I am sure this is a widespread experience: we slowly begin to open our perceptual eyes at twenty or so and quickly realize that there are many other forms in the world — many relationships if you will. Some appear to be unconscious like rocks or mountains or the sky, and others animate — they scurry, jump, or move about. The beings that look like me are the most intimate and yet confusing. Whatever their presence, we quickly comprehend that everything is separate and distinct. Initially, a freshet of fear and loneliness is presented — it subsequently calms and then dissipates. The mature person accepts, “I am alone in the world.”
Continue reading Relationships are not easyWhat are you afraid of?
“Do I know the world only through my senses — is nothing innate?” (1) This question constantly buzzes around in my head. “Do I have significance: will the world I create through my actions have consequences? Will I die without my mission being fulfilled?” Apprehension seems to be everywhere in life. (2)
Continue reading What are you afraid of?Anticipation
Don’t you love the thought of an upcoming trip, a new purchase, or next month’s concert? Anticipation is part of the energy that makes life enviable, viable, and exciting. Yes, indeed, we must deeply thrust ourselves into the moment, into the present. But concomitant with that feeling is the thought of what could or what will be.
Continue reading AnticipationA new beginning: the new year dawns
We are said to be flowing streams of consciousness, or are we? What reality do I really occupy other than the immediate moment, which itself is brief and fleeting? How do I find that elusive peace that all of us so desire? As the new year begins to set its course, we are all allowed to start with a clean slate — to have a new beginning. Our “whiteboard” need not be impregnated with anything that we don’t put there ourselves: pain, jealousy, envy or regret, to name but a few.
Continue reading A new beginning: the new year dawnsThe search for maturity
When I was growing up in my little, isolated, village in Canada, a car was everything. If you had a car, you had a girlfriend – or so the myth went among “the men.” Now a car was expensive. I had the money because of my part-time job, but then there was my father. A car represented a sense of liberty that he was unwilling to grant — so, no car!
Continue reading The search for maturity