Category: Mind Body Spirit

Attainable Limits

Attainable

I golf very occasionally and very sporadically. It’s a fun game, but I can’t imagine doing it regularly. My son likes to play the game, so I go with him whenever he invites me, but it’s really just an excuse to spend the morning with him. Usually, after 12 or 14 holes, I’m bored with the game and just enjoy the walk on the course. I’ve got friends, however, who are nuts for the game. My buddy Mark goes on several golfing megadeath vacations a year, where he and his 3 buddies play 54 holes a day. Every day. 54 holes. Really.

I can’t imagine wanting to do that, or enjoying it. I just don’t think I could hold up. I suspect I’d drink myself into a stupor somewhere around hole 25 or 30. But for Mark, these vacations are pure heaven.

On the other hand, give me a day with nothing to do and a bicycle, and I’ll ride all day. I commute 20 miles to work and 20 miles back on a bicycle. Other folks look at my bike riding, and have the same reaction I have to Mark’s golfing – why?

Not that we aren’t impressed by the feats of others. I’d really like it if I enjoyed golf enough to spend that much time with a few buddies doing something we all enjoyed. I’m truly impressed, and at the same time can’t imagine finding the strength of will or endurance to make my way through it.

The annual RAAM (Race Across America) bicycle race was run a couple months ago. You climb in the saddle in San Diego, and the first guy to Annapolis wins. You have to follow the prescribed route, but other than that, the only constraint is how long and far your body can go before it needs rest. The winner this year made it in 8 days and 6 hours, averaging 22 or 23 hours in the saddle every day, pedaling at an average speed of over 15 mph. This really happens.

I look at the RAAM race every year, and I shake my head in amazement. How can a human being do this? I look at the amazing feats we’ve witnessed in the Olympics this year, and I shake my head in amazement. How can a human being become so “perfect” at something? Heck, I even look at Mark’s golfing megadeath ordeals, and shake my head in amazement. But to that one I still say, “why”?…

What’s truly attainable in our life? How far can we really go with something when we set our mind to it? What are the things that limit us and set our constraints on attainability? We’ve all heard the rah-rah speeches folks give about how anything is attainable if we set our mind to it. We’ve all marveled at the endless shelves of self-help books extolling some magic formula for attaining whatever we want in life.

But deep down, most of us assign a pretty high BS factor to most of that stuff. I’m not going to be running 6 minute miles in a marathon. Not today, or tomorrow, or any time in this life. Really. My bone structure is too dense, and my Scandinavian body isn’t designed for that sort of long-distance running. Well, that, and I’m old.

There are limits, and it’s silly to pretend there aren’t. I’m a believer in defining some level of attainability that’s out there close to what you think the edge is, and working toward it. In my experience, as we move toward that thing we’ve defined as the limit of attainability, we’ll learn a bit more about ourselves, and we’ll move that limit a bit one way or the other.

While I’ve always loved riding my bike, the notion of riding 100 miles in a day would have seemed a bit over the top to me throughout the first 40 years of my life. But as I rode more and more, and got into my 50’s, I began to find that I could push that ride limit up to a bigger and bigger number. Sure it hurt a bit each time I pushed it, but then the limit went up. I was probably close to 50 years old before I rode my first century. After that, the idea of doing that kind of distance day after day on a long-distance trip seemed a bit over the top to me. A little too much pain to endure, a little too much, well, just too much.

Then, I rode across Colorado and Kansas. And survived. And enjoyed it. So the next summer I rode from California back to Colorado, And survived. And enjoyed it. On both rides, there were certainly painful days, but both rides raised the limits within myself.

Next month, I’ll ride my bike from Kansas to Annapolis. I’ll ride 100+ miles a day most days, and will certainly find new ways to push my limits. And I’ll find some pain along the way, and I’ll survive, and I’ll find a lot of joy along the way.

Attainability lives between our ears. That’s where we define it. But if we want to raise our limits of attainability, we won’t do it by listening to some talking head give us a rah-rah speech. We won’t do it by reading endless self-improvement books about how to be a more productive person.

The only way to raise our limits of attainability is to push those limits. Get on the bike and ride. Endure a bit of pain along the way. Find what the limits really are. Get intimate with the limits. Along the way, you’ll keep redefining the limits, and they’ll keep getting bigger and higher. The alternative is to lay on the couch and watch some more of the endless dribble on TV. That’ll move the limits too, but they’ll be closing in on you all the time – descending with each wasted day.

