Hello,
and welcome to a new week in our lives, a week in
which we don't
have to face the limitations that we were forced to
deal with five years
ago as Covid-19 kept us indoors and isolated and
very often very worried.
Remembering the trials of the past can very often
help us to
appreciate the blessings of the present.
I’m sorry,
but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my
business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I
should like to help everyone, if possible--Jew, Gentile, black man,
white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that.
We want to live by each
other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We
don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this
world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is
rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be
free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world
with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed.
We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in.
Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our
knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and
unkind. We think too much and feel too little.
More than
machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need
kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life
will be violent and all will be lost.
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer
together. The very nature of these inventions cries out
for the goodness in men, cries out for universal
brotherhood, for the unity of us all.
Even now my voice
is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of
despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a
system that makes men torture and imprison innocent
people.
To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The
misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed--the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.
The hate of
men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took
from the people will return to the people. And so
long as men die, liberty will never perish.
Soldiers!
Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you,
who regiment your lives, tell you what to
do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet
you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder.
Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men--machine
men with machine minds and machine hearts. You are not
machines. You are not cattle. You are people.
You have the
love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate!
Only
the unloved hate--the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers!
Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
In
the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom
of God is within man”--not one man nor a group of men,
but in all people. In you! You, the people have the power--the power to create machines.
The power to create
happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this
life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful
adventure.
Then,
in the name of democracy, let us use that power, let
us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent
world that will give people a chance to work, that will give
youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of
these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie!
They do not fulfill that promise. They never will!
Dictators
free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us
fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the
world--to do away with national barriers, to do away
with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a
world of reason, a world where science and progress will
lead to all people’s happiness. Soldiers! In the name of
democracy, let us all unite!
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We
have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider
freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but
have less; we buy more but enjoy it less; we have
bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences,
yet less time; we have more degrees but less sense;
more knowledge but less judgement; more experts, yet
more problems; we have more gadgets but less
satisfaction; more medicine, yet less wellness; we
take more vitamins but see fewer results.
We drink too
much; smoke too much; spend too recklessly; laugh too
little; drive too fast; get too angry quickly; stay up
too late; get up too tired; read too seldom; watch TV
too much and pray too seldom. We
have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our
values; we fly in faster planes to arrive there
quicker, to do less and return sooner; we sign more
contracts only to realize fewer profits; we talk too
much; love too seldom and lie too often. We've learned
how to make a living, but not a life; we've added
years to life, not life to years.
We've been all the
way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing
the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered
outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger
things, but not better things; we've cleaned up the
air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but
not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan
more, but accomplish less; we make faster planes, but
longer lines; we learned to rush, but not to wait; we
have more weapons, but less peace; higher incomes, but
lower morals; more parties, but less fun; more food,
but less appeasement; more acquaintances, but fewer
friends; more effort, but less success.
We build more
computers to hold more information, to produce more
copies than ever, but have less communication; drive
smaller cars that have bigger problems; build larger
factories that produce less. We've become long on
quantity, but short on quality. These
are the times of fast foods and slow digestion; tall
men, but short character; steep in profits, but
shallow relationships.
These are times of world peace,
but domestic warfare; more leisure and less fun;
higher postage, but slower mail; more kinds of food,
but less nutrition.
These are days of two incomes, but
more divorces; these are times of fancier houses, but
broken homes.
These are days of quick trips,
disposable diapers, cartridge living, thow-away
morality, one-night stands, overweight bodies and
pills that do everything from cheer, to prevent, quiet
or kill. It is a time when there is much in the show
window and nothing in the stock room. Indeed, these
are the times!
Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week.
You
were trying to be simple for the sake of being simple.I wonder if
true simplicity is ever anything but a by-product.If we aim directly for it,
it eludes us; but if we are on fire with some great interest that absorbs
our lives to the uttermost, we forget ourselves into simplicity.
Everything falls into simple lines around us, like a worn garment.
