Hopeful Thinking

There is a long held belief that sacrifice is the pathway to all accomplishments ranging from high school diplomas to eternal salvation. These are the types of things which are accomplished through sacrifice. In the sense that the word is being used here, meaning that sometimes they gave up parties they really, really wanted to go to because they had an exam the next day, yes, they are making a sacrifice. Probably, hopefully, many of them. That type of basic sacrifice is easy to point out. Naming those sacrifices which merit eternal salvation, however, are well above my celestial security clearance. We give a lot of weight to the act of sacrifice. It is seen as the path itself, unfortunately, not just a way of thinking about the experiences along it. That does us a disservice. I often wonder who I’m really doing things for, to be honest. I make a practice of it, actually. It’s a very useful exercise. The stark truth is that we always and only do things for ourselves. That may not seem ...

I can’t think of anything I’d like more for Christmas than joy for this world, who has been through so much of late. This saddened and wicked world, full of disease and dis-ease, both. Wounds of the heart so deep even the light cannot penetrate them. Sorrows resting quietly inside and unknown. Likely to be taken to the grave, still unspoken. And yet… I have so much hope for this world. A world who want for nothing more than to just be together. To be held with the intent that their sorrows be eased, no matter if it’s possible through the act of embrace or not. Embrace anyway. If the weight cannot be lifted, it is better to be lightened. I firmly believe that’s who we are. We are that better side of ourselves who tends to trust, and to heal. Our wounds are not us. Our politics are not us. We caused them, but we are not them. We are something else entirely. We are light, having a darkened experience. If you read between the cracks in the news, you can see it. There is progress and love e...

Rightly or wrongly, I have always thought of myself as a bit of an empath. It’s a loaded term, really. It can give impressions of every claim from the psychic to the emotional. I am somewhere toward the latter on the spectrum.  It’s hard to tell sometimes whether my emotional experiences are those of others or of myself. Assuming it’s a little of both, I try to be mindful of the percentage. It’s preferable that the majority of my emotional experience originates from within myself. I’m better equipped to help others if I’m not taking on their feelings but just listening to them.  To sit with someone in their grief should not be the same as grieving. That’s not to say we don’t grieve alongside our friends. A healthy version of grieving alongside one’s friend is a prayer to the Universe for their ease. May their grief be eased. Amen. It has a different character to it than taking on the grief of others.  Back in the early 90s when I moved to New York City I remember feeling ...

What is it about villains? Why are we so attracted to them? We know there are lots of actors who love to play villains. Writers love to intricately craft their darker characters, while most of their heroes are only two-dimensional. What is the origin of our relationship with villains? Why are there those whom we love to hate? Many psychologists believe that we are attracted to villains because they represent our desire for freedom and lack of authority. But those ideas go against other notions of psychology which claim that while we often resent authority, we actually rely on it every day for our continuing existence. We have a love-hate relationship with authority, just like we do with our villains. Some believe that villains are necessary in order to facilitate good heroes and heroines. As a literary tool, villains are what gives our heroes something to do. Our heroes would be nothing without them, they claim. But I wonder if there is another idea at play. Because quite often the vil...

About what or whom do you feel compassionate? Compassion literally means to “ co-suffer,” which sounds a lot like empathy, when you think about it. Different from empathy, however, though still closely related, compassion is the desire to alleviate the suffering of another. Empathy is the ability to perceiveBy and sometimes even feel another’s suffering. But where empathy feels, compassion acts. It must. One important facet of compassion is in how it differs from the concept known as altruism. Altruism as a concept is a bit of a fabrication, actually, of 19th century French philosopher Auguste Comte. He was looking to create a word that could serve as a good opposite to the word egoism, which is itself a word to describe those who only think of themselves. But the opposite of thinking only of oneself can’t be about thinking of everyone but oneself. Because there‘s actually never a time when we don’t think of ourselves. We’re always aware of how we fit into a situation and ...

Whose bright idea was it to forgive and forget? It’s been an idiom of the english language for over 600 years, yet is it really good advice? I ask because when we’re being recommended to forgive, forget seems to be the very next word we all think of. Yet, I think forgetting is only in the best interest of the person who has done the wrong in the first place. I’m sure they’d love for you to forget what they did. I’m guessing it was a guilty party who first invented the phrase to get themselves off the hook. Not so fast. Remembering is accountability. For instance, we should definitely remember US Confederate history. That’s not the same thing as honoring it. We have special places for things we want to make sure we don’t forget. They’re not the same places we put things we wish to honor. We will have to forgive our past in order to come to terms with it. But we won’t accomplish it by forgetting. Some history just needs its proper place and context. Just as there’s a difference ...

Life is complicated. Right now we face so many challenges. Our perceived ability to control our world continues to slip through our fingers every day. But we are still designed for joy and for community. And we are agile enough to survive this. We’re incredibly creative and adaptable. And though we sometimes use that adaptability and agility to further dig ourselves into a hole, we, for the most part, usually take two steps forward for every one step back. The long game is to our advantage. Have courage.  Perhaps, it would be worthwhile to consider that there is more to us than what we appear. The greater consciousness of humanity—meaning what the majority of us are thinking or praying about at any one given time—has been shown to play a part in how things unfold. Including the ways which appear to be beyond our ability to intervene. Mysteriousness. Is consciousness at work in places we don’t readily assume? Does our consciousness affect things? Things like the planet, perhap...