The pathway towards an answer. An important question. A horrible Blog name.

The title of this blog feels deeply pretentious and uncomfortable. It was good at the time. I'm wondering if it's even worthwhile continuing it. Perhaps it's time to retire it. I already have one blog, and that's enough to keep track of. Too bad if so, because I've been experiencing tremendous growth and integration. 

I've been focusing on taking actions that are most useful to me. I forget where I heard this quote: "there are always more good ideas than you have time for."

It's true. All choice, and perhaps all creation, involves death. You're killing possibilities. Like some cheesy sci-fi movie where someone is going back in time and killing alternate versions of themselves so there's only one remaining. That's what you have to do. Whenever you decide to do something, you are deciding not to do all the other things.

This could lead to maddening or paralysing confusion, as you sit motionless, trying furiously to figure out what the one very best action to perform is. But I don't think it works that way, exactly. We have duties to do. They are not always the most flashy things to do. Maybe you're a farmer, and your just hoeing the field and planting seeds. You're not the president, or some cutting edge scientist developing a solution to the world's drinking problems. If they dropped their hoes and all went to college, there would be no one making food. Doing the most useful thing is two fold: one, what is your dharma. Your responsibilities, your job, your duty to society? More deeply, in what way can you move through life with integrity to your highest values?

And most high, how can you do, whatever specific thing it is you have to do, with dignity and as an act of highest worship and spiritual practice? It's not about what you do, it's about how you do it. The quality behind your act determines the results, and particularly good qualities ripple out into the world and universe, no matter the specific actions. It's about living your life moment to moment in that integrity. Whatever the specific, often hum-drum acts you are engaging it.

Lately I've been getting more focused on this, and the results are a deeply rich experience of life. I can feel it, this is the pathway to an answer for a question I've carried with me since high school at least: how do I lead a worthwhile life? How do I live so I'm not full of regret, when I die?

Discipline, Action, Reflection. Love, Service, Happiness.

I posted for the month of April in May, so this post will officially be for May.

"Discipline is the mark of intelligent living"
I read that quote and wrote it on a sticky-note and have been looking at it frequently. It is so easy to slide into indiscipline with the COVID19 pandemic, with being home, reduced work hours, reduced accountability. But that means it's more important than ever to do the things that keep you .

Some day, relatively soon (even if it's a hundred years from now) we will all die, and our lives will have been a waste, if we did not grow, love, live with purpose. Do you want to die on your deathbed full of regrets?

Imagine the best possible version of yourself, standing before you. What are they like? What does it feel like to be in their presence. Now imagine yourself on your deathbed, having lived a life of mediocrity. Imagine both those selves before you, looking at you. If you start to feel a bit uncomfortable, good. Use that to fuel some action, even if it's just a small action, towards becoming that best version of you. Small, manageable steps are all that is needed, if you make a habit of taking them every day.

Discipline. Anders Ericsson has made it very clear in his scientific work that you have no excuse for not becoming amazing at something you want to become amazing at. It takes hard work and practice in specific ways, but it does not take innate talent. Much more important is focusing on how to create the habits and motivation that get you practicing in the right way, every day.

More than any specific skill is just the quality of how you have lived, how you are living. Are you enjoying life, sharing love, connecting, being of service, being true to yourself, your own internal compass of rightness. Just do that, and you're doing well. And you don't need to do it all at once. Small steps in that direction every day. But staying on that path requires feeding the fire regularly. What inspires you? Feed yourself that.

This pandemic is not really that different from everyday life, in the fundamentals. We eat, breath, sleep, interact with each other. We can choose to cherish what we're grateful for or bemoan what we don't have. Viktor Frankl was in the Nazi concentration camps, so when he says it is your mind that makes of any situation a heaven or hell, it carries more weight that the average person saying that. But regardless, it's true. If you don't know how, then that's the first step. Start researching. Maybe start with a gratitude journal and some TED talks. It's possible, the information is out there, it just requires your persistent practice. Happiness is to a large degree, a choice. But not a choice you make like ordering a burger and fries, it's a choice you make every day, every moment, via the actions you take, where you choose to focus your attention. We don't control the thoughts that come into our head, but we do have a lot of control over where we place our attention. Like someone has thrown a bucket of words on your floor at night, but you have the flashlight, so you get to decide where you point it.

