The Responsibilities of Balance

"Been away...but now I am back."




I am feeling quite strong physically these days, and it is amazing how the mind finds it much easier to join in when you are in this realm. I am feel the direct connection between taking responsibility for the past (which is a minefield at the worst of times and a 3-d trailer for "Enter the Void" at the best of times) and opening my heart wide to the emotional future. There is great strength for me in positive affirmations followed by strong affirmative actions. 




This was an interesting article:




"If you told a scientist 90 years ago that a butterfly flapping its wings initiates a domino effect that can lead to a tornado in a different part of the world, they’d probably look at you like you were crazy. Today, science calls it the Chaos Theory.

But proven or not, the idea that the smallest of actions can impact the world is still difficult to believe. Maybe we’re just a little selfish in our careers, working in our jobs mainly with the intention of what we are getting out of it. Then suddenly there’s a riff in our relationships at home or with a friend and we think, “This isn’t my fault!” 

We do a good job at compartmentalizing our lives, thinking that the way we behave in one area will have no effect on the other, but the truth is there are no compartments in the spiritual realm. The illusion of fragmentation only exists in the physical dimension. It’s all connected.

This is a tough pill to swallow, but the Light ensures it’s a true and just system we live in. The trouble is, when the struggles come, it’s nearly impossible for us to connect the dots. The system was created that way so we could have an opportunity to base our certainty in the Light and not our five senses.

We can get better at spotting the spiritual law of cause and effect at work by maintaining an awareness that at every moment we are planting a seed. Planting seeds of selfishness, jealousy, or impatience will eventually lead to difficulty and struggle. On the other hand, planting seeds of sharing, tolerance, unconditional love… bring us fulfillment. "






I have also been thinking alot about the idea of balance in life.  What exactly do I understand the concept of day to day balance to look like? Not in terms of eating vegetables and deep breathing....but in terms of thought process.






Balancing

"Courageous  people must continually push themselves to be completely honest, yet must also possess the capacity to withhold the whole truth when appropriate.  To be free people we must assume  total responsibility for ourselves, but in doing so must possess the capacity to reject responsibility that is not truly ours.  To be organized and efficient, to live wisely, we must daily delay gratification and keep an eye on the future;  yet to live joyously we must also possess the capacity, when it is not destructive, to live in the present and act spontaneously.  In other words, discipline itself must be disciplined.  The type of discipline required to discipline discipline is what I call balancing."   M.Scott. Peck

Come to think of it...I don't want to downplay the importance of eating raw vegetables and the old diaphragm breathing exercises for the sheer fun of it all.

Oh yeah, also I tend to gravitate towards the beta blocking agents that simply don't allow much of that crazy adrenaline to ever see its way to my aching heart.  Balance is still an relative concept to me.

Rick

The sweet charity of love

Sometimes in life, just when you become completely sure that this is a completely Godless universe....Something miraculous can jolt you back to a position of hope and clarity.




The other day I was over at a couples house who are firmly planted in their 90's, although, not short on charisma, charm and affection. They have been married 50 years.


 I hardly know these people except for an isolated incident where I was called up to their home because he had fallen on the kitchen floor.  My job was simply to lift him up and into a chair and he was fine.  Then this endearing woman gave me this tin of exquisite Cocoa to take home.




Such a sweet gesture by her.  I won't ever forget it.




"Practising the law of giving is actually very simple. If you want joy, give joy to others; if you want love, learn to give love to others; if you want attention and appreciation, learn to give attention and appreciation.




The easiest way to get what you want is to learn to help others get what they want.




Sounds very new age and Daily Om....but I believe it works.




I guess I am getting a little mushy today, because I just celebrated a birthday and my cousins little son, who is quite precious.....made me a home made card which was brilliant and then he insisted on putting a toonie
inside, as a present for me. Very inspiring on many levels.




Rick

The Year Of Magical Thinking

"A hill is a transitional accommodation to stress, and ego may be a similar accommodation. A waterfall is a self correcting maladjustment of stream to structure,
and so, for all I know is technique."



I have just finished reading a great book by the author Joan Didion. In that book she chronicles the pain and incomprehension of her forty year marriage that ended abruptly one evening at the dinner table when her husband and fellow author John Gregory Dunn suffered a massive coronary and passed away.


Didion is a master of creating a feeling of intimacy with her words; kind of like she was one of your more intelligent friends that you wish you had always spent more time with.


She talks about the multiple layers of grief and the process by which people seem to be immobilized and start living in a separate reality in order to cope with the loss.


She also has a very visual sense of the world, and an amazing recall of her past and the different cities and experiences that she has lived and loved through.