David Grayson
a
reprint from five years ago:
Becoming a Gifted
Observer
Being Aware
of Our Filters
As
I write these words, we're going through the COVID-19 crisis all
through the world, and we're still in what they say are the early
stages of it. Many, many more people are going to get sick,
and many more are going to die before this is all over. And
depending upon whom you listen to, this may be all over in a
couple of months, or it may last for another year and a half or
so.
What I notice more than anything else,
though, is that people are seeing this entire crisis through the
filters that they've built up themselves over the years.
This is particularly disturbing when their perspectives--the way
they observe the world--causes them to put other people's lives in
danger. This happens when they don't practice social
distancing, when they don't stay at home, when they engage in
risky behaviors.
I just read an article by someone who is
calling the entire concept of "flattening the curve"
ridiculous. In his article, he says that the press and
doctors are trying to get us afraid of a disease that may kill 30
or 40 people a day. But when you realize that more than
3,000 people worldwide died yesterday alone, you start to see that
this writer was looking at this situation how he wanted to see it,
and not how it actually is. And he was willing to
misrepresent information in order to get people to agree with him
or to sympathize with his position.
As gifted observers, though, it shouldn't
matter to us whether or not anyone agrees with us or
sympathizes with our position on a certain issue--if we even have
a position. Rather, it's important to us that we see what's
true, and if we have difficulties with that, that we keep looking
until we do have a much better idea of what's before us. I'm
reading a lot of material about the current pandemic, and in much
of what I read, I see supposed facts that seem to have been spun
in order to support the writer's beliefs about a situation rather
than to present an accurate picture of the current situation.
Pay
attention. It's all about paying attention.
Attention is vitality.
It connects you with others.
It makes you eager. Stay eager.
Susan Sontag
How
do our beliefs become filters? It seems to be a pretty quick
and easy process, for once we develop beliefs, we do all that we
can to defend them rather than trying to find out whether those
beliefs are justified or not. We look to see things not as
they are, but as they fit into our belief systems.
John Steinbeck wrote about Adam's view of
the woman he marries in East of Eden. His wife is
basically an evil woman, but he can see no wrong in her at
all. We could say that he's blinded by love, but the truth
is that he sees over and over again that the admiration for his
wife is not justified, but does not accept what his observations
tell him. His desire for her to be perfect just as she is,
his insistence on seeing her the way he wants to see her rather
than accepting the evidence that is all about him, make him
blind. He's seeing her through the filters of his beliefs
and desires, and therefore his observations are useless because he
learns nothing from them.
In these days of COVID-19 and isolation
and quarantines and social distancing, we see plenty of people who
are so attached to their own ways of seeing the world that they
refuse to let anything that they see change the ways they do
things. They see the world not as it is, but as they wish it
to be. "I don't need to social distance because I'm not
sick." "I'm not going to stay at home because I
have the right to go out when I want to." A gifted
observer, though, notices that there's a problem in the
world--many people are dying during this pandemic--and sees that
there are ways to mitigate the major problems caused by the virus,
even if what they see doesn't correspond to anything they've ever
seen before.
The gifted observer isn't going to
compare this pandemic to last year's flu season simply because
it's not last year's flu season. Even if the were
similarities, the gifted observer recognizes that each thing that
we see is unique, and we need to see it as something unique if
we're going to learn from it. If we see this pandemic as
similar to last year's flu, then we're going to apply last year's
lessons to this year's pandemic, and that simply doesn't work.
Mindfulness
means
paying attention
in a particular way;
on purpose,
in the present moment,
and nonjudgmentally.
Jon
Kabat-Zinn
Likewise,
the filters of yesterday may not work today. That person who
was just rude to you isn't necessarily a jerk, as you might have
thought three months ago. In our current situation, that
person may have a spouse or a sibling or a parent working in a
hospital, and he or she may be going through a tremendous amount
of stress because they're worrying about that loved one.
Does that excuse rudeness or meanness? Of course not.
But the gifted observer is simply going to observe the behavior
and recognize it for what it is--and doing that leaves doors and
windows open for reconciliation. They called you a
name? Okay, that's true, but that fact doesn't necessarily
define that person.
