Tag Archives: world

Diversity vs. Conformity

One big melting pot for humanity? What a shame it would be to lose the beautiful diversity of various human cultures and history.

Yes, there is great value in mixing, appreciating the sameness and differences, learning to live with each other in harmony. The biggest lessons may be cooperation and universal love.

But in order to do this successfully, respect for each other’s uniqueness and cultural differences is essential. If we ourselves, and our world leaders, require that everything and everyone be “all the same”, then where is that leading us? Conformity is a soul crusher. Observe the world of nature around you. It displays diversity to the nth degree.

This is the challenge that faces us in building new societies: To orchestrate a harmonious blending of humanity, but also retain the valuable diversity. Appreciating the uniqueness of others helps to make life an expansive and rich experience. Travel is a valuable tool for building this understanding.

Inspirational Quotes:

“The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.” ~ Wade Davis

“Nature is busy creating absolutely unique individuals, whereas culture has invented a single mold to which all must conform. It is grotesque.” ~ U. G. Krishnamurti

“Being different will always threaten the institution of understanding of a closed mind. However, evolution is built on difference, changing and the concept of thinking outside the box. Live to be your own unique brand, without apology.” ~ Shannon L. Alder

“The second way of finding a meaning in life is by experiencing something – such as goodness, truth and beauty – by experiencing nature and culture or, last but not least, by experiencing another human being in his very uniqueness – by loving him.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Why Would I?

Why would I want
to be like
everybody else?
By some miracle
of Creation,
I am unique,
I came here to
make my own
contributions to
the world.

If you and I
think like
everybody else,
we all become
a goopy,
boring,
stagnant,
uncreative,
unproductive,
homogenized,
mishmash of
conformist
hive minds
wearing the same hat.

Why would I?
Why would you?

Poem Why Would I? is from Soul Journey: The Poetry of Life. (It’s a free ebook.)

Save or Savor?

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“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world, and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” ~ E.B. White

I know exactly what E.B. White means…

Must it be a choice? Perhaps the answer to E.B. White’s dilemma is to savor the world every day, while we save it. Or maybe savoring it, in actual fact, saves it? (Gratitude and reverence.)

It’s a very delicate balance. I believe we are here to do both.

What do artists and writers have to say about the world? Speaking as both, I think they fall into two main categories. They either want you to see the beauty, so you’ll savor it. Or, they want you to see the ugliness and pain, so that you’ll help to make it better. I think there is value in both approaches. My art (drawings and paintings) have always been about the beauty. In my writing, I try to walk a line of showing both sides of the coin, because life is hugely complex, and we cannot truly appreciate anything without tasting its opposite.

On days when the state of the world gets me a little bit down, I come back to thoughts of purpose. This is a very beautiful world (the Earth and we humans who inhabit it), one to be savored (life is a gift), and therefore one worth saving from that which craves to destroy it. Part of my personal journey has been one of finding the correct balance of save and savor, because if one is not careful, “save” can begin to overtake.

I hope you have a beautiful Sunday, however you spend it. For me, Sunday is purely a savor day, one of rest and to focus on the beauty.

Inspirational Quotes

“We’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.”
~ Joseph Campbell

“What I’ve come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion.”
~ Chris Abani

“Books are letters in bottles, cast into the waves of time, from one person trying to save the world to another.” ~ Amal El-Mohta

Life Is a Gift

It’s a blue-sky day,
one of those
beauteous blue-full,
joyously jocular,
splendidly splashy,
exceptional days –
I long to shout
LIFE IS A GIFT
in unmistakable
letters across the
blue shiny yonder,
to imprint them
indelibly on your
mind, so you’ll –

Remember when
the dark clouds roll
in, on a day when
life feels pissy and
oh so problematic,
to take a deep breath,
and close your eyes,
and gently pull the
gray gloom aside,
to see those big
oh so true words
I etched on blue
for you, so that
you’d never forget –

Life is a gift.

Our Essence is Freedom

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There was a time in Hawaii – I will never forget it – when the ocean spoke to me of freedom. A storm was blowing in from Japan, and word in the community was that within a couple of days the surfing would be stellar. That same night, my partner and I awoke at midnight to the thunderous sound of pounding waves. We headed out immediately to check it out at Makena Beach (also known as Big Beach) somewhat nearby.

This was one of the calmer beaches, not a surfer hangout. The waves were already spectacular! There were no man-made lights, save for several small dots twinkling way off in the far distance. When we arrived, the scene that lay before us took my breath away. Makena beach and the water were lit brilliantly by a magnificent full moon. Light clouds flitted in and out in the strong breeze. The rolling huge waves frothed white in the blazing moonlight, crashing wildly on the shore.

We took our shoes off and walked. The beauty and power of the scene were intoxicating, and my soul was unleashed in a way I had never experienced before.

I felt what it means to be just a human being on the Earth, and the inherent freedom of my soul. For just a little while, the pulse of nature ran through me like a jolt of electricity. I felt the wildness and joy of my essence. I was completely alive, and I did not want that feeling to end.

