wondering...when does information disconnect us from…reality?

We might think of this question in terms of misinformation. However, I’m beginning to wonder whether our saturation with information itself is part of the challenge we now have staying connected to reality.

When is information, in and of itself, a disembodied phenomenon?

And, when is the convergence of information with action necessary to sustain a holistic engagement with reality? In other words, when is information insufficient for our true engagement with what is real?

Deadly Restlessness

Stand still, and allow the deadly restlessness of our tragic age to fall away....  That restlessness was once considered the magic carpet to tomorrow, but now we see it for what it really is:  a running away from oneself, a turning from the journey inward that all [people] must undertake to meet God dwelling within the depths of their souls. 

-- Catherine de Hueck Doherty

Stop Rewarding Media

Instagram: sharonsaysso

Randoms...? (from Others)

Awareness of the divine begins with wonder. -- Abraham Heschel

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty.

-- John Muir

Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?

-- Mary Oliver, 'The Summer Day'

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

-- Carl Jung

...any thread?  Prior Randoms...? (from Others).

How do you know what's true?

Unsayable Things

There are things that are not sayable.
That's why we have art.

-- Leonora Carrington

Beauty & Context

What makes something beautiful?  

How much does context impact what we define as beautiful?

Pick something that strikes you, particularly from the personal standpoint, as beautiful and notice how much of what makes it beautiful relates to where (or how) it exists. 

A building, for example, may have striking features — often in light of the surroundings it is in.  Other buildings around it or where it is positioned, say, against a skyline or in front of a river or a view of the mountains impact the way its beauty strikes us.

How about a flower?  A particular flower often isn't even really noticed, in and of itself, especially when it's smashed in against all kinds of other plants or flowers.  But, when it is in relief to its context — standing apart a bit in it, showing its unique color or structure against some kind of background, it can really stand out as it displays the unique features of what is beautiful about it.  Even flowers that are all bunched together can still be perceived as beautiful against a bigger, broad enough backdrop.

Perhaps, this is why a brilliantly colored tree in the Fall is so visually enjoyable when it stands in contrast to its surroundings.

Context is more of a function of how we notice what we notice and why we do.

Finish here....

LT: Bonuses for Quality

Imagine what our world would be like if we stop giving bonuses only for output, and start also giving bonuses for quality.

-- Simon Sinek

On Being Interesting

I continue this series about observations I've made about things inside myself (alternating with 2 other series — observations I've made about things outside myself and things I'm wondering about).  This one is, perhaps, the most boringly revealing one yet:

I've noticed...that I don't see myself as all that interesting.  And, it feels like that self-view influences me.  

Not unlike many other people, I have often been fascinated by people who are interesting — who have a dramatic story to tell, whose full humanity is in view, who have overcome something significant, who are contributing to the great diversity of beauty in the world.  In fact, I probably spend a lot of time pursuing interesting people through reading, movies, or conversation.  

But, in the end, I don't see myself as very interesting and occasionally feel provoked by that.  I might even catch myself thinking something like, "Other people take little interest in me."  

Now that's quite a leap...even if it is partially true.

So, this notion has had rolling me for a while now — enhanced (I'm guessing) by things like a loss of friends, community, COVID, getting older, etc.

It can easily feel like others are moving on (are they?), even as I feel increasingly stuck.  I can usually self-coach myself off of this conclusion, but never completely snuffing out the low-grade ember of it that burns on.

One spark of late looks something like this, "Be interesting then."  What does that look like, for me?  It's got me wondering....

At the very least, I know that I must avoid the (sometimes handy) conclusion that others should make me feel interesting.  That really doesn't make sense (even logically); not to mention, that it doesn't work either because it's not really solving for the right thing.

Besides, self-pity doesn’t wear well on most people (me either).  But, acknowledging these kinds of things we feel seems important, especially given the alternative…hiding that we do.

We all, in fact, live interesting lives.  So, what is most impacting my prevailing view of my own?

Everybody who is honest is interesting.

-- Stefan Sagmeister