Good
day, and welcome to our latest issue! The
world is still turning as it has
for all of our lives so far, and we hope that you're keeping
well and healthy to
the
best of your abilities--and trying to keep others
well and healthy, also!
Modern capitalism needs people who co-operate smoothly, and in large numbers; who want to consume more and more; and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated.
It needs people who feel free and independent, not subject to any authority or principle or conscience—yet willing to be commanded, to do what is expected of them, to fit into the social machine without friction; who can be guided without force, led without leaders, prompted without aim—except the one to make good, to be on the move, to function, to go ahead.
What is the outcome?
Modern people are alienated from themselves, from their fellow
people, and from nature. We have been transformed into a commodity,
experience our life forces as an investment which must bring
us the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions.
Human relations are essentially those of alienated automatons, each basing
our security on staying close to the herd, and not being different in thought, feeling or action.
While everybody tries to be as close as possible to the rest, everybody remains utterly alone, pervaded by the deep sense of insecurity, anxiety and guilt which always results when human separateness cannot be overcome.
Our civilization offers many palliatives which help people to be consciously unaware of this aloneness:
first of all the strict routine of bureaucratized, mechanical work, which helps people to remain unaware of their most fundamental human desires, of the longing for transcendence and unity.
Inasmuch as the routine alone does not succeed in this,
people overcome their unconscious despair by the routine of amusement, the passive consumption of sounds and sights offered by the amusement industry; furthermore by the satisfaction of buying ever new things, and soon exchanging them for others.
Modern people are actually close to the picture Huxley describes in his
Brave New World: well fed, well clad, satisfied sexually, yet without self, without any except the most superficial contact with his fellow
people, guided by the slogans which Huxley formulated so succinctly, such as:
“When the individual feels, the community reels”; or “Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today,” or, as the crowning statement:
“Everybody is happy nowadays.”
People’s happiness today consists in “having fun.”
Having fun lies in the satisfaction of consuming and “taking in” commodities, sights, food, drinks, cigarettes, people, lectures, books, movies—all are consumed, swallowed.
The world is one great object for our appetite, a big apple, a big bottle, a big breast; we are the
sucklers, the eternally expectant ones, the hopeful ones—and the
eternally disappointed ones. Our character is geared to exchange and to receive, to barter and to consume; everything, spiritual as well as material objects, becomes an object of exchange and of consumption.
The situation as far as love is concerned corresponds, as it has to by necessity, to this social character of modern
people. Automatons cannot love; they can exchange their “personality packages” and hope for a fair bargain.
One of the most significant expressions of love, and especially of marriage with this alienated structure, is the idea of the “team.”
In any number of articles on happy marriage, the ideal described is that of the smoothly functioning team.
This description is not too different from the idea of a smoothly functioning employee; he should be “reasonably independent,” co-operative, tolerant, and at the same time ambitious and aggressive.
Thus, the marriage counselor tells us, the husband should “understand” his wife and be helpful.
He should comment favorably on her new dress, and on a tasty dish.
She, in turn, should understand when he comes home tired and disgruntled, she should listen attentively when he talks about his business troubles, should not be angry but understanding when he forgets her birthday.
All this kind of relationship amounts to is the well-oiled relationship between two persons who remain strangers all their lives, who never arrive at a “central relationship,” but who treat each other with courtesy and who attempt to make each other feel better.
In this concept of love and marriage the main emphasis is on finding a refuge from an otherwise unbearable sense of aloneness.
In “love” one has found, at last, a haven from aloneness.
One forms an alliance of two against the world, and this egoism à deux is mistaken for love and intimacy.
The emphasis on team spirit, mutual tolerance and so forth is a relatively recent development.
It was preceded, in the years after the First World War, by a concept of love in which mutual sexual satisfaction was supposed to be the basis for satisfactory love relations, and especially for a happy marriage.
. . .
Love is possible only if two persons communicate with each other from the center of their existence, hence if each one of them experiences
themselves from the center of their existence. Only in this “central experience” is human reality, only here is aliveness, only here is the basis for love.
Love, experienced thus, is a constant challenge; it is not a resting place, but a moving, growing, working together; even whether there is harmony or conflict, joy or sadness, is secondary to the fundamental fact that two people experience themselves from the essence of their existence, that they are one with each other by being one with themselves, rather than by fleeing from themselves.
There is only one proof for the presence of love: the depth of the relationship, and the aliveness and strength in each person concerned; this is the fruit by which love is recognized.