Of course, not all limits are important to all of us. I’ll probably golf with my son this summer, and I’ll probably be delighted to walk the last several holes without swinging the club. And I’ll listen while my buddy Mark tells me of how wonderful his last golfing megadeath vacation was, and I’ll have no desire whatsoever to ever explore that particular limit…

A friend recently asked about biking, “Don’t ya just get on and start pedaling?” Wiser words were never spoken. She’s right – get off the couch, jump on the bike, and start pedaling.

Finely Aged

I’m no connoisseur of wine or whiskey, but I’ve listened as connoisseurs talk of the value of “aging”. Some wines, for example, age very well, while others don’t.

It might be said that all wines start on an equal footing – fermenting from grape juice into wine. But grape genetics and the growing conditions have a big impact on what happens to the wine once the fermentation is done. Some are ready to drink right away, and can be quite good at a young age. They’re good their first year, and second and third maybe, and then they start to lose some of what makes them special.

Other wines benefit greatly from aging. They develop character and depth, a complexity that’s rare in wines that are young. These are the wines that are highly sought-after – those that age well and become better with each passing year.

We’re like that too.

Some of us peak at a young age, blooming best in the beauty and strength of youth. As the brief season of early bloom passes, it’s easy to look back on those days of youthful beauty and strength, longing for a return that’ll never come. It’s hard not to do this, bombarded as we are with media messages extolling the virtue, strength, and beauty of youth.

But when I look around me, I find a great many folks who defy the media message. They’re building greater strength with each passing year, a strength informed by wisdom, a strength of endurance, tolerance and perseverance. Continue reading “Finely Aged”

Don’t Pray

Continuing the theme of “how we deal with loss” that I started in my last post – especially the notion of trusting G-d to be G-d, and and being faithful enough to focus wholly and completely on doing my work as a human being.

When I see loss and pain around me, what if I don’t “pray” in the traditional sense? What if I don’t bow my head and ask G-d to fix everything and mend every pain? Does G-d need my instruction on how Creation needs to be run?

Prayer in the traditional sense here implies two entities – one entity petitioning a different higher entity. Yet, there is great tradition within most faith teaching, (certainly within my own), instructing us to live as or strive toward “oneness and unity” with G-d.

How does that change the nature of prayer? What if prayer becomes an act of connection with that oneness, rather than an act of petition to a separate entity?

In making this connection, we become a conduit for the energy and goodness and healing that is divine to move through us and out into the world around us.

There’s a difference, isn’t there? On the one hand I’m asking for someone or something else to do something, and on the other hand I’m seeking the strength, the guidance, and the will to be an agent of change myself – to be a force of human kindness and goodness.

When there’s loss and suffering around us, perhaps the best thing we can do is to stop praying for G-d to do something, and start connecting with G-d for the strength, wisdom, and will to be a force of pure and simple kindness to those around us who are suffering.

 

The Heresy of Human Kindness

I corresponded with someone recently who lost everything in the flooding that so many folks are experiencing in the Mississippi River Valley and other places out east. Their spirit of acceptance and forward movement impressed me, and got me thinking quite a bit about “loss”. Then yesterday evening, my son and I spent some time in the garden of a friend and customer who had just lost her husband. Afterwards my son mentioned that he really hadn’t spent much time around “loss” before, and that he was learning more about how to deal with those around him when they experience loss.

How do we deal with loss that those around us experience? What are we called to do when our neighbor feels the crush of loss?

I like words I wrote down once, attributed to the late Baal Shem Tov. Keep in mind that I wrote this down after hearing it second hand, so I’ve probably messed something up…

In responding to a discussion of “heresy”, he said:

“Because when you see a person suffering, you don’t say, ‘G-d runs the universe. G-d will take care. G-d knows what is best.’ You do everything in your power to relieve that suffering as though there is no G-d. You become a heretic in G-d’s name.”

Fitting wisdom in a world where too many use religion to wrap a veil around their essential humanity. Religion can too easily become and insulating cover that keeps us from feeling the pain of those around us, or from reaching out with pure acts of human kindness and caring.

If I believe that G-d is in everything around me, and that He plays a part in the flight of every sparrow, then do I trust Him enough to leave G-d’s work to G-d? Am I faithful enough to focus wholly and completely on doing my work as a human being? Can I give all of me to feeling the loss my neighbor feels, and offering the help I can offer, or will I hide behind pious grumblings of “god’s will”?

