The word ‘journeyman’ has always conjured up two images in my mind: first, of a young apprentice learning from an experienced, older person and second, of a young man just beginning to undertake his own personal journey into adulthood. The recently released one-hour documentary Journeyman is an inspiring exploration into mentoring, rites of passage and male culture in the U.S. Featured experts, including Michael Gurian
Resignation
I have written about resignation on several occasions. I think we need to remember this is a condition in which we give up, but do so in a way that hides the fact that is what we are doing. Resignation is a big part of what we think of as the ‘human condition’ and, in my opinion, it can become more pervasive as we age. I frequently speculate on what will happen if enough of us become resigned about something at the same time. My view is that the resignation becomes the reality when this happens.
Angst
I like this word. I don’t know why…perhaps because it is one of those words that seems to express itself in speaking of it. The word means ‘anxiety’—a kind of generalized anxiety with being alive.
The existential philosophers talked a lot about angst. In fact, we normally associate angst with existentialism—existential angst. The word is usually associated with a negative mood such as depression or what Thomas Merton characterized as “the dark night of the soul”. I think that Heidegger
Energy as a Way of Life III
By Charles E. Smith | Bio
During the second year in my transition from a static world to an
energetic-based point of view, I took a training program with a Mexican
teacher, Victor Sanchez, who had studied and lived with the Toltec
Indians in northern Mexico. Victor had developed a coherent conceptual
framework that was very much based on energy. Lorin Smith didn’t have a
lot of explanation for what he did. He just did it, and I saw that he
was working with
Foolishness
Today is the day for fools, foolishness and merry pranks played on friends, colleagues and neighbours. Because of the abundance of April Fools’ hoaxes in the media, many people distrust news reports and advertisements launched on this day. No such luck here at Serene Ambition…although, as in some countries like Britain, we do believe that jokes pulled after noon turn the prankster into the ‘fool’. Instead, we’d like to share a few famous insights into learning how to live wisely.
Life
Obama
Barack Obama’s speech to the United States and the world last week moved me more than any political oratory I can recall. It wasn’t just the content of the speech I found moving but the quality of human being that he showed us—a man willing to take a stand for his convictions and tell the truth about a subject that has been an ‘elephant head on the table’ for decades. He will have my vote and whatever the maximum financial contribution allowed is to support his campaign.
I was also impressed
Serene Ambition
I was talking with a fellow recently who was asking why this blog is called Serene Ambition™. He thought that the two words didn’t seem to go together. He could get ‘serenity’ and also understand ‘ambition’, but together they made no sense to him. In our normal way of relating to the world, you can have serenity (meaning inner peace, calmness, maybe even joy) or you can be ambitious (meaning committed to creating or accomplishing something in the future)—but not
Toward an Ethic of Aging I
By Stuart J. Whitley | Bio
About three years ago, I assisted an aboriginal woman elder with a presentation she was doing for the media. She was trying to explain the role of justice as conceived by the first peoples of this continent. Paraphrasing her: first, she said, there is the sky over all of us, then there is the water below. What takes our breath away when we look to the rivers and the forests is the same thing that possesses us when we think about the wonder inside our own bodies. As the
Bravado
Over the past couple of years, I have been growing in my appreciation of just about everything and everyone in my life. I am living most of the time in an almost sublime state of acceptance and gratitude. Fears about the future have somehow disappeared. My work is more satisfying than at any time I can recall and, by all accounts, is more impactful.
When I began this inquiry about aging almost 30 years ago, my vision was that the end of life should have as much possibility as the beginning—that
Paradox of Deception
By Shae Hadden | Bio
For a few hours yesterday, I was ‘spring cleaning’, clearing out the accumulated papers and possessions of the past. I always find such ‘mindless’ activities actually very mindful: they are the perfect opportunity to become present to many of the old internal conversations I’ve been having with myself. Each piece of paper or item draws up memories or images of who I was or what was happening in my life at the time. Yesterday, what kept appearing was the thought that I have been deceiving myself about who I am and what I want to do with my life for a very long time. A question followed—what value is there in deceit?Conventional wisdom would have it that mastering deception is mastering the art of cheating someone or something other than ourselves. Yet, every self-deception influences our mood, choices and actions, and these can deceive others into believing we are not who we are. And every time we deceive others, we deceive ourselves into believing our own self-deception.
Deception hides us from our deepest desires: it’s as if we live in a castle of confusion, blind to the paradox we’ve