"Against the Grain"
performed by Garth Brooks
written by Bruce Bouton, Larry Cordle, Carl Jackson
Folks
call me a maverick, guess I ain't too diplomatic
I just never been the kind to go along
Just avoidin' confrontation for the sake of conformation
And I'll admit I tend to sing a different song
But sometimes you just can't be afraid
To wear a different hat
If Columbus had complied
This old world might still be flat
Nothin' ventured, nothin' gained
Sometimes you've got to go against the grain
Well, I have
been accused of makin' my own rules
There must be rebel blood
Just a-runnin' through my veins
But I ain't no hypocrite--what you see is what you get
And that's the only way I know to play the game
Old Noah took much ridicule
For building his great ark
But after forty days and forty nights
He
was lookin' pretty smart
Sometimes it's best to brave the wind and rain
By havin' strength to go against the grain
Well, there's
more folks than a few
Who share my point of view
But they're worried if they're gonna sink or swim
They'd like to buck the system
But the deck is stacked against 'em
And they're a little scared to go out on a limb
But if you're gonna make a difference
If you're gonna leave your mark
You can't follow like a bunch of sheep
You got to listen with your heart
Go bustin' in like old John Wayne
Sometimes you got to go against the grain
Nothin'
ventured, nothin' gained
Sometimes you've got to go against the grain
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James
Allen once said, “People are anxious to improve
their circumstances, but they’re unwilling to
improve themselves; therefore, they remain bound.”
Now, if we want to have different circumstances, if
we want to experience prosperity, loving
relationships, peace, and joy inside, we’ve got to
go inside and unbound ourselves and drop whatever is
blocking our personal power. What I am talking about
is the power of forgiveness.
It
isn’t always easy to forgive others because of
what they did. The ego makes a very strong
case against them. And it builds up all of the
reasons why they were so awful and why we’re going
to resent them forever. Did you know your ego
will ruin your life? And the world is filled
with people who would rather be right than happy.
Some will go to their grave clinging to the idea
that they would rather be right than happy, at least
in their own mind. Now is that what you want?
There’s
a beautiful old saying that the only wealth is life.
Sometimes it seems that only animals know we’re
actually here to be happy. So let’s please
think about releasing old baggage. Let’s let go of
the past. And I know that sometimes people do things
that seem terrible and totally unacceptable.
There are some incredible things that go on in our
society, cruelty and thoughtlessness, and I’m not
suggesting it’s easy. I’m saying it’s
necessary if we want to be happy and empowered
people. We clean up the past because an
unfinished past leads to an unfinished future. What
follows is a powerful story of just what I am saying
here, in action. It’s not an easy story to read by
any stretch of the imagination, but I pray it
inspires you.
Sunday
afternoons down in rural Kentucky, Tommy Pigage goes
to church with a couple who could almost be
considered step-parents, Frank and Elizabeth Morris.
He’s like an adopted son to them. And after
church they go out to eat. They go roller-skating on
Thursday, and on the weekends they bowl together.
Tommy’s around a lot, even though he doesn’t
live with them. And not too long ago they had
a beautiful luau for lots of friends at their
Kentucky home, and Tommy spent a lot of time helping
them prepare it.
They
have a very unusual relationship. He’s not
their real son; as I said, he’s kind of an adopted
son. Their real son, Ted Morris, two nights
before Christmas, 1982, was on his way home while
Tommy Pigage was at a party, drunk, making a fool of
himself. His drinking had gotten out of control.
He left the party stone-drunk and blacked out at the
wheel and hit 18-year-old Ted Morris head-on.
And he killed the only child of Frank and Elizabeth
Morris.
They
had never heard the name Tommy Pigage until a couple
of days later at the police station when they got
the report. And they dug out a yearbook; they
wanted to see what he looked like. They wanted
to see everything about him. Frank Morris
said, “I saw him. He had long hair and he looked
like a punk. I hated the sight of him.
Of course there was no way I was going to like
him.” He took away their only son. Ted
was the opposite of Tommy. Ted was a bright,
polite, clean-cut kid who was a scholarship student.
Tommy was a drifter and a drunk from a broken home.
Two
weeks after the accident at the court hearing,
Elizabeth saw him for the first time. Her legs
were trembling, and she felt rage when she saw the
boy who killed their only son. He got a
10-year sentence, which was suspended, and he was on
probation for two years. He had to attend
counseling, and he had to spend every other weekend
in jail. He also had to submit to an
alcoholism test, and if he was found to be drunk
again, he would go back to jail. And Elizabeth
admitted that she wanted to see him dead, in the
grave, just like her boy.
