By Stu Whitley | Bio
Another
balm to the damaged soul lies outdoors. The natural world, with its
fixed cycles of life, degeneration and recuperation, is a soothing
reminder that all passes eventually.
There’s a harsher truth
as well: the world is indifferent. It is neither fair nor unfair; it
simply is. Outdoors, if one is careless, disaster can easily happen.
Rushing streams and precipitous inclines may be beautiful to
contemplate, but they are neutral on the issue of
I am getting to a point in my life where I am thinking a lot about what I am doing, why am I doing it, and how am I going about doing what I do. For example, if I look at my schedule for the next month, I am in France, Brazil, Mexico, Eastern and Western Canada, the United States and Argentina. I love the work I am doing, and this kind of travel regimen didn’t used to bother me too much. I have my travel routines down pretty well and rarely have problems—although it still takes about 3 extra
By Shae Hadden | Bio
I was reading an article about ethical wills recently that got me wondering about what kind of legacy I might leave behind if I were to die tomorrow. This type of ‘leave behind’ document—like diaries, journals, books, letters and photo albums—are usually loving prepared over the course of several years. Nowadays, we also have innumerable opportunities to record our lives and thoughts online to share with friends and family. So why bother going to the trouble of preparing an ethical will in addition to a legal will?According to the article, an ethical will offers us an opportunity to communicate with loved ones on paper. We can share things like:
It saddens me to think of these being communicated in a will. True, sharing lessons learned in a document as one approaches death or as one’s last words after death is better than not communicating them at all.
But I see more value if we can use the document as a starting point for conversation with younger family members and friends while we
Read Creativity I.
Now it’s easy to hear this conversation about ‘standing in possibilities’ of what the future might be as some sort of optimism versus pessimism discussion—the “Just be happy” versus “There’s no hope” maxims. I am not suggesting this at all. Optimism and pessimism are grounded in positive or negative predictions of the future. Changing how we observe is not a function of prediction: it is a function of commitment.
I predict that the future is likely
My friend Dan at Curmudgeon recently sent me a very interesting video of a speech by Sir Ken Robinson. He is a British educator committed to reinventing education to give creativity in our schools as much weight as we now give to literacy. This makes sense. One of the underlying principles of Serene Ambition is that we need intergenerational collaboration.
OR "You Can Never Get Enough of What You Don’t Want"
By Charles E. Smith |Bio
A man is sitting in a bar having a beer,
eating cashews and at peace with the world. A pretty woman sits next to
him. He buys her a drink and after a bit she promises him that he can
have whatever he wants, which is usually what he is not getting at the
moment in relationship or what he is getting that he wishes he didn’t
have. He gets interested and then someone
Came across this interesting post about an interview with Ram Dass on growing older conducted after he had his stroke in 1997. Make sure you read the second half of Sara Davidson’s interview as well…!
By Shae Hadden | Bio
Every day this past week, I’ve been exploring the question of “What can I do?” It’s been an interesting inquiry, with the answers varying each day, sometimes each hour, based on the state of my physical body. =&0=&I was in a conversation the other day with some friends. It wasn’t long before we were bemoaning the ‘state of the world’. We moved from politics in Washington DC to global warming and the Middle East, then took on the environment, the media and the latest arrest of suspected terrorists in Spain. In a few minutes, we were feeling a bit of despair at the seemingly endless list of intractable problems, most of which are threatening our quality of life—if not the future of our entire species.
By Rick Fullerton | Bio
On reflection, I see several factors that contribute to this expanding range of interests:
So
for me (as for others), life occurs as this continuing stream of
experiences where we respond to what shows up for us and what interests
us moment to moment within the structures we find ourselves. The
challenge, it seems, is to gain a different perspective and
relationship with what’s happening.
To complicate things
further, along with the barrage of information and options