Action is key. I almost always have enough information, it is action where we mostly fall short. Take action, reflect on the results, and integrate that into further action. This is how we grow and evolve very quickly. There's a bit more to it than that. I'm working out the details myself, but someday I'd love to share it, teach it. It's all part of the meta-skill of learning. Learning how to learn. Mastering how to master things.

Mastery. Teacher Training Programs.

I totally missed the month of April. Right now I'm thinking about mastery. I'm thinking about improving one's skill. Anders Ericsson wrote a book called Peak. And many more scientific papers. The book is mindblowing in it's applications. It's about how to get good and better at something, at the fastest rate, continually. Normally we get "good enough" and then stop growing. This is how to keep growing. This is how to become among the best. At anything. But also just how to become good, at anything, most efficiently. What doesn't that apply to? Mundane things, like your job, your hobbies, your relationships. But also sublime things: discipline, focus, equanimity, meditation, mindfulness. A sense of humor, joyfulness. Etc. Etc. Etc. Anything. Anything. I think most people read it and think it's cool, but I read it and it strikes me on the level of a genuine miracle. And yet, his work is not done. He researched what the necessary components are. What needs to happen next, is to weaponize it.

We need masters in creating masters. Masters in the art of mastery. Part of mastery is working really hard for a prolonged time. How do we help set up the situation to get someone to do that? To work really hard, stay out of their comfort zone, for a prolonged time? That itself is a skill, to be mastered. I want to help people become good at things. That's kind of the job of a teacher. I suppose part of it truly is just to pass down knowledge. But as a trainer, it's more than that. I want to sculpt my students into the best versions of themselves. That requires true learning, not just information gathering. And it's a very complex process, that involves their work more than mine. I can't eat for them, I can't practice for them. How do I inspire and support them to develop their own habits of mastery acquisition?

I particularly want to apply this to teaching. Teacher training is really bad. It is ineffective. And it's one of our most important jobs. That's bad. It's also lopsided, only helping with the intellectual, rather than the character growth necessary to become a positively contributing member of society. A really smart person can create an atom bomb. A person of excellent character creates a nonviolent movement for freedom and peace.

A fundamental problem here is the catch 22 that I myself have not learned, ingrained, the skills and habits (and I suspect, identity) necessary for mastery, and I need mastery level skills to do what I want to do: create an exceptional training program for teachers. I'm deeply unqualified. I am not an exceptional teacher myself. But actually I don't know if that is necessary. I need to learn how to create a training program for teachers, if that's what I want. That is different than teaching. But I think knowing what it takes to be an exceptional teacher will provide good guidance in the creation of the program, and to truly know that, is to be it. The field of education is full of administrators who have not done the work in the trenches and thus give ineffective advice and training, or only partial views.

It seems like such a simple and powerful idea, I can't imagine it not moving people: science shows that teaching programs do little to nothing to improve the teaching outcomes of people who go through those schools. Here finally is a program that holds itself accountable. It is hard, it is uncomfortable, but if you go through our program and do all the work, you are extremely likely to be a first class teacher by the time you exit it. you will be achieving results with your students that only the top 1% of teachers are able to get. It's not magic, it's science, it's the same thing we expect of our students: practice, test to see how much you've learned, reflect, practice, improve, test again. The same way the field of athletics or music has honed training techniques to produce incredible results, we have applied these strategies to create a training program for teachers that is truely, provably, measurably, deeply effective.

And I want to go beyond that: we will take ordinary people and bring you to the place where you can become masters, which takes the cultivation of passion, perseverance, and a growth mindset.

And even beyond that, we will teach you how to cultivate your students character, the secret factor for a truly peaceful and happy classroom, and the secret factor for a peaceful and happy world.

