ANOTHER IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): An understanding that Life is an opportunity to play. [What you play (and how and why and when you move) often makes for a lot of difference in the results you get.] Playing and helping other people play is my greatest “happy.” I still think that one of the best things I ever did was to choose to look at all of the different aspects of Life-Its-Own-Self as play. The possibilities inherent in that one…
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that setting goals and self-discipline are important but you need to leave doors and windows open to the unexpected. [Serendipity and dancing in the Mystery takes you to wonders that all your plans and willful intent would have you ignore….]
Yeah, I know. It’s what I tell myself all of the time, echoing the I Ching and assorted other wise guys and smarty-pants, ancient and new: The goal is getting to clarity. Right. The problem with that one, of course, is that I’m such a little thing and the Universe is really, REALLY huge. What are the odds that I’m ever really going to be able to know enough to make sense out of it all?
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that the world is a communion of subjects and not a collection of objects. [Everyone and everything in the world has a story. You can connect to the story if you lead with curiosity rather than judgment.] It has occurred to me (many times) that everybody walks through worlds made of stories. The stories are, after all, how we make sense of ourselves. Our own stories – our struggles, our mistakes, the choices…
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that energy, vitality and passion cannot be given; they can only be found. [Your liveliness comes from inside you. No amount of urging by outside forces can make you vital, can make you care. You have to find it in yourself, for yourself.] Here’s the thing: If you don’t really care whether some idea or conceptualization becomes a reality, if the process of getting to the finish line only induces a body-shuddering yawn,…
Another IPS (Inner Peace Symptom): an understanding that transcendence has nothing to do with escaping the world or your own self. [All it means is stepping out and dancing your own heart-dance right out in the open, in the middle of the world and in the middle of yourself.] “Listening to your heart” often seems like a scary thing. Your heart keeps insisting that you just have to do things that are counter-intuitive and not-the-thing — the very opposite of…
For a number of years now I’ve played around with sharing little bits of thoughts on walking through the world – lessons I’m still learning. I stuck them into my Facebook offerings and folks seemed to think they were cool. I’ve got over 2,550 of the things (and still counting).
