A fascinating peep into your journal, Don. I loved reading your ‘raw’ thoughts as they first hit the page. Would you consider repeating this occasionally ?
I’m commenting fresh as I’ve just read the first entry, so there might be more comments from me, if I feel called to write more. Here, I’d like to touch on this very notion of a “calling”. Your take on it was captivating to me because in my own writing, I sometimes say that there’s a calling within us which asks of us big things—openness of the heart, courage to dismantle our “self” bit by bit, and to know the truth. In my understanding, the calling we all carry is the calling to become free from ignorance and suffering. And following this calling is a path of fulfilling our deepest potential. It is within the means of nearly everyone (as the access to the internet spreads for better or worse), and it doesn’t require a specific job or external circumstances (with some exceptions of course). I wonder, what is your take on such a perspective on the calling? I’d be very grateful to hear your thoughts on this subject!
Thanks, Justyna. That’s a great question, and I’m looking forward to replying. I am off to dinner and then my evening meditation group so I just didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you if I don’t respond until tomorrow. I really appreciate you being here! 🙏
Well, just as a quick reply, I would say that I use that language too. I feel called to uncover the truth, to live according to my true nature, to find both work and a way of being that feels right to me. And, as I mentioned in the essay, writing these essays about these ideas absolutely feels like a calling.
The source of those callings? Well, that’s a whole other subject that might take a little more time. 😊
I love the way you describe that, Justyna. That's similar to my understanding as well, which feels much more liberating than adhering to a fixed notion of vocation as a 'calling.'
I like how John O'Donohue, in Anam Cara, says that our bodies are "ancient clay" and carry echoes of our ancestors. I don't believe it's just a metaphor. In that respect, we feel "called" because there are so many messages within, waiting for us to listen to the ones that make the most sense, that feel right, that speak the loudest. We can apply those callings to modern society, to our own place and circumstances, in many different ways (like you say Maia: listen to our gifts and see where we can apply them in our current lives).
Yes, I think I'm happy with this definition and source of "callings." Within my structure is a hunter on the savannah, a story-teller in a red rocks canyon, a politician in Ancient Greece, a potter in Mesopotamia, a dreaming boy by a river in Africa, a slave in Egypt...
Our ancestral thread is an undeniable source of both motivation and, I suppose, obligation to fulfil certain roles and "projects" in our lives.
As you write, the key might be in exercising the right discernment—following what feels right and wholesome—while continuing to deepen our understanding of where this pull or "calling" comes from and how it manifests in our lives.
I do believe we all have this driving force, which can be termed a ‘calling’ or simply a pull of our potential from the inside out, demanding of us that we do what’s within our power to realise and expand the capabilities we’ve been given in this life.
The trouble, I suppose, begins when we use the notion of a ‘calling’ as an ideology—an excuse to take unwholesome actions or to reinforce our sense of separate selves.
On the other hand, it can also be used as simple and humble guidance, especially in times when we feel lost and confused—when it leads us exactly where we are meant to be, again and again—standing at the shoreline of the unknown. Not trying to drain this ocean of uncertainty, but learning to swim in it gently.
Following our potential, or ‘calling,’ will inevitably force us to become friends with uncertainty, as it leads us on a path that’s uniquely ours, and therefore—unpredictable.
There's a lot of great ideas here, and I love all of them. I'll just pick one to briefly comment on, if only for my own fun. Namely, that every concept is wrong. As soon as we say "I am that," or anything else at all, we might as well be the sound of wind rustling through leaves. It's just a sound. Or ink on paper. Or voltage differentials in tiny calculating rocks we call microchips. Whatever it is, it's not some kind of Truth that really encapsulates what the universe is really all about, or even partially about. It's just the universe doing its thing. And I am so grateful to, somehow, get to witness and experience and BE it! From this gratitude for experience, it's easy to see where we move to fear of death, which is the end of SOME kind of experience. I'd like to think I've made progress towards being less afraid of death. Of course I agree with everything you've written about it just being a transition, no matter what your beliefs or metaphysics. I haven't come close to death, really ever (another thing to be grateful for), so it's hard to say if I've actually made progress in this way. But really, who's to label it "progress" anyway? I just am, and I am part of Nature, and we are all beautiful, and I will continue to love being your friend and love writing poetry, though I know it's all just scribbles and wiggles. Wait a second, who's to say it's "just" anything?? OK I better end this comment before this spiral of absurdity goes another layer deep.
😀🤪🤣 thanks for making me laugh, Mike! Yesterday, I was feeling incredibly anxious about an upcoming therapy appointment with my son. And I had a similar response; I almost laughed at myself for ever thinking that I would be able to overcome anxiety. Perhaps the reason for the fear of death is because we think. Can we stop thinking? I doubt it.
Laughter is the best! When we're laughing—and I mean REALLY laughing—it's uncontrollable and the universe laughs with us! How lovely and important to find the humor in things, even very difficult things. I think this is why nervous laughter evolved...nature/society/ego's way of trying to imitate the effortless dance of true laughter, to cover up or pretend when we're really in the throes of anxiety.
‘Energy is neither created nor destroyed’. Always so comforting.
People like to attach themselves to beliefs that they consider to be ‘Truths’. The older we get, the more we realise that nothing is that black and white. Life experience teaches us so much that is ‘logical’ Is not actually ‘True’. (Examples range from assertions about a damp or dry rag being best to clean up with, to things like ghosts! Life teaches us so much if we just remain open to it.)
These are my little thoughts ‘inspired by’ your little thoughts. 😃🤗 Thanks so much for sharing. 🤗❤️💕
Diamond is making his own calling, of course, and yes, there is no 'fate' dictating what we're supposed to do here or not. There is no 'supposing,' there is no predetermination. Fate only lies in hindsight, and that a human construct of recollection and sentiment. That said...there are tracks that are formed with following a goal-oriented path up the ladder of nirvana/spheres/planes. But there are many paths that have nothing to do with vocation nor conclusions of actions. As you well know, being a man of being. :)
All very good points. Thank you for commenting, Frank.
Yes, I had shared this journal entry with Diamond in a private message. I didn’t want him to think I was contradicting him. It was more that he had inspired some thoughts 😊
I love this. We do attach such importance to our work, finding our calling/whatever, I think because work occupies so much of our time in life.
But in that, too, there is choice. And when I look back on my own work history, I see I was given a culture that attached moral value to work. I worked so hard for so long and then when it didn’t “pay off”, tangibly, this gave rise to bitterness and resentment. How could I now be at mid-life with so little to show for my work?
In the larger picture, though, I wish I’d simply de-prioritized work overall. What I did for money didn’t need to preoccupy so much of my consciousness. I wish I’d focused more on relationships, instead. And having learnt that lesson, I’m trying to carry it forward into the second half of my life.
Late-stage capitalism has us thinking that our work is who we are!
This is a great and interesting take on work, Liya. The subject is important to me, for similar reason to yours. The journal entry to which you’re referencing was meant to be an essay in itself, and now I’m beginning to see that I was on to something! (so many are responding to this part of my cobbled-together post).
You’re certainly right that work occupies so much of our time, and I think our relationship to work is a mix of so many different elements, different needs (money, purpose and meaning, structure, sense-of-self).
Your profile description—”former teacher, failed academic…pursuer of good enough”—intrigues me and makes me feel we may have a lot in common. I’m looking forward to reading more of your stuff! 💚
Oh, great! I’m knee-deep in the painful process of reforging those core relationships — to work, to family, to ourselves, to our partners. To how we engage with the world. Work is a central relationship that I’ve been interrogating now for several years and finally starting to take some tentative steps towards creating a new one. I think we attribute too much value to work in itself, expect too much reward. The rewards tend to be more limited and very personal, which again points to our internal abilities and not our external ones.
I’m glad to have found someone of like mind, who makes his bread and butter in a way that’s good enough (yours is carpentry, mine is teaching, both are good enough!).
You know, Liya, I never put it in those terms—good enough—but that is exactly what carpentry is, and has been all these years.
I just started a public Note chat (on the Notes wall, not "chat" or DM) about this subject. I would love to see this comment there for others to see. Also, I just responded to someone else there about my attitude in my younger years toward work that was "more than good enough." (Basically, I couldn't do it if it didn't pay the bills. I wasn't able to concentrate on that kind of creativity)
Don, anything you write is enough for me. Case in point, that first journal entry is a whole world of wisdom unto itself.
My book "Loveable" had the working title "The Day You Find Out Why." Twain said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." So I set out to write a book about purpose, only to discover I couldn't do it without first unpacking all the baggage our shame attaches to our sense of purpose. Wealth, legacy, even impact. So the book dismantles shame from the start and ultimately substitutes the word passion for purpose.
Currently, I most resonate with Howard Thurman's way of describing a calling. "Don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and go do it, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Don, you are letting us watch you come alive, and it is a great inspiration for each of us to come alive as well!
always grounding, thank you. I've been struggling with feeling judged in a new social situation and this reminded me that life transcends the petty and small
Your take on a “life calling” really resonates with me, and is a much more mature, thoughtful reaction than my knee jerk, profane reaction to that type of thought. I’m maybe about halfway through my life (funny how you can never know when you’ve hit midlife - eh, let’s hope it’s approximately here and not decades ago 🤷♀️) so I’m sure there will be more learning, but something I think I’ve genuinely figured out is that regrets don’t come from what you didn’t accomplish. I’ve made some pretty poor choices that haven’t worked out for me and am in the grips of one now that is extremely uncomfortable and yet… I still have no regrets. Because no matter how I look back at the thing I really could have done better and prevented all of this, I did the best I could and was true to myself at the time. There’s no way I can twist it to make it better for me now that doesn’t betray who I was then. The ultimate self betrayal isn’t in refusing your life calling or any such thing… it’s refusing to listen to your inner self. It’s refusing to listen to your values.
You’re so right, Heather. If you’re a thoughtful rather than impulsive person, and you try your hardest with what you have at the time to make the right decision, and it ends up just about the worst decision you could have made, how can you be hard on yourself? All you can do is forgive yourself, accept that at the time, you didn’t have all the pieces. And those pieces may include strength of character, courage. We don’t just get those traits out of nowhere. We have to earn them through our mistakes and suffering.
I myself ignored red flags out of loneliness and fear when I was young. Still paying for those decisions! But it just is what it is (My son thinks that my acceptance of my mistakes is taking the easy way out and denying responsibility. I hope some day he, too, learns self-forgiveness and acceptance and how to live in the here and now and let go and all that).
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Heather. I really appreciate it! 🙏💚
Learning to recognize red flags comes sort of from education but mostly from lived experience. Most good people believe other people are good too and to believe otherwise would violate who they are. And it isn’t fair to expect someone to enter adulthood with the experience of a senior. Or even to expect your younger self to listen to your parents and not date/love/form relationship with someone they view as riddled with red flags. If they even dare try to tell you (which they may not because they don’t want to force you to choose and they can’t bear losing you).
Of course this means your son won’t be listening to your experience either! Alas. But by accepting it you have accepted responsibility. You’ve just refused to blame yourself. There’s a big difference! I don’t accept blame, for example, for my sensitivity to light and sound. But I do accept responsibility for living with it. (Dim lights, earplugs, time alone- then my family doesn’t have to deal with overstimulated tetchy me - responsibility without the blame)
Living life and filing it with study, especially the study of history and of life have taught me that change is the only constant element of life. I also like your answer about whether or not you are a Buddhist. I find many of the lessons I read from the Buddha and others on this path resonate with things I had already suspected are true. I’ve also concluded that the majority of the world’s religions have many good ideas in common but the institutions that identify with each faith have chosen to emphasize their often petty differences.
Thanks Robert. It’s true that as soon as you indoctrinate any great idea, you freeze it in time. Then you have to defend the idea even as the world and people continue to change.
The greatest shame is when clashes among ambitious individuals in such institutions are allegedly about an obscure point of doctrine rather admitting that it’s really about the individual’s self serving ambition.
You know, Robert, the only ordained Buddhist monk I know is (in my opinion) a narcissist. The priest from my childhood Catholic Church is under investigation for the usual. Krishnamurti chastised students for questioning him.
There is richness here, Don. I'm struck, first, by how your voice on these pages and those of your journal are so much the same. I mean, duh! Of course! But my point really is that had you not told me these were just raw excerpts from your medications (...er...meditations...! thought I'd just leave that little typo for grins and giggles) I would not have noticed a significant shift. You journal as though you are communicating with an audience, an Observer. Perhaps we all do? I've not given that much consideration until now.
I quite appreciated your thoughts on how everything becomes something else, even and especially after death. In fact, as a recent post of yours described by using waves as an example, we are all always flowing into and out of everything around us, and they into and out of us. "It’s quite miraculous and dumbfounding and humbling to think that all of my ancestors, going back to the beginning of life on earth, surround me and encompass me right here, right now." Isn't that so exhilarating?! 🌟
Thank you, Elizabeth, that’s very nice. And I really appreciate your reading and giving my essay your energy and thought and time. I am deeply honored by that!
Another reader commented on this; that these writings are pretty polished for journal entries. She was relieved to hear that I don’t normally journal like this. Most of my journal entries, like hers, are messy half thoughts and ideas. It’s just that over the past couple of weeks. I had used my journal to compose responses to some Substack essays, And knowing I might share them, I wrote more slowly and carefully. It was just lucky that I had those writings available when I found myself in need of a post quickly.
I think, too, that now that I have a Substack blog, whenever I write in my journal, I am aware that my thoughts could become an essay. That probably influences my journal writing. 🙂
Thanks again, Elizabeth. I really appreciate you. 🙏💚
Don, I get a lot of value out of your writing as it forces me to think of the manner in which I approach life and the world around me. One of the threads that has appeared time and again in the weaving of my own life is this idea of constant change. So many people are trying to discover who they are supposed to be or where their life is heading without really grasping where and who they are right now. Our true nature is in constant flux, taking in new information, molding ourselves to the moment. I am learning to live in this moment. To not impose unnecessary expectations on myself and to give myself a lot of grace. I find that serendipity brings so much good my way when I don't have a pre-conceived idea of how things should go.
Something about your comment, Matthew, gave me a sudden really clear bead on this; that if life is constant change, then trying to understand “who we are” is a waste of time. It’s like trying to determine the shape of a blob of paint still running down the side of the paint can.
Raised Catholic with a chosen degree in Religious Studies from a Catholic college, I worried about my life's purpose, God's calling for me, for much of my initial decades. Five decades in and this isn't as worrisome anymore. The best way I have found (so far) to describe my understanding of Me in this manifestation comes from Alice In Wonderland: Don't try to cut the plum pudding, serve it and the pudding will cut itself.
To live is my purpose. I find the meaning is in the living of life.
Thank you, Don. Just what I needed to "hear." At almost 65, following a late transition from homemaker to retiree, I've realized that by our culture's standards, I've wasted my life. No more thinking Iike that! Also, I've been struggling with/ wondering whether I'm really a Secular Buddhist or an imposter in my weekly sangha. No more labels for me! It's finally time to just be :-) Thank you for sharing your honest thoughts from your journal. (I just noticed "journal" & "journey" link :-)
Good heavens,Joni, I was literally just thinking about this imposter question. My sangha is very open and welcoming, affiliated with Vippassana Buddhism, but not hardliner, And yet I still also sometimes wonder, just like you, If they would be mad at me if they find out that I sometimes think we need to forget all about Buddha. Keep the wisdom but forget about the man. It’s all Buddha this, Sutra that, 5 of this, 8 of that!
Ugh, those numbered lists! I realize they probably were useful memory tools in a pre-literate culture; but that structure seems dogmatic to me. My sangha, called the Zen Pub, is very open and accepting, too. But, secular buddhism is rather undefined; I'm not sure which parts we like or don't like ;-) As the ancient Zen writing Trust in Mind says, "To see the truth, don't be for or against. Likes and dislikes are the mind's dis-ease. If you miss this deep meaning, it is useless to still your thoughts."
Good one! I remember many years ago, before discovering mindfulness, meditation, and Buddhism, when I suddenly realized that when I say I like something or don’t like something, I’m saying nothing about that thing and everything about myself. That must have been my first step in realizing how all-encompassing our sense of self is, how it creates and defines this world that we think is “not us.”
A fascinating peep into your journal, Don. I loved reading your ‘raw’ thoughts as they first hit the page. Would you consider repeating this occasionally ?
Absolutely!. Thanks, Maureen! 😊
I’m commenting fresh as I’ve just read the first entry, so there might be more comments from me, if I feel called to write more. Here, I’d like to touch on this very notion of a “calling”. Your take on it was captivating to me because in my own writing, I sometimes say that there’s a calling within us which asks of us big things—openness of the heart, courage to dismantle our “self” bit by bit, and to know the truth. In my understanding, the calling we all carry is the calling to become free from ignorance and suffering. And following this calling is a path of fulfilling our deepest potential. It is within the means of nearly everyone (as the access to the internet spreads for better or worse), and it doesn’t require a specific job or external circumstances (with some exceptions of course). I wonder, what is your take on such a perspective on the calling? I’d be very grateful to hear your thoughts on this subject!
Thanks, Justyna. That’s a great question, and I’m looking forward to replying. I am off to dinner and then my evening meditation group so I just didn’t want you to think I was ignoring you if I don’t respond until tomorrow. I really appreciate you being here! 🙏
Well, just as a quick reply, I would say that I use that language too. I feel called to uncover the truth, to live according to my true nature, to find both work and a way of being that feels right to me. And, as I mentioned in the essay, writing these essays about these ideas absolutely feels like a calling.
The source of those callings? Well, that’s a whole other subject that might take a little more time. 😊
I love the way you describe that, Justyna. That's similar to my understanding as well, which feels much more liberating than adhering to a fixed notion of vocation as a 'calling.'
I like how John O'Donohue, in Anam Cara, says that our bodies are "ancient clay" and carry echoes of our ancestors. I don't believe it's just a metaphor. In that respect, we feel "called" because there are so many messages within, waiting for us to listen to the ones that make the most sense, that feel right, that speak the loudest. We can apply those callings to modern society, to our own place and circumstances, in many different ways (like you say Maia: listen to our gifts and see where we can apply them in our current lives).
Yes, I think I'm happy with this definition and source of "callings." Within my structure is a hunter on the savannah, a story-teller in a red rocks canyon, a politician in Ancient Greece, a potter in Mesopotamia, a dreaming boy by a river in Africa, a slave in Egypt...
I'm listening.
That's a very valuable point, Don.
Our ancestral thread is an undeniable source of both motivation and, I suppose, obligation to fulfil certain roles and "projects" in our lives.
As you write, the key might be in exercising the right discernment—following what feels right and wholesome—while continuing to deepen our understanding of where this pull or "calling" comes from and how it manifests in our lives.
Thank you, Maia!
I do believe we all have this driving force, which can be termed a ‘calling’ or simply a pull of our potential from the inside out, demanding of us that we do what’s within our power to realise and expand the capabilities we’ve been given in this life.
The trouble, I suppose, begins when we use the notion of a ‘calling’ as an ideology—an excuse to take unwholesome actions or to reinforce our sense of separate selves.
On the other hand, it can also be used as simple and humble guidance, especially in times when we feel lost and confused—when it leads us exactly where we are meant to be, again and again—standing at the shoreline of the unknown. Not trying to drain this ocean of uncertainty, but learning to swim in it gently.
Following our potential, or ‘calling,’ will inevitably force us to become friends with uncertainty, as it leads us on a path that’s uniquely ours, and therefore—unpredictable.
There's a lