Someone cut me off on the freeway, and instead of getting mad, I decided to pull up beside him and see what was going on in that car, and it was a little old man singing theatrically and I just started laughing. Excellent. Those choices are always there. People miss a lot of good stuff in life because they miss that simple realization. You actually do have a choice. The little old man wasn’t being malicious. He was distracted and being silly. He likely wouldn’t have done it had he been a bit more focused on driving, but are any of us always one hundred percent focused on those little dreary day to day tasks?
No, because they have grown dreary. So yes, new choices are good for you. Here is the user handbook for making helpful choices though. It’s nothing anyone can write, but it’s readily on hand for any of us, and on brain, on heart, on foot. It’s inherent in your being though you can imagine doing even the most hideous, disgusting things possible, you have a part of you that will make it very clear. Your core will say, “DO NOT WANT!” It’s best to listen to that. Like violence, we all have something in us that speaks against random violence. The idea that you should just walk up and smack some little kid playing peacefully in their yard, well seems psycho yes? And that “judgement” is absolutely correct. Where judgement gets corrupted is where it’s shaped by something other than this. When you busily rationalize some twisted picture of reality where hitting people is not only acceptable but a moral imperative. This doesn’t arise naturally in anyone.
I can give an example. I was in a relationship once. I would often come to work emotionally crushed because of the crap that went on between me and my former partner. My supervisor, a man others respected fairly well, in his effort to be compassionate to me, advised that I just smack her. Hit her and put her in her place. He had a big string of ideation for why that was right and fair. Well honestly this horrified me, and just added to my picture of the messed up sick, sad and twisted world I believed was the entirety of the world I would ever know.
But if someone did it to him, I’m sure he would protest. And his transgressions are likely just as bad, even worse more likely. I chose not to enter that world. This frustrated my partner at the time. I would show my hurt feelings, but not get down on her level. I wouldn’t even lecture her or anything, just cry, and take time alone. She couldn’t take it.
Even the ugly parts of your life matter. That energy spent shapes any of the positive moments that ever come, and my life now is composed more of positive moments than not these days. My wife now is awfully destructive of destructive patterns with all her positive creativeness. She thinks I’m the positive people person. What do you think?
If we have the ‘idea’ that we are something, we probably aren’t? I’m not real anymore.
I heard one exercise is to describe the person you most admire, and then if someone else looks at it, they’ll see you described yourself. This works the same in reverse, because they both are true for the same reason.
We aspire to be the person we already are.
We have our own values, and when we see in others that which we value, we admire it.
There is one exception, though rare. We also all intuit that there is something beyond our shared reality, and sometimes this peeks through in people’s behaviour. So even though you don’t recognize it, it amazes you. People all respond to it, though not necessarily in a positive way. You can make a black sheep or scape goat, but it can also be kept on the down low as well. There are references to this in Taoist lore. They say the sage teaches everyone, but no one realizes it. They say only that, “We learned this.” The sage does no great thing, no big thing, yet they leave nothing undone. This is perhaps why the east and west differ so much on a philosophical and spiritual level, no?
Among other things. Oh yes, a lot of these constructs involved, and you know that old sort of sarcastic saying? Blah blah blah, earth calling …? It’s usually said in the sense of accusing someone of being out of touch with reality, like earth to Margaret there is no such thing as Santa Claus.
Like, “Earth to Travis, Earth to Travis…” Well, it is true that the earth calls, but we can call back. Perhaps it’s time people begin returning their calls.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~