 

Doing…

Read a post recently that got me wandering down another path of thought. The essence of the article was the author’s belief that we all feel more and more pushed to “have experiences” these days. Katinka’s blog post can be found here, if you’d like to read it.

The idea got me going down that “checkmark” path again. I seem to love that path ever since Dave and I started bouncing ideas about it back and forth.

I agree that there’s a real competitive push in modern cultures today to “do the most and have the most”. The extends into things like vacations, and spiritual experiences.

Let’s start with vacations. When Peggy and Jesse and I were in Vietnam and Cambodia recently, we sometimes encountered throngs of Korean (or other eastern) tourists frantically making their way through a tourist attraction. They had no compunction at all about pushing ahead in a line, which was irritating to me based on my cultural norms, but apparently completely acceptable to their cultural norm.

On the good side of that equation, once they got into a place, they moved quickly, not lingering over anything at all. They were clearly trying to fit as much into the day as they could.

They were “doing” that particular attraction or site. The faster they could “do” it, the more things they could “do” on their vacation. The more checkmarks they could check off their list.

Of course that’s not unique to Koreans – in the west we’re probably even better at it, (or would that be worse?)

We plan our vacations to “do” a thing or group of things. The best vacations are the ones that are tightly planned and allow us to “do” the highest number of things.

Checkmarks.

“Doing” implies activity on my part – I’m putting my stamp on something. I’m happening to something or someone.

In Ha Long Bay, enjoying the company of children laughing and giggling...

Experience is something altogether different, isn’t it? Experience implies something that happens to me, rather than me happening to something. Tiny little shift in words that has a gigantic implication on how we walk along the path of life.

Dave and I have wrestled with this idea a lot in our conversations. On our long-distance cycling trip last summer across Colorado and Kansas, we talked often of motivation to do this sort of thing, and what we got out of it. Recognizing how common it is to feel the motivation to do things to check them off a list.

I get it. The most vehement anti-smoker is the man who quit smoking. I grew up as a “list” kind ‘a guy, and spent my early adult years focused pretty heavily on the checklists. I easily fall off the wagon, and start seeking the checkmarks.

The only thing that keeps me on the wagon most of the time is selfishness. Really. “Doing” a place is me happening to someone or something else. Once I’ve come to experience magic – to have things happen to me – then my selfishness wants to let more things happen to me. Each sip makes me more thirsty to feel more, to take more in, to surrender to the thing.

The tint of the word “selfishness” feels a little different to me in that light. To you as well?

Extend the idea to spiritual experience… I think I’ll post on that next.

Bluebirds

In the early hours of morning I watched as a pair of Bluebirds investigated one of my Bluebird houses. I’ve tried for years to attract bluebirds to my garden, but without success. The habitat is right, the houses are right, but I just can’t seem to get them to nest.

Eastern Bluebird - Image from SmellLikeDirt.wordpress.com

It’s not that I lack for birds in the garden. I have many feeders out for many types of birds, great habitat and protection in the garden, and ponds full of water. I even have some Sharp-shinned and Coopers hawks that feed occasionally on the birds that feed at the feeders.

But I can’t ever attract Bluebirds to my houses.

Until this morning.

I saw the pair investigating the house, and while they flew off a bit when the dog was out wandering in the yard, they stayed close and kept their eye on the house. I had high hopes that maybe, finally, I’d have some nesting Bluebirds to watch.

As I type this later in the day, the pair hasn’t returned at all. Maybe they didn’t like the sound of the English House Sparrows that congregate on the other side of my house, or maybe they didn’t like that a dog wandered in the yard. Maybe the house just didn’t have the curb appeal they were looking for.

But they seem to have rejected my house, and that makes my sad.

Funny how this sort of thing works in my mind. I “want” something, and will go to great lengths to make it so. I’ve admittedly got a pretty strong will, (a character flaw I recognize), and will go to great lengths to force the desire of that will into being.

My will is an extension of my ego, and that ego and its will aren’t always right. It’s one of the deadly flaws of humanity, that we seem to feel deep inside our minds that our will is the way things are supposed to be. It’s how we’re able to create G-d in our own image over and over again.

But I’m pretty sure we’ve got that upside down in our mind. We don’t get to be the decider of the order of things. We’re just part of the order of things, albeit a pretty intrusive part.

