Meditations

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Dreams show the power of the human mind. In a dream your mind creates moment by moment a story  populated by actors who are perfect facsimiles of real people in your life. Your mind creates all of this and your disbelief is suspended until you wake.

You are right if you believe that skipping a single bout of work doesn't matter. But you'll only ever face a single bout of work. Therefore, you're right, too, if you believe that a single bout of work matters. You must choose in which way to be right. 

The fact that people seldom change in fundamental ways doesn't change the fact that people are capable of such change.

Consciousness is the greatest mystery. As much as we know of the materiality of our brains, of neurons and neurotransmitters, this knowledge will never explain the immateriality of consciousness.

The body is the most conspicuous example of how we may transform ourselves by discipline. We can gain muscle, flexibility, speed, endurance by our efforts. 

Just as we may build our body from a slack form to a muscular form, we may also build our minds. And just as with the body, our mind grows or decays by what we consume and how we exercise it.

Beware of gurus who teach us to always be present without regard for the future. While being present is important, so too are longterm planning and strategic thinking necessary for our wellbeing and our flourishing. 

Beware of gurus who teach us that the self is an illusion and is the cause of our suffering. While we must be wary of the pitfalls of our ego, we should regard our selves as our primary project. Our desires and dreams are to be embraced and pursued.

In quiet moments, I recall the memories of childhood when my mother and father were younger than I am now. Riding on my father's shoulders as he wended down a path through the deep cool forest and came out into the warm sunlight and the flat river and its riverbed of ochre stones. The memory makes me think of my father's innocence. 

Our galaxy may have up to 200 billion stars. This exceeds the total number of people who have ever lived, which is estimated to be about 108 to 117 billion. And we are one galaxy among an estimated two trillion galaxies in the observable universe. Dwell upon this vastness. 

What's the difference between justice and revenge? Our thirst for justice evolved for good reason. We would be stomped out of existence without it. Revenge is delicious. Yet revenge goes beyond justice when it is the only end, when all may be sacrificed to its consummation. Justice seeks redress. It calls for a new, better world once meted out.

Extinguish the words 'very' and 'really' from your vocabulary. They subtract rather than add to the weight of your words.

To be happy, we must compartmentalize the world. We do this to keep the tragedy of the world at bay. There is too much to mourn in the world. There is too much to mourn in our human history. 

Racism is lazy thinking.

Ours is the age of distraction. 

To be a good teacher, be a good storyteller.

As soon as we make an ethical decision, our rationalizations for that decision quickly follow.

Develop situational awareness. Use all the senses. Survey the terrain. Know where the exits are. A little paranoia is a good thing. It can save lives.

In the age of distraction, we miss the meditation on beauty. 

We harken back to our younger selves and think if only we had known then what we know now. Yet the greatest advantage of this retrospective is detachment. What if we brought this same detachment to our present selves?

Michelangelo sculpted the statue of David from a block of bianco ordinario marble. He believed that David already existed within the block of stone. He, the artist, would chisel layer by layer to reveal David. We may take this approach in our projects. All things exist in potential. Through our labours and vision, we bring them forth in reality. Think of beautiful David, of the subtle suggestion of bone beneath skin, of veins that branch on the inside of the forearms and trace the top of the hands, all expressed in marble. And think upon what we may bring into being.

Take time as you fall asleep to run through the scenes of your day. Engrave the moments with the people in your life in your mind. Treasure your memories, polish them, and in moments of tranquility recall them. In the end, they are all you have. 

Childhood is its own wondrous stage of life. As parents, we can get into a single-minded perspective of raising our children into adults. But let's also pause and observe our children when they are two or five or nine or twelve and understand that childhood is not just an on-ramp to adulthood. Childhood to adulthood is like the caterpillar to the butterfly — it is its own unique creature.