Several
months later Tommy Pigage was speaking at a MADD
meeting, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And
unbeknownst to Tommy, Elizabeth was in the back of
the room, and she was waiting to hear what his story
was going to be, still enraged, still hating him,
wanting to see him dead. And Tommy got up
there, and he admitted that he had killed Ted
Morris. He admitted that his alcoholism was
out of control. He said that he felt horrible
for the anguish that he had caused them. He
said he cried all the time, day and night. And
Elizabeth was not prepared for that at all. She
began to feel empathy for him. It was difficult.
When
the meeting was over, she walked up to him and she
reached out, and he thought she was going to slap
him. She put her hand on his arm and said,
“Tommy, I want to acknowledge that it took a lot
of courage to stand up here and say what you
said.” And as she left, he started to cry.
Days later, she couldn’t get him out of her mind.
She found out that he was from a broken home and he
had nobody to love him and he had no direction and
he had problems all of his life.
A
short time later he was drunk again, and so he went
to jail for three months. His most frequent
visitor in jail was Elizabeth. She started to
look upon him like a son. She started to feel
nurturing toward this boy because she realized he
was a human being who’d made a terrible mistake
and she wanted to be someone who would love him.
Her husband Frank would not hear of it. Her
husband Frank thought she was crazy because he hated
that boy and he wanted that boy to get his due and
he wanted that boy dead. And I think any of us
could understand that.
Well,
over a period of time she developed a bond with
Tommy. And then she brought Frank in.
And little by little they started to connect.
Tommy started to read the Bible. He wanted to
change his life. And one day he said, “I
would like to be baptized.” And Frank said,
“All right, we’ll go with you.” And they
were there when he was baptized. After the
ceremony, Tommy, with tears in his eyes, looked at
Frank and said, “Do you forgive me?” What
seemed like an eternity passed. And Frank said,
“Yes. I forgive you, Tommy.” And
after that, they kind of adopted him. He calls
them every day between four and five.
Elizabeth said she would miss it if Tommy didn’t
call. He’s become like step-son.
Now,
he doesn’t replace their son Ted, their only child
who died. His bedroom remains exactly the way
it was the night that he died. He blew up a
beach ball that night, and the beach ball 11 years
later still sits on the bed. Elizabeth won’t
let anybody touch the room. So he’s not a
replacement for her son, and nothing would ever
bring her son back, but they’ve developed a loving
bond. The story was so powerful there was a
book written about it, and they were on many talk
shows because it was one of the greatest acts of
forgiveness that anyone had ever heard.
Now
I know it isn’t always easy to let go of the
grudge, of the resentment, of the anger for what
somebody did. But you might want to think
about the payoff. When Elizabeth was
interviewed, incredibly, she said, “The hatred was
eating at me like a cancer. Now I can be happy and I
can really live.” And that’s what made
such an impact on me. It’s not a right or
wrong issue; it’s the law of cause and effect.
When I talk about being a happy, empowered person,
many times forgiveness is the bottom line. It
may be the single most challenging thing to do, but
it’s the most necessary, and it just opens up your
world.
Many
people have been through the long dark night of the
soul. Have you known some dark moments?
There’s a beautiful Chinese proverb that says,
“Don’t curse the darkness. Light a
candle.” Why don’t you be big enough to
stand up and reach out to that other person?
Why don’t you be big enough to stand up and
forgive? It takes a lot of courage to do it.
It’s an incredible gift we give to ourselves
because it releases our personal power and it
literally sets us free.
Dale
Carnegie once said, “If half a century of living
has taught me anything at all, it’s taught me that
nothing can bring you peace but yourself.”
There’s no peace in the world. There’s no
peace that just “fixes” people. It’s
tough to change. It’s especially tough to change
dramatically. People are creatures of habit at
a very deep level. Peace is inside of us, and
as we create peace inside of us in a very beautiful
way, our life becomes peaceful and love and support
comes back to us. I can not explain how it
happens but I’ve experienced it, and I’ve seen
it lives of other people. We release all that
beautiful, powerful living when we forgive.
Charles
Dickens once said, “We forge the chains we wear in
life.” And if you want to let go of your
chains, then you want to let go of your judgments
and your anger and your resentments.
Regardless of what others did, it’s too expensive
to you.
Forgiveness
isn’t always easy, but it is essential. It
sets us free; it opens up whole new
possibilities. Extraordinary and wonderful
things can happen when we forgive and make peace
with our past. I’d like to give you some
action steps that you can use if you feel as if you
need to forgive, if this has touched you in a way
that you know something like this needs to be done
to release your own personal power.
Number
one, make a forgiveness list of all the people
who’ve harmed you, and write down the specific
thing the person did. I forgive my mother for
being critical. I forgive the coach or the
teacher at school, and tell what that person did.
And keep writing them and writing them until you
feel the peace. It might be a couple of days,
a couple of weeks, even a couple of months.