I have no idea how many people in my life
that I've rejected because they did or said something that
immediately reminded me of a person who had been very negative to
me in the past--and I've immediately rejected them because that
filter was firmly in place, and I paid more attention to the
filter than I did to the person. Likewise, I don't know how
many people I've tried to make a part of my life simply because
they've reminded me of something positive from my past, and
they've ended up being very negative influences in my life (though
I'm fortunate to learn just as much--if not more--from negative
experiences as from positive).
Mindfulness
can be summed up in two words:
pay attention. Once you notice what you’re
doing, you have the power to
change it.
Michelle
Burford
If
I want to become a really, really good observer, I'm going
to try to leave behind the filters that I've been developing over
the years. I'm going to look at what a politician actually
does before I vote for him or her, not what party they're
in. I'm going to react to my students based on who they are
and what they've done or said, not based on whether or not they're
fulfilling certain beliefs on what I think students should
be. I'm not going to look at a tree and say, "It's just
a tree." I'm going to look at it and try to see its
unique attributes and its current state.
If I'm eating a certain food, I'm going
to either like it or dislike it based on what I'm tasting right
now. Someone may give me a plate full of something that
doesn't taste at all like my mother's plate full of something, and
that's okay. It either tastes good to me or it doesn't--I'm
not going to reject it simply because it doesn't taste like my
mother's cooking. It has its own flavors and textures and
smells, and all these things together can bring me a new sense of
joy as I learn to like something new and different in my life.
We see life through filters--that is, as
long as we don't recognize this fact and we aren't aware of those
filters. We start to build them up when we're very young,
and if we don't pay attention to them they control the ways we see
life by the time we grow up. One of the most important
things that we can do for ourselves is to recognize these filters
for what they are and then become fully aware of how they warp our
view of the world around us.
Our goal should simply be to see the
world around us for what it is, not for what we see it as being
based on the filters we're looking through. Only when we're
able to do this will we also become aware of the many illusions in
the world that we've convinced ourselves are truths--and that's
something to consider on another day.
In
a noisy world, seek the silence in your heart. And through
the power
of silence, the energies of chaos will be brought
back to
harmony--not
by you, but through you, as all miracles
are. When we visit
this silence
regularly, particularly in the morning,
then the days of our lives
become
lit from above. Darkness and fear
are cast from our midst,
slowly at first,
one moment at a time.
Ultimately, all darkness will be gone
from every heart.
There
were many times in my life, until I was left alone,
that I wished for solitude. I now find that I
love solitude. I never had the blessed gift of
being alone until the last of my loved ones was
wrested from me. Now I can go sometimes for
days and days without seeing anyone. I'm not
entirely alone, because I listen to the radio and
read the newspapers. I love to read.
That is my greatest new luxury, having the time to
read. And oh, the little things I find to do
to make the days, as I say, much too short.
Solitude--walking
alone, doing things alone--is the most blessed thing
in the world. The mind relaxes and thoughts
begin to flow and I think I am beginning to find
myself a little bit.
Helen
Hayes
Being
solitary is being alone well; being alone luxuriously
immersed
in doings of your own choice, aware of the fullness of your
own presence rather than the absence of others.
Alice
Koller
Yes, life
can be mysterious and confusing--but there's much of life that's
actually rather dependable and reliable. Some principles apply
to life in so many different contexts that they can truly be called
universal--and learning what they are and how to approach them and use
them can teach us some of the most important lessons that we've ever
learned.
My doctorate is in Teaching and Learning. I use it a lot when I
teach at school, but I also do my best to apply what I've learned to
the life I'm living, and to observe how others live their lives.
What makes them happy or unhappy, stressed or peaceful, selfish or
generous, compassionate or arrogant? In this book, I've done my
best to pass on to you what I've learned from people in my life,
writers whose works I've read, and stories that I've heard.
Perhaps these principles can be a positive part of your life, too! Universal Principles of Living Life Fully. Awareness of
these principles can explain a lot and take much of the frustration
out of the lives we lead.
Explore all of our
quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each
topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on
the same topic (there are five pages on adversity, for example).
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