Finally she touches on the strange custom in the west to frown upon people who grieve for too long. In these cases, it is almost thought of as a serious and embarrassing mental disorder.


She went through alot of pain....her only daughter Quintana died two years later after a series of illnesses. Her knew book "Blue Nights" deals with her relationship with her daughter and her realizations of her own mortality.



To me this book was a refreshing change from my usual readings of Spiritual technologies and my usual face plant infront of my Tennis events on the tube or the computer.


What comes to mind immediately after losing my Grandmother last year....is that although you know that there is an expiry date on all of the loved ones that frequent our lives....you just don't really want to face it. It's honest, true, and depressing, and a little bit too much to deal with on a day to day basis. So better to bury the feelings.


What struck me as being fatally romantic were the moments that Didion described of not knowing what to do when she had some wonderful news to share with her husband, or just some interesting news. She was so used to bouncing her ideas of her best friend and confidant....she wasn't sure how to process the world alone, without the love of her life.


On the positive side, I don't want this writing to become completely morbid. Didion is an icon. She is a brave winner and a survivor that has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to take a more honest and real look at their feelings and their pain, without attatching guilt and shame to the process.


I have had a few near death experiences in my life...and I inevitably try to scramble for some sort of contribution that I have made in this world. Something that would make it a little more palatable and a little less terrifying to just pass on.


I would be very happy, to live out my remaining years with a wonderful partner, in a quiet neighbourhood somewhere, writing books from my heart (if I had the talent) that actually spoke volumes to people. Don't we all want to make some sort of impact in the end?


Its probably worthwhile to note that I am not sure what the criteria is for making a positive impact in this lifetime. It may be as simple as being a positive person and smiling to strangers, being a good friend.... or it may be as complex as your negative words and actions reverberating through paths of energies that are changed by our own judgements and the butterfly effect.


In the meantime, I feel healthy and happy, living here in 2012. Bring it on. Getting older is completely surreal, but it can be a tremendous experience. Or at least, that is something to shoot for.


Rick

How to get your girl spiritually

Coming soon...........My Book.............





'How to get your girl.........spiritually"

The code of approval

Two of the things that we are all addicted to are "recognition and approval". I find it completely counter intuitive and quite sickening, I speak about myself only.

Pity though, for as long as we are obsessed with recognition and approval..... I don't think that we will ever manifest our true potentials.




We may go out of our way to help out at the soup kitchen or we might send money to a great organization like water.org.....but in the end we are really just looking for some type of soothing validation for our actions. (I really am a philanthropist)



I know that there is this little persona that wants me to be looked upon as some sort of genius or unique entity. You sick fck.


Why? Because I am constantly observing and concerned about the human condition? (I am not sure that this even qualifies me for a night course)


I don't actually do too much to alter the human condition because with 7 billion people, it's so out of my control, it may just lead to a prescription of random anti-depressants. (I need to actually take action and do much much more)




What is this constant need for approval?



I think that it is a quality that comes very early in life....as an infant, you smile for the camera and everybody around you claps and coos.


If you are picked to be the lead in the school play, then your friends will tell you that you are probably the next Daniel Day Lewis, and you shouldn't give up that selfless action until it hurts.



Even when I give something to a nameless stranger, there is that nagging part of me that feels like....hmmmm.....you are truly... a very nice guy, you really are, you have always been.... Awful. Really awful.


I suppose there is something to be said about morals and ethics and the larger prevalent idea that states that if everyone was walking around not really caring if they were fitting into society, what would we have?



What do we have now? Except social domestication at an early age and anarchy and depression later on in life.



So what am I really touching on....Give like Ghandi and don't sleep with your friends wives...perhaps...Morals dictate that we try to fit in and not hurt other people and to some degree I certainly believe that this is important, however, should I really care if you think I am a wonderful giving human being or a selfish misanthropic prick?



If we take away the idea that our actions are being monitored, based on some random criteria created in a back room 100s of years ago.....what are we left with?



We are left with the human need to fit in with his fellow man. We are left with the need for companionship. Some times if your companions are falling short and are completely self involved and ego driven, it can be a lonely club room.



Heck, it's always seemed like a lonely club room for me. Would I really want to join any club that would have somebody like "me" for a member?



Around the holidays I notice this need to be validated poking its obtrusive head into many of my affairs. It's not really the need to give everyone a big love hug and a candy cane.



Solutions for you and me? I don't know....Give without expecting a result...In fact, don't do anything that requires somebody to praise you in any shape or form.



Humility among the 7 billion, (possibly) especially since 1 billion don't have safe drinking water and don't have the luxury to even ruminate over a question such as this.