It’s essential, however long it might take.
Number
two, write a letter to them and get all of your
feelings out. Write a letter to your mom or your
dad, your former spouse, your former spouse’s
attorney. And write down your anger and resentment
and what hurt you and what was awful and swear and
rant and rave and do everything you need and then,
most importantly, don’t mail the letter! You
read correctly; don’t mail the letter! This
isn’t about getting back at them; it’s for you.
Forgiveness is not for them; it’s getting the
baggage out of your life.
And
then number three, totally forgive yourself for
anything you ever did or neglected to do.
Start writing forgiveness statements for yourself
and let yourself off the hook. Like everybody
else, we did the best we could with the awareness
and the self-esteem we had. It’s time to
take ourselves off the hook. That’s every
bit as much as hating somebody else or resenting
somebody else. So, please forgive yourself.
And
then if there’s anybody that you have a hard time
forgiving, send a blessing of love to them.
Say out loud, “I send a blessing of love to
you.” And the payoff is freedom.
The payoff is real personal power. The payoff
is a wonderful life.
There
are no solutions in the outer world, only inside of
us. I have found that acts of forgiveness and
the act of dropping the judgments and the blames and
the anger is simply life-changing. And I do it
along the way whenever it becomes necessary.
A.J.
Muste once said, “There is no way to peace.
Peace is the way.” Let’s go out there and
let’s do whatever it takes to be at peace so that
we can release our personal power and have the
wonderful and glorious lives we so richly deserve.
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.
The poor Mullah Nasreddin was reduced to living on a
diet
of chickpeas
and bread, while his neighbor dined on
fancy
delicacies provided
by the King himself.
One day his neighbor said to Nasreddin: "If
you were truly wise
you
would learn to flatter the King and obey his every whim
like I do.
Then you would not have to live on chickpeas
and bread." Nasreddin
answered, "And if you would learn
to live on chickpeas and bread like
I do, then you would
not have to flatter the King and obey his every whim."
Traditional Sufi Story
Focusing on What
Matters
My wife and I were in a fast-food restaurant yesterday, the type
of place where we go only every so often, when we need inexpensive
food and we don't have the time or perhaps even the money to sit
down in a restaurant. While we were there, I saw something
that I've seen before, many times, but that disturbs me just as
much each time that I witness it: parents who have brought
their kids to the place, but who are so focused on the television
on the wall that they pay no attention at all to their children.
In this case, what struck me most was the fact that the father was
holding a bottle in his infant's mouth, but he wasn't looking at
the baby at all--he was watching TV. His two other children
seemed to be looking all over the place for something to do, for
someone to talk to, because no one was paying any attention to
them at all. It was a sad scene--a family sitting around a
table with the opportunity to spend time talking and enjoying each
other's company, which instead was spending time wondering what to
do because of the complete lack of attention.
But isn't this typical of many people in our society today?
Aren't there many people who are so used to being entertained that
they really don't know how to interact with others? It's a
fact that scares me, though, especially when I see so many parents
who are constantly modeling behavior to their children that shows
their kids that they're less important than what's on a
screen. One of the things that I truly like about going out
to eat with others is that it gives us a chance to sit down and
talk while we eat, but now that there are television sets almost
everywhere, that dynamic is becoming less and less a
reality. If my eyes are glued to a screen and my mind is on
what I'm watching, then there isn't much attention left to be paid
to the people I'm with.
Television
has proved that people will
look at anything rather than each other.
Ann Landers
We are
constantly facing the ability and the temptation to
be "connected" to others somehow through
our technology, but in pursuing this type of
connection, we are losing the ability to connect to
others personally. Our children are learning
from us that it's more important to be watching
online videos or texting others who aren't with them
than it is to be present in the moment with people
whose company we actually share. When I walk
down the hallway of our high school before classes
start each day, it still amazes me to see that most
of the young people there are paying full attention
to their devices, and no attention at all to the
friends who are sitting right next to them on the
floor.
And this isn't just limited to technological
devices. I knew a man once who knew more about
his favorite baseball team's statistics for the last
twenty years than he knew about his own
children. He could rattle off numbers that
represented batting averages, earned run averages,
stolen bases and home runs, but he really didn't
know his son's favorite color or his daughter's
thoughts about what she wanted to be when she grew
up. He would dismiss questions about such
things by saying he was too busy, but I had to
wonder what the situation would be like if he were
to spend the time he spent on studying his team's
statistics on spending quality time in discussions
with his own offspring.
