True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Archive for the ‘Truth’ Category
Insight breeds Service
Monday, January 16th, 2012
It bears repeating
Friday, January 13th, 2012
Maya Angelou, at a book signing, circa 2008
Being strong and authentic and confident. Now, that’s beautiful.
Manual for being my friend
Friday, January 13th, 2012
Do you miss me? …… Call me
Want to meet up? …… Invite me places
Want me to understand you? …… Open your heart to me
Want to know something about me? …… Ask me
Don’t like something? …… Please tell me
Have some advice for me? …… I want it
(I need all the help that I can get)
Have nice thoughts about me? …… Share them with me, in exquisite detail
Want/need something from me? ……. Ask for it
Love me? …… Let me know
(Don’t let anything or anyone stop you)
Thank you.
Any thought, that is
Thursday, January 12th, 2012
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
-Aristotle
It amazes me that we all still expect for it to be something we’ve never heard before
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011
There’s actually surprisingly very little secret to success: just put in the work.
-Junyong Pak, male winner of World’s Toughest Mudder 2011
Guards Down
Wednesday, December 21st, 2011The frontier of vulnerability
is immediate
I wrote this down after listening to David Whyte’s Midlife and the Great Unknown.
Usually I write little things like that and the blog post ends, but I think that this one needs clarification.
So, what is this post about? It’s about the fact that I used to think that to become a fully open and vulnerable person one had to take a tremendous leap from where one stood.
But this is not correct.
All it takes is a very small step: the step of lowering one’s guards. And this will appear to be difficult, but there is always a gentle way to take this step. For example, if I resist making myself vulnerable in front of my Dad, if it feels too steep, I can say to him: I sometimes think about opening up to you and I don’t because I fear you will not know what to do with it, I fear I will put myself out there and not be understood, and that scares me.
See what I mean? The first step feels too steep, I acknowledge this, and this acknowledgement becomes the step I take. Still too steep? Say: Sometimes I want to tell you how I really feel and I notice I stop myself. Too steep, still? Say: I want to get closer to you, but I don’t know how. Do you have any suggestions? Too steep, still? Sit next to him, in silence, even if only for a few moments, and appreciate his company, the sweetness of his presence, just that moment. Still too steep? Do this, from the distance, for a briefer moment still. We all start somewhere.
Most importantly, this is not a consolation prize to true intimacy. This is true intimacy, because it is growing out of the moment where I’m at, rather than from some mental/emotional state I think I’m supposed to be in for such intimacy to take place.
What I’m trying to say is that the edge of where I have to be to grow in love is not somewhere out-there where I take visibly heroic actions but rather somewhere in-here, nearer than near, where I show something authentic about myself to the person in front of me, and to myself.
All other frontiers of vulnerability are imagined
And writing this makes me very emotional because, well, this is not theoretical. I fear telling my Dad how I feel almost all the time, and I haven’t told him this yet. It feels too steep. So I’m telling you instead. That’s the step I could take today. And it is bringing me to tears.
We all start somewhere.
Paradoxical, yet one hundred percent true
Tuesday, October 18th, 2011
It is extremely helpful to try to see things from the point of view of others
Even though this is absolutely impossible to do.
Guerrera que descansa en su propia desnudez
Sunday, October 16th, 2011Every warrior of the light has been afraid to enter a combat.
Every warrior of the light has betrayed and lied in the past.
Every warrior of the light has lost faith in the future.
Every warrior of the light has trodden a path which was not his own.
Every warrior of the light has suffered because of unimportant things.
Every warrior of the light has doubted that he is a warrior of the light.
Every warrior of the light has failed in his spiritual obligations.
Every warrior of the light has said yes when he meant no.
Every warrior of the light has hurt someone he loved.
That is why he and she are warriors of the light:
They had endured all this without losing the hope to improve.
-Paulo Coelho, in Warrior of the Light: A Manual
Dukkha
Saturday, October 15th, 2011
Frank Langella on Acting (III)
Tuesday, October 11th, 2011
The cathartic possibility of the theater needs nothing more than the actor and the stage.
“You can have theater with [the smoke, bells and whistles of modern theatrical productions], but you can’t have the cathartic possibility of theater — that thing that lifts you beyond yourself as an audience member. You really just need the platform and the actor, another piece of humanity, sharing his humanity with the audience.” (From Weekend Edition Saturday, October 8, 2011).