How can you say no to that? That's why this passion, this dream, burns so brightly inside me. The world needs it.

The Month the Earth Stood Still

It's Pandemic Month! That's... well I was about to say that's not a holiday, but it kind of looks like one, with everyone staying home and businesses shutting down.

This is not the end of civilisation as we know it, but we are getting increasing numbers of natural disasters, weather shifts, more severe weather, animal life going extinct or overpopulating, soil depleting, etc. etc. We're overpopulated, we're poisoned our water supplies and soils with chemicals, and we keep trying to produce and buy and make and clear-cut even more. It's insanity, and it will lead to collapse. At some point along that route, the majority of us will realize that's what's happening, and the question is, at what point along this route will we realize it? Because at a certain point, it will be too late to avoid really serious disruption or even total societal collapse. And at various points, it will get harder and harder, the further we go without changing course.

Hopefully, worldwide disruptions like this will serve as a wake-up call: Hey, our systems are fragile. What happens if we don't have electricity, or food, or water being pumped in? The thought is terrifying, because we rely on the systems we've built. We can't drink our rivers because companies have been dumping waste into them. We don't have any gardens in our back yard,  just toxic lawns. We've cut down our tree's so we can't heat our houses, and our houses can't be warmed by fires anyways. Many have no tribe, no social support groups that they can rely in difficult times.

Hopefully people will take the conclusions of this pandemic a step further than just "we need more canned food." Because canned food won't be enough if we've got people looting houses because they've got no jobs and no food and families to feed and people are starving.

Take a breath. We're not there. But we could get there, if we don't change course. Many people know this, most don't believe it, and change nothing. Perhaps more will believe it, perhaps more will change their actions and their votes and their voices, and we will shift direction soonish. Many are already paddling that way, more each day. I hope that happens super soon.

Perhaps it won't. Ultimately, all are one and this body is but a shirt we wear for a day and then take of, only to put a new one on tomorrow. Nothing to get alarmed about.

But if you have not yet gotten yourself prepared for emergencies of various sorts, hopefully this will be a wake-up call that they can happen to you, yes you, and you'll start thinking about a garden and a rendezvous point for your loved ones if communication is down and maybe some non-perishables stored somewhere and a supply of potable water and some warm sleeping bags. This seems less spiritual than most of my posts, but this body of ours is a temple, a gift, and we have loved ones under our care, and it is our duty to care for them as best we can, while we have them.

And perhaps if everybody starts growing a garden and voicing their concern about how we're polluting our water supplies and soil and neglecting our poorest and messing up our weather patterns and overpopulating and in general making earth less habitable. If everyone--or even just most people--decide we want less crazy things happening to the earth, and take action towards that end, then perhaps we will as a global society, start caring for our earth, as well as our own body and family. Perhaps we will even care for all the people of the world, because that too will help make the world less crazy.

I think it could happen. I hope it will. I wonder how many disasters it will take. Perhaps this will be the last one it takes for me. For you.

Simplify, beautify, infuse with heart

I'm trying to simplify my life, in a very concrete way: my desk is messy. I think I will use a mixture of intuition, and Kon Mari's philosophy of focusing on the things you love, rather than the things you want to get rid of. However, I also need to take into account the function of the thing. It needs to be functional.

I feel like our spaces often reflect us in subtle and symbolic ways. What does this desk say about me? Perhaps that I've got too many balls in the air at once. That I'm trying to do too much at once. Certainly that I'm holding on to too many little tasks that I'm trying to get done. And perhaps that I'm not making organization a priority. I'm subconsciously saying that it's not really important.

As is the feeling, so is the result. That's a quasi quote from a wise man that I like. I think in this case it means I need to approach organizing, and perhaps dealing with my whole work-flow, from the mindset that I want it to represent. open and airy, silent, focused, peaceful, joyful. I'm not sure how to have a beautiful state of mind, but perhaps appreciating beauty.

