Kelowna, BC
Joy in the present moment from the vernacular body:
“Joy is not ‘perfect circumstances.’ If it were, joy would never come.
This is joy: going to the woods, seeing flags play in the wind, contemplating the snow and the setting sun.
This is joy: rising to the top of a hillock in an abandoned landscape, and being surprised by the sight of a red-haired jogger lying on her back making a snow angel.
This: laughter splashing about in the dark.”
Thanks to the cassandra pages for the link.
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Kelowna, BC
John Nichols writes in Tha Nation about Hunter S. Thompson’s political legacy, the one that came from his stab at municipal politics in Colorado in the 1970s.
It’s a good piece that expands Thompson’s influence beyond the bat-filled skies of the Nevada desert and the dwindling expense accounts of Saigon towards a politics in which political outsiders seize control of the power structure by the radical act of voting.
Although Thompson never won the race for sheriff of Pitkin County, he set a standard and a way forward that was mimicked elsewhere in the United States resulting in many radical candidates in public office at the local level. In my experience there are many more non-traditional politicians at the local level in American politics than even in this great pluralistic democracy to the North. That is changing, notably in my own community of Bowen Island and in some of the surrounding municipalities o Gibson’s and Vancouver where Greens are getting elected, but in general, local politics seems to have the same flavour as the Chambers of Commerce. It’s rare to see local politicians elected who are willing to push out the status quo.
Nichols’ article ends with this aphorism of Thompson’s: “Yesterday’s weirdness is tomorrow’s reason why.”
Good advice. It never hurts to have a few crazy ideas in the mix!
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George Nemeth, Jack Ricchiuto and I got into a Skype chat earlier this evening about holding space. George later linked to this list of the precepts of a Buddhist warrior. It’s amazing. Here’s a sample:
Have compassion for all beings, causing them no unnecessary hurt, nor needless harm.
Refrain from needless competitiveness, from contriving for self-advantage, and from subjugating others.
When accepting authority over others, know also that you accept responsibility for their well being.
Value true friendship, and fulfill your obligations, rather than striving with egotistical motive.
Seek liberation from the negative passions of hatred, envy, greed and rage, and especially from delusion, deceit and sensory desire.
Learn to let go of that which cannot be owned, or which is destroyed by grasping.
Seek the courage to be; defend yourself, and your convictions.
Accept transience, the inevitable and the irrevocable. Know that change exists in everything. Negate the barriers to your awakening; discover the positive in the negative, and seek a meaningful purpose in what you do.
Go read the whole thing and then live by it. Thanks George.
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My dad is a smart guy (although he doesn’t blog enough!). His has been retired for a few years now, having paid his dues in middle management in the insurance business with a short stint in the provincial public service. As a retiree he has been more than active in his community in Ontario, building bridges on the Bruce Trail, chairing his local library board and generally being an active citizen in his village.
He has picked up a fair amount of wisdom over the years, and among his favourite observations is that every human endeavour, whether for profit or not, is essentially a volunteer effort. Nothing happens in organizations and communities without people stepping up and agreeing to do the job. No matter how much you are paid to do a job, the actual DOING of it hinges on the same thing that drives people to volunteer.
Today I note a post at Nipun’s blog (my new favourite read) that my dad will love:
Volunteerism is all personal effort. So, for me, it’s a no brainer that personal effort work is infinitely better than contractual work. But personal effort comes with baggage — personal laziness and personal ego. Lot of volunteers slack off and those that don’t are generally stuck in their egos; and the only way to counter that is a strong base of spirituality.
There is an article attached top that post about discretionary effort that rings true too.
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Help!
I love Firefox. But today as I was surfing, I closed it down and it crashed. When I went to restart it, it refused to start up and instead offered to tell Micrsoift about the problem.
So after trying that a few times, I thought I might take this chance to upgrade to 1.0. Downloaded that and did it, all set up, but get the same launch problem. It just won’t open.
Decide to do an uninstall. Get rid of all the versions (except that 0.9 now can’t find an uninstall directory) and I scrubbed the registry even of all the Mozilla directories there, following a tip I read about. Reinstalled 1.0 and no change. I can’t open it, and I fear I will never be able to run Firefox again.
I’m running Windows XP. So far I haven’t found any help online that has fixed this for me. How about you guys out there?