The wild, untamed places discovered in my travels without fail have this affect; they speak to my soul. And I have come to understand this: Our essence is freedom, and we must never let that go.

A brief quote about freedom from Shawshank Redemption:

“Sometimes it makes me sad, though… Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright.

Too many people don’t realize that their feathers are too bright to be caged. When that changes, the world also will change. It’s time to claim your bright feathers, if you have not done so already.

This is a repost from Sept. 2022 in response to “Danger and Wonder at Peggy’s Cove”, a recent post by my good friend Alegria at Life With Alegria. Her expression of intoxication surrounding her Atlantic Ocean experience reminded me so much of my own experience on a Hawaiian beach (with another ocean) many years ago. I highly recommend that you check out Alegria’s blog, where she explores the many facets of finding your joy in life.

My novelette The Turquoise Heart is currently being offered as a free download. Help yourself to a copy today.

Becoming One

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Wholly

Living life wholly, fully, completely,
is a process of learning,
with full awareness
and reverently,
for life IS holy –
I don’t mean religiously,
but yes, spiritually,
and respectfully
of All of Life,
not sacrificially
of yourself,
your own soul,
your learning,
but cooperatively
with humanity,
compassionately,
understandingly,
gracefully,
lovingly,
becoming
wholly
One.

Letter to Humanity

On the winding path of life we’re here to learn,
that love’s greatest lessons are not to be spurned.

Be faithful and true first of all to yourself,
but don’t leave your heart sitting on a back shelf.

Brave the big world and embrace what you see,
we all contribute to humanity.

Love is the compass to navigate our way,
a world of connections needs no special day.

The challenge, you see, is to each do our part,
to heal the world, we have to live from the heart.

Unison

Heart, mind, and vision,
intention creates action,
people have power.

Subscribe here to be notified of the arrival of The Turquoise Heart.(Coming soon!)

Check out my ebooks store. Some are free! / Poems are from Soul Journey and Humanity’s Lament

An Awakening Humanity

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There is a spiritual revolution quietly brewing in the heart of humanity. A surging, monumental wave undulates persistently around the world. Can you feel it?

The process began with the pandemic. Isolation removed our normal distractions, making room for some valuable time for introspection. Oh, we tried our best to fill up that vacuum with various projects and more social media. But that nagging feeling that our lives weren’t quite right in the first place, “what are we trying to get back to?“ did not fully go away.

The curtain was pulled aside, the yawning void was revealed, and for some people that was scarier than any virus ever could be.

Questioning how we’ve been living our lives

“I thought my life had meaning, now I’m not so sure. Why was I busting my butt all those mornings, commuting to a job I hated? Why did I put the dream of a big house before the dream of a happy and cohesive family? Why did I sacrifice my own dreams so I could try to measure up to society’s yard stick of success?”

And on it goes. The monologue playing in your head would have been different than the next person’s, but you get the idea. We were (and still are) in a time of extreme self-examination, as we open our eyes to the dysfunctional aspects of society.

Much of it is not pretty, so we are inclined to turn our eyes away. But wait! Isn’t that what we’ve been doing for too long now? Losing ourselves in our technological devices? Trusting that everything would be taken care of for us by external authority? Trusting that the formula for life that society insisted we adhere to was a good one? Trusting the message that we shouldn’t trust in ourselves, after all, what could we possibly know?

The big opportunity for change

To say that this time is important is hugely understating it. Humanity is riding a wave, the cusp of a gargantuan shift in consciousness. Change is a scary proposition, and we have a tendency to avoid it at all cost. However, the uncomfortable global reality has thrown down the gauntlet for you, me, and the rest of humanity. The big question hanging in the air is, will we rise to the occasion and create a better society for ourselves, or continue to tell ourselves that someone else will “take care of it”?

It’s important that we all take the time to ask questions, and while we’re searching for the answers, listen not only to our heads, but also to our hearts and guts (intuition). There’s a collective voice crying to be heard, and you and I are part of it.

Hear its song and feel its pulse. We are all inextricably connected.

Inspirational Quotes:

“Awareness is the greatest agent for change.”~ Eckhart Tolle

“Once the soul awakens, the search begins and you can never go back. From then on, you are inflamed with a special longing that will never again let you linger in the lowlands of complacency and partial fulfillment. The eternal makes you urgent. You are loath to let compromise or the threat of danger hold you back from striving toward the summit of fulfillment.” ~ John O’Donohue

“We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” ~ Albert Camus

“You have wakened not out of sleep, but into a prior dream, and that dream lies within another, and so on, to infinity, which is the number of grains of sand. The path that you are to take is endless, and you will die before you have truly awakened.” ~ Jorge Luis Borges

“You are never alone. You are eternally connected with everyone.” ~ Amit Ray

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc., is sure to be noticed.” ~ Søren Kierkegaard

“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.” ~ John Steinbeck

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