Rick

Miss opportunities

It's been slightly tough recently...Let's keep it in context however, not west Africa tough.

Still haven't come to grips with a couple of elements. Trying though.


Right now, watching "the summer of 42" in mid day....Unusual and pretensious...however the scene i just witnessed was Stanley Kubrick's favourite... just destructed me to tears immediately..If you know the film, then it is no challenge to remember it.

We all want love to inspire and carry us away..I have been there before, but am no real lover, i love the dog that is sitting beside me as much as any human being i have ever met..Maybe.


We try to get it right in our art as much as we can't in our life....My favourite last line of any film is from "Dragon".


Bruce Lee is walking up the stairs to shoot his most infamous shot...He turns around to his wife and says...."i almost forgot something" she says "What"..."I forgot to tell you I love you"......"I dont think you ever said that to me me before" she replies.............."Yeah ....But I meant it every day".....He keeps on walking up the stairs and completes his final shot of the film...


It's tough to miss it....


Movies....They really aren't reality but they touch a universal chord when they are well written and the actors pull off the lines.


Rickx

CHOOSING TO BE CHEERFUL

There is a course run by a friend of mind called "The art of living cheerfully."
A catchy, happy little name that made me stop and think for about one second and then move on.



Now in retrospect, I think that the idea of having a course based on the idea of "choosing" to be happy is an emotional goldmine.



The Buddhists talk about life being full of "suffering" and pain. I wasn't sure if that meant that these smiley people with the shaved heads were actually Nihilists or just plain fun-suckers.



As I get older I definitely see all the real signs laid out in front of me that suggest that with life comes... the death of loved ones, the loss of loving relationships, the deterioration of the body and the mind, and the slow destruction of our planet. Seems slightly overwhelming sometimes, I concur.



So, those Buddhists seem to have a point. (Apparently they aspire to have a great sense of humour as well, although I have yet to witness this ironic miracle yet in the flesh)


OK, there is some definite suffering to deal with on many levels. (This is true for all people whether they believe in multiple dimensions of reality and the string theory, or whether they believe in The Holy Trinity)


The Buddhists believe that we must get rid of our attachments to material goods, status, and even loved ones. Why? Because everything is transient and will change, you cannot possess energy. If you try...more suffering will be yours for the taking. (Especially on the old death bed)


There is a real need to find a way to be CHEERFUL. There must be some workable philosophy that can put a smile on your faces even when we feel like crap and are totally beaten down. I think the hidden truth here is "you have to choose to be it" even if it not yours organically.


Now, to backtrack in my own timeline for a moment. When I was in my 20's, I didn't really care about being Cheerful. I thought I could just outrun it all. (I was too busy buying shooters and hailing taxi's) I used the gifts that I was lucky enough to have inherited, and I tried to selfishly... meander my way through the nebulous social GULAG that was thrown at me in the world of responsibility.


I knew that it was going to get tougher along some proverbial country rode somewhere in the future, but that was a long way away. Bad idea Rick. Put that energy out there and it will come back to you buddy. Welcome to 2012.


It's not a call for pity, it is more a call for myself to find a way to put a real smile on my face moment by moment, regardless of the atrocious or melodious reality that is coming my way.


When you feel yourself drifting into a zone of negativity and depression. Acknowledge it immediately in your mind. Step back from it. Now change it with a combination of deep breathing, closing your eyes and saying to yourself "cancel" (or something more inspiring)and shifting yourself into a proactive mode and moving beyond that place. It does work, but like anything new, it takes practice and often I fall back into the "wtf" mode of blaming or getting frustrated.



A few ideas that I will throw out there for obtaining CHEERFULNESS are:

Creativity...Take some photos or write in a journal...or simply try Living in the moment (Impossibly hard to master for most)... Meditation (Needs to be practiced every day for at least a half hour and is do able)... Gratitude Lists (We are living our lives of pure bliss compared to those people in west Africa, perhaps we should acknowledge it)... Give to others without ulterior motives attached and you will receive pure joy in return. (Make a plan to give)


Or....Integrate some of the above, live a life that inspires others, and once and a while decide that you do deserve to have that chocolate cake, that weekend at the spa, or that sexual experience you have been dreaming about.


I think that "being cheerful" is a choice. A beautiful choice (or an aggravating one, depending on your sour point of view ) It takes a certain amount of work to be Cheerful....Seems strange but from what I understand....it pays huge dividends for your life, your health and for all those that are fortunate enough to have some blissful contact with you. Or...



There is always the Robert De Niro point of view that says...."Life is short and tough.... learn to be happy, or deal with the consequences."



Rick