It's a good reminder for how I should approach work as well. You can be doing all the technical things well, but if the feeling behind it is barren or negative, that seeps over into the result. And the opposite is true, even using non-ideal techniques, if the feeling and intention behind things is really good, it tends to carry over into the results, giving outcomes that shouldn't happen, if you were just looking at the mechanics of things on a sheet of paper.

Those are my thoughts for the month. I'm kind of in a rush, so I apologize for...heh, I suppose the rushed feeling of the post. Case in point.

Until next time, dear souls.

New Beginnings:

A new month. A new year. A new Decade. What is my new years resolution?:

With Awareness: stay connected to my sense of Rightness
With Courage: act swiftly on what it says
With Love: make every act a gift to God (who resides in everyone, everything)

A quote that's been coming up for me in various forms, from various sources. I didn't make it up, but I like it:

Start the day with love
Spend the day with love
Fill the day with love
End the day with love
That is the way to God



Peter Drucker said something like: "there's nothing so useless as doing well what never should be done in the first place." in reference to time management. An analogy he gives is placing a ladder somewhere and climbing up it only to find it wasn't at the location you wanted to go to. I feel like this is part of the benefit of clearly defining goals, and being careful to choose goals that really matter to you. If you're working really hard on a goal that's not important, that's gonna be sad when you get to the top of the ladder and realize you didn't actually want to be there. That's the main purpose for me of new years resolutions. It's a time to take stock, and think about where I'd like to end up. to make sure my ladder is placed on the shelf I want to climb. That's what my new years resolution is about. If I can get to that way of functioning, my life will be unbelievably good, and I will be heading towards my even bigger goals.

Remember what is most important in your life

If you died today, how would you feel about your life?
I'm old enough that I have several friends my age who have already died tragically early. It can happen. So why are we living like we will live forever?

What is momentously important? So important that everything else in your life pales in comparison. How much time and energy are you spending on that? Where else are you spending your time? Is it in worthwhile pursuits? Or things that you will be sorry about, should you die tomorrow?

Start the day with love, fill the day with love, end the day with love. That is the way to God.

A quote from Sai Baba, perhaps slightly altered since I'm writing it from memory. In any case, that seems genuinely important. Are we doing that? Are we at least working towards that, in whatever ways we can? Is there a good reason not to? I can't think of one.

Love. God. Living the divinity that is latent in all of us. The sadhana, the work, the actions and effort that are leading us towards infusing that always-there truth, into our awareness, our personality and experience. Are we taking those steps that we know? are we checking with our inner wisdom, to ask if our heart feels good with the path we're taking? Are we checking with our mind, to confirm our actions seem to be leading us towards more light, towards our goal? Or do we need to reassess, tweak, experiment, question, seek?

The spiritual path is not just about sitting quietly meditating. It is about the heart with which we infuse everything we do in life. There is nothing that is not spiritual. Washing the dishes is spiritual. Saying hello to your neighbor is spiritual. The physical is the tangible expression of the intangible, and how we move through our physical life is the training ground for spirit. Are you living with integrity? are you living with love and kindness (for yourself as well, as much as for anyone else). Are you living with truth, peace, rightness? Are you striving to live with some awareness that everything and everyone is a spark of divinity? is God made matter?

These questions haunt me, as I reflect on my own mortality, or at least the mortality of the precious vessel, born to give me the chance to manifest my own divinity in conscious experience.

From darkness lead us to light. From suffering and pain and despair and grief, lead us to bliss, peace, immortality. It's not pie in the sky. I don't know exactly what it is, but I know as I walk the path of light, though there are challenges, I keep moving into greater and greater light. More peace and joy. And that reflects and spreads to those around me, it is not selfish. It is more love.

I've said it so many times before, because I needed to be reminded, that many times. And I say it again, because I need to be reminded again. Do not waste your precious life on trifles, on merely eating, drinking, and the other things that all animals know and experience. That stuff is find and good, but don't let it distract you from the peace that surpasses all understanding. The well of peace within that is there without reason, without limit. The friend that is always with you, the love that is without condition or end.

Remember