I want to watch Bluebirds in my garden, but there’s something about the location or the surroundings of the houses I’ve put out that the Bluebirds don’t like. They’re not rational creatures who analyze their way through this problem with logic – they’re instinctive little guys who’re working from the collective memory of hundreds of generations of Bluebirds before them. And that collective memory and instinct pushes them to look elsewhere after they stop in and gander at the houses I’ve so lovingly and willfully put out for them to consider.

I’ll keep hoping for a pair of Bluebirds to call my backyard home someday. Maybe I’ll try new locations next year. And who knows – they might be back still this year, or another pair might take a look. After all, my realtor friends tell me it only takes the right buyer…

But for today, I’m enjoying the little lesson they’ve helped me see. While I might still want Bluebirds in my backyard, it’s apparently not what they need right now, and maybe not what I need right now either.

After all, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, I hear you might just get what you need…

 

Parenting From The Spectator Section, and Vacation 3.0

Apologies for the blogging silence for the past couple of weeks. I’ve been trying out a new style of vacation – one focused primarily on visiting children.

It’s not that I haven’t been doing the things I’d generally do on a vacation – I have. The difference is that the primary focus has been on spending time with my son, and finding ways to do things with him.

He’s been working in Vietnam for the past several months. While he likes traveling, enjoys the work he’s doing, and loves having new adventures, he’s still a guy who’s firmly anchored to his home.Vietnam is a long way from home.

While we get to talk on Skype most mornings for a good long bit, (isn’t technology wonderful?!), he’s still struggled with being away from home for such a long time. I’ve felt the homesickness from him often when we’ve talked.

It’s one of the hardest parts of being a parent – seeing your children struggle in some way, or hearing pain in their voice. My instinct is always to fix something, to make something go away, to vanquish a monster someplace. When they’re young, you can generally find a way to do that.

But as they get older, and move on to a life of their own, there’s less and less you can do. And frankly, less and less you should do. If we’ve done our job as a parent well, then we’ve prepared them to fix things themselves, and to vanquish most of the monsters on their own.

I’m a spectator now, not a player on the field of battle. I’ve had to learn hard lessons over the years about listening carefully when my kids tell me about their battles, and to understand they aren’t asking for my sword – they’re asking for my ear. They want to know my sword is there if they need it, and that my counsel is there if they ask for it, but mostly they just want me to listen.

It’s hard sometimes to just listen, to not step in with a sword or an axe or a shovel. I think I’ve gotten better at it over the years as they’ve taught me. Now I’m learning to keep my counsel to myself more often as well, to watch carefully for the signs that they might actually want to hear my advice. The more I keep my mouth shut and my ears open, the more they come to trust that they can ask me for advice when they want it.

I’m not good at it yet, but I’m learning.

This trip has been about being there at the hotel when he comes home from work at the end of the day, and asking how things went. It’s been about listening to his stories of the dragons that he battles every day, and being proud and amazed at how well he wages those battles. It’s been about enjoying his expertise of this new world he lives in – the best places to find amazing food, the best places to get a foot massage, and how to get around in a world where you don’t speak their language.

Sure we’ve done some fun and amazing things together. We spent the Tet holiday at the ancient Angkor ruins in Cambodia, and spent time on a cruise boat in one of the most amazing bays on earth. But mostly, we’ve shared a glass together at the end of the day, and laughed about the quirky sense of humor we share. We’ve wandered slowly through fish markets and night markets, enjoying the wonder of a culture I could only have imagined.

But mostly I’ve listened. And I’ve enjoyed his company more than he can know, and more than I would have imagined. As I type this, it’s just beginning to get light outside my hotel room window. It’s the start of our last day together before my 34 hour trek back to Colorado. I’m sure we’ll spend more time in markets today, and probably a good bit of time just hanging out together. Then we’ll hug each other and say goodbye.

And I’ll do the hardest thing a parent can do – go sit in the spectator section.

I’m not good at it yet, but I’m learning…

Chasing or Fleeing?

Are We Chasing Happiness or Running From Something Behind Us?

The story is told of an old rabbi who visited a bustling town, and was nearly overwhelmed by the pace at which everyone was moving.. Everyone was running so quickly, not matter which direction they were going, so he assumed they must not all be running from something. He stopped a young man and asked him, “Why are you running?” and the man says “I’m running to make a living and find happiness”.

The rabbi stood looking up into the young man’s face for a moment, holding his arm. When the young man tried to politely release himself to continue his errand, the rabbi bade him wait just a minute. He looked into the young man’s eyes, and asked, “What makes you so sure that the living you need to make is in the direction you’re running? How can you be sure the happiness you’re seeking is running away from you, rather than trying to catch up with you? Maybe the living you seek is behind you waiting to catch you, along with the happiness you say you want.”