Skype
is an almost real-time video link. Ellen could now
call more frequently: “Twice a week and I stay on the call
for an hour,” she told me. It should have been rewarding;
instead, when I met her, Ellen was unhappy. She knew that
her grandmother was unaware that Skype allows surreptitious
multitasking. Her grandmother could see Ellen’s face on
the
screen but not her hands. Ellen admitted to me, “I do my
email during the calls. I’m not really paying attention
to our conversation.”
Sherry Turkle Alone Together
For the most
part, we like fooling ourselves. We like
thinking that we're being considerate when we're
really serving ourselves and our own
"needs." We like to believe that our
web surfing and Instagram and Facebook posts are
important to us and our lives, while the truly
important people really are in the same rooms with
us right here, right now.
But what can we do about this? Do we continue
to follow the patterns that we've adopted? The
bottom line is simple: if we want to improve
our lives by improving our communications with loved
ones, it's going to take a conscious decision to do
so. It will be important for us to make the
decision that we're going to leave our cell phones
at home--I do it all the time, and I love doing
so. After all, I went most of my life not
being able to carry my phone with me, so what's the
big deal about not taking it now? People leave
messages and I call them back--it's no big deal at
all.
We also need to decide that when we're with people,
we won't pull out our laptops or tablets and start
to check our online accounts, even if we believe
that we're still paying attention to the people with
us. The fact is that we aren't--we're just
lying to ourselves by telling ourselves that we
are. In my life I've lied to myself far too
often about far too many things, and I've learned
that it's a pretty destructive tendency to
have. Therefore, when I find myself lying to
myself about something, I force myself to make the
most human decision.
I'm constantly amazed at the number of people who
are at a conference or in a class who think it's
okay to jump on their computers and write emails or
check Facebook posts while someone is speaking to
them in the room. When I find myself in this
situation, it's very tempting to do the same
thing--but then I remember that my primary purpose
for being there is to listen to the speaker or
teacher, and as soon as I start something else, I'm
sabotaging my opportunity to get the most that I can
out of the situation at hand by focusing on
situations that easily could wait for my attention.
We
expect more from technology and less from one
another and seem increasingly drawn to technologies
that provide the illusion of companionship
without the demands of relationship.
Sherry Turkle Alone Together
If we want to
live our lives fully, it's important that we make
decisions that contribute to our well-being and that
don't keep us from connecting to others.
Throughout the years, thinkers and philosophers have
been telling us that the most important thing that
we can do for ourselves is to foster connections
between ourselves and others. If we decide to
pay more attention to electronic devices and
televisions, we can almost guarantee ourselves a
painful feeling of isolation--and then we'll turn to
the substitutes even more as we fight to deal with
that isolation. It's a vicious circle that we
can avoid if we're careful, but we have to be
completely aware of it if we're not to fall into
that trap.
There are many positives about things like
television and electronic devices, but there are
also many potential negatives. And no
electronic device can listen to us when we need to
talk--but we may find that there are no people
around to listen, either, if we've been neglecting
them in our lives. On the day that I day, I'm
pretty sure that I'll want to say that I did my
share of neglecting my electronics, but that I did
my best not to neglect the people in my life at all.
Our
fear is even stronger when we
think we
are responsible for others--
our children,
for example. We want
to
spare them
pain, and
so we forget
to listen to
the Sound of Creation. No one learns
from
someone else's
mistake. If we respect
others, we
must recognize that they
have a
right to their own
dance. Their
own spirits
will guide them.
unattributed
Listening
When I ask you to listen to me and you start giving me advice,
you have not done what I asked.
When I ask you to listen to me and you begin to tell me why I
shouldn't feel that way, you are trampling on my feelings.
When I ask you to listen to me and you feel you have to do
something to solve my problems, you have failed me, strange as
that may seem.
Listen! All I asked was that you listen, not talk or do. .
. just hear me.
And I can do for myself. I'm not helpless. Maybe
discouraged and faltering, but not helpless.
When you do something for me that I can and need to do for
myself, you contribute to my fear and inadequacy.
But when you accept as a simple fact that I do feel what I feel,
no matter how irrational, then I can quit trying to convince you
and can get about this business of understanding what's behind
this irrational feeling.
And when that's clear, the answers are obvious and I don't need
advice. Irrational feelings make sense when we understand
what's behind them.
Perhaps that's why prayer works, sometimes, for some people. . .
because God is mute and doesn't give advice or try to fix
things.
God just listens and lets you work it out for yourself.
So please listen and just hear me.
And if you want to talk, wait a minute for your turn. . . and
I'll listen to you.
unattributed
Whatever
we are waiting for--peace of mind, contentment, grace,
the inner awareness of simple abundance--it will surely
come to us,
but only when we are ready to receive
it with
an open and grateful heart.
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).
™
