PREPARING FOR TRIP: THE PHILOSOPHICAL STAGE
The smoke clears and we find our hero destined for Jinzhou, China. I am going to use this Blog to leave a little paper trail for myself.
Aging is change. It changes your brain. This change, some argue, make it absolutely impossible for an individual to have a flawless memory. When you change your brain, you change the way you perceive the world and more importantly, yourself.
After I have been in China for some time I probably will find it difficult, if not impossible, to gauge how the move has changed me. All thoughts of the past will be tainted with new memories. All dreams of the future will be tainted with new aspirations and failures. Consequently, we are close to truth only when we are experiencing. The moment the NOW is the only moment where any of us can conceivably express our free will.*
The sad news is that the past is truly dead. Your memories of the "good old days" have their luster only because they have been polished in the tremble of time. Your dreams cannot come true. Life is like throwing darts from a moving car. Even if you are lucky enough to hit the bull’s-eye, your perspective on that bull’s-eye changed before your dart even hit.
The good news is that we have sanctuary. We have the infinite potential of experience in front of us each and every moment that our hearts beat. This is where I want to live.
TREE-HOUSES:
It seems that many of us go through life asleep. So many people shop through life fixated on past experiences or moments. Entire lives are spent attempting to build a tree house in a growing tree. The reality of a simple childhood hideout gets stretched beyond its limits. New boards and new nails are constantly needed to fill in gaps as the growing tree spreads the walls and floors. The amount of space we labor over increasingly grows. We find ourselves scrambling to seal leaks in the roof over a part of the house we no longer need or use. For some, maintaining and protecting the sanctity of the fort becomes more important than the fort itself. For many, the demands simply exceed their capacity and they fail to function in a meaningful way at all.
The futility of this effort seems so obvious when you think of one simple fact: We do not have to add boards when change threatens the safety of our shelter. Instead of getting more boards, simply pull out the displaced boards and pull them back in close to you.
The lesson: As we grow through time, our understanding of what we consider necessary and safe changes. The way we humans experience of life, especially those of the Western tradition, leads us to think that we must add more to maintain the safety of the "treehouse" of truth and safety."
If you are challenged by changes in time, think first whether you need MORE to meet your essential needs. Consider the option of bringing your foundations back to you.
GARDENS:
Avoid the temptation of maintaining shelter for gardens that have long since given up their yield. At the end of summer a farmer does not add acreage to the farm. Instead, the field is tilled. It is given nutrients in preparation for the next harvest. If, with time, the field will no longer produce yield, the crop is rotated. You do not have to change the field to plant another harvest. You do not have to change the field to plant another crop. All you can do is make sure that the field you have is healthy and cared for. Life, like a seed, has a way of finding the sun and producing a yield. You can't change growth and you can't change changing. But, you can make sure that you do not have a field of weeds or a field stripped of its topsoil by over tilling.
Plant your garden, let it grow, harvest your yield and always remember that there will be another spring.
Peace out. Kelly Frazier
Aging is change. It changes your brain. This change, some argue, make it absolutely impossible for an individual to have a flawless memory. When you change your brain, you change the way you perceive the world and more importantly, yourself.
After I have been in China for some time I probably will find it difficult, if not impossible, to gauge how the move has changed me. All thoughts of the past will be tainted with new memories. All dreams of the future will be tainted with new aspirations and failures. Consequently, we are close to truth only when we are experiencing. The moment the NOW is the only moment where any of us can conceivably express our free will.*
The sad news is that the past is truly dead. Your memories of the "good old days" have their luster only because they have been polished in the tremble of time. Your dreams cannot come true. Life is like throwing darts from a moving car. Even if you are lucky enough to hit the bull’s-eye, your perspective on that bull’s-eye changed before your dart even hit.
The good news is that we have sanctuary. We have the infinite potential of experience in front of us each and every moment that our hearts beat. This is where I want to live.
TREE-HOUSES:
It seems that many of us go through life asleep. So many people shop through life fixated on past experiences or moments. Entire lives are spent attempting to build a tree house in a growing tree. The reality of a simple childhood hideout gets stretched beyond its limits. New boards and new nails are constantly needed to fill in gaps as the growing tree spreads the walls and floors. The amount of space we labor over increasingly grows. We find ourselves scrambling to seal leaks in the roof over a part of the house we no longer need or use. For some, maintaining and protecting the sanctity of the fort becomes more important than the fort itself. For many, the demands simply exceed their capacity and they fail to function in a meaningful way at all.
The futility of this effort seems so obvious when you think of one simple fact: We do not have to add boards when change threatens the safety of our shelter. Instead of getting more boards, simply pull out the displaced boards and pull them back in close to you.
The lesson: As we grow through time, our understanding of what we consider necessary and safe changes. The way we humans experience of life, especially those of the Western tradition, leads us to think that we must add more to maintain the safety of the "treehouse" of truth and safety."
If you are challenged by changes in time, think first whether you need MORE to meet your essential needs. Consider the option of bringing your foundations back to you.
GARDENS:
Avoid the temptation of maintaining shelter for gardens that have long since given up their yield. At the end of summer a farmer does not add acreage to the farm. Instead, the field is tilled. It is given nutrients in preparation for the next harvest. If, with time, the field will no longer produce yield, the crop is rotated. You do not have to change the field to plant another harvest. You do not have to change the field to plant another crop. All you can do is make sure that the field you have is healthy and cared for. Life, like a seed, has a way of finding the sun and producing a yield. You can't change growth and you can't change changing. But, you can make sure that you do not have a field of weeds or a field stripped of its topsoil by over tilling.
Plant your garden, let it grow, harvest your yield and always remember that there will be another spring.
Peace out. Kelly Frazier
posted by KELLY FRAZIER at 3:22 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home