We’re all running. It’s the American way to be driven and ambitious and fast-paced. New Yorkers pride themselves in their frenetic pace.

I don’t think you can easily change the stripes on a Zebra. I am who I am, and you are who you are. Some combination of genetic and environmental factors shaped the person we have become. I do like to go fast often. I get joy out of being productive and out of making “progress” toward some goal.

While I can’t change these things about who I am, I certainly can force myself to stop and look around as I move through the life I’ve made for myself. I can force myself to look back behind me as well as up in front of me. I can continually ask the questions of myself:

What am I running from?

What am I running toward?

Are there some things that I’m running from that should catch me? Are there times that I need to rest and wait for happiness and “living” to catch up with me?

And the things that I chase – are they really staying so distantly in front of me, or is this my illusion? Am I continually running past some of these targets I’m chasing, not savoring the moment when I catch them, focusing my attention on the next target?

Prayer. Probably the best way to take that moment of reflection. Probably the best way to look behind, and to look ahead, and ask those hard questions.

Note: Story adapted from one told by Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks of the British Commonwealth on a broadcast of an event on Krista Tippett’s “Being” radio show.

Neanderthal Compassion

Does Evolution Select Against The Soul?

Photo my Action Press / Rex Features

I recently listened to an interview that Krista Tippett did with French geologist Xavier Le Pichon, and it got me thinking quite a bit about his point of view on our evolution as “humanity”.

My thoughts, inspired by that interview, kept coming back to the notion that what defines us uniquely from other animals is compassion. I should also add a connection to a recent book on exactly this subject – The Prehistory of Compassion by Dr Penny Spikins.

I’m not sure I agree completely with this notion, but I might… I just wonder a bit.

Let’s talk about the Neanderthal. Archeological records suggest these creatures were religious (shamanic capes found as part of grave at Hortis site), that they were artistic (creating musical instruments), and that they showed compassion (remains discovered indicating an infirm tribe member was cared for throughout his life).

I think I’d consider all these to be human characteristics – religion, art, and compassion – and they were all three part of the life and culture of a folk that we don’t consider to be “human” like we are. There are some, in fact, who believe that compassion may have been more deeply engrained in Neanderthal culture than it is in ours, and that compassion may have made Neanderthal vulnerable.

Don’t get me wrong – I really want to believe that compassion is a uniquely human characteristic. I really want to believe that compassion is something that ties us to G-d, and that it is compassion that strikes the chords of harmony between the spirit of G-d and the soul of man.

But I’m not there yet. I see behavior in many animals that looks a lot like compassion to me. I’ve seen mother deer or elk in clear pain over the loss of their fawn. You read stories of Chimps who carry their dead baby’s corpse for days in what appears to be mourning.

It’s not that I question compassion as “holy” – I absolutely believe it is. Just as I believe a capacity for art and religion are “holy”. I’m just less and less convinced as time goes along that “holiness” is something that we have any sort of exclusive right to claim.

If you read my blogs and rants much at all, you know how much I dislike the human tendency to claim one particular perspective on G-d and “righteousness” as the one and only way that G-d chooses to be part of our life. This tendency has caused more destruction in the history of mankind than anything else in my opinion.

Why would I expect that G-d would look for some special relationship with one and only one species of mankind throughout the history of the world? Why would She choose only this most recent period in the history of our earth to establish that relationship? In fact, why would He have chosen only the creatures of this earth in the vast universe to establish a relationship with?

As I look at the limited evidence, I think I’m prone to accept that compassion is, indeed, one of the components that creates and strengthens a soul in relationship with G-d. Moreover, I’m prone to wonder if we’ve not evolved further and further away from compassion as just such a strong component in our life.

Are we evolving away from relationship with G-d?

When I look around me, I see a great nation that was established to “…form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare…” Yet, the only piece of that beautiful preamble to our constitution that we seem to pay attention to these days is the “provide for the common defense” section. Even in the past 200 years or so, we seem to have lost our focus on issues of Justice, Tranquillity, Union, and Welfare. In fact, the word “welfare” has become a nasty word in our political lexicon today.

We established a nation on lofty principles, clearly driven by some sort of spiritual purpose. Yet, all of the spiritually motivated components of our reason for establishing a nation have become dirty words, and all we care about today is defending ourselves from the hordes of “others” who we think want to come and carry us away.

This is our history as a human race throughout recorded history (which admittedly isn’t very long). We’ve continually moved back and forth between the selfish drive to eliminate others and the threat from others, and some sort of internal call of compassion. The further we go, the more it seems that natural selection is selecting against G-d, and selecting for human selfishness.

The last 200 years within our nation is a microcosm of that selection process – a very frightening one.

Photo by Erich Ferdinand

Somehow or another, evolution selected against the Neanderthal. Our ability to conquer and defend increased as a result of that selection.

What happened to our ability to maintain closeness with G-d?

What’s happening to our soul?

Only The Artist Sees The Tall Ships

Do Our Brains Manage Away Our Ability To See G-d Or To Be Creative?

Somebody once told me that they read someplace that somebody said that way back when Europeans were first invading the Americas, it’s likely that natives might not have even seen the ships out on the sea as they approached and anchored. If they had to mental construct for the idea of a big ship on the water, their minds might have simply failed to process the images coming in to them.

Sounds like a crazy notion to me. And since it was something somebody might have read about something somebody might have said, I’ve always considered it to be mostly a made-up thing.

But a fun idea.

I suspect there might be a grain of possibility in the idea as well. So I’ll talk about it here as-if it’s real fact. It makes a point I want to make after all. And really, if I do this well enough, it might be that some Faux News Network might make me a job offer…

So, the ships were there. That’s a fact. And folks on the shore had eyeballs that worked, and they were looking out across the horizon, and their functional eyeballs picked up the information, and sent the information along the optic nerve and into the brain for processing.

So far, it’s all fact, it’s all science, and it actually probably happened just like that.

But we’ve all worked hard to “manage” our brain so it doesn’t interfere with the way we want to see the world. We all process incoming information in similar ways, but with little twists and turns, filters, brushes, and enhancing tools.

We all know what we want the world to look like, and we have fine-tuned our senses to pick out the pieces of information that surrounds us that reinforces the picture of what we want the world to look like.

My Faux News comment is a perfect example. What is your source of news? While some people work hard to get a wide variety of opinions and input, most folks simply find the news or opinion source that tells them about a world that’s built the way they want to believe it’s built. In my opinion, that’s explains the growth in popularity of particular networks or sources that are biased to the point of absurdity – people aren’t looking for Truth, they’re looking for reinforcement of the views they want to hold.

Just like the husband or wife who’s blindsided by the unfaithful spouse, even though everyone around the couple could see the signs for years. From the inside, the husband or wife had a picture of what they wanted their spouse to be, and the only information they accepted into their brain was the information that reinforced that view.

I understand this tendency. It makes sense. I can only imagine how overwhelming the world is to an infant – information bombarding the brain with no context or ability to put the pieces together. As we mature and grow, one of the ways we unleash the power in our brain is to learn how to filter and “manage” the information that we’re swimming through.

We can become extremely efficient at filtering and managing information, so that our lives run smoothly, and we’re not troubled with dilemmas. We’re not forced to confront and adjust our filters, brushes, enhancers, and other “information management” devices that make us comfortable.

I recently ran across a post by a gal (Katinka Hessilink) who suggests that creativity is tied up in this whole equation. In her article, Katinka is talking about the existence of a soul, but I’m co-opting her argument here to help me suggest that creativity in a person might really be little more than a higher tolerance to leave the filters turned down.

It might be that what we call creativity is really just a tolerance to accept, hear, and see input that doesn’t necessarily fit with the shapes we’ve already constructed within our mind – the shapes that we think the world is supposed to fit into. The “creative mind” really might just see more.

There’s always been this assumed connection between creativity and, shall we say, a looser grip on sanity? I have no idea of this is actually true, but it’s a pervasive stereotype.

If there were a linear representation of “sanity”, it could be that the further one moves to the right on the scale, the more constricted is their view of the world, and the less they are actually able to experience the world they’re moving through. They have a very tightly managed shape into which they fit all of the incoming information, and whatever doesn’t fit, is ignored or changed in some way.

What’s on the other end of that scale? Off the edge of either end would seem like insanity to me.

Way back in the time of Columbus, a dreamer sat on the beach of some island in the Caribbean. On the horizon he saw something he’d never seen before – he saw ships with tall masts and large sails. He ran and told the others of the tribe, who looked and saw nothing that fit into the shape of the world they knew, so they saw nothing at all.

I can believe that. You?

Here’s a Wayne Dyer quote, that I probably have a little wrong:

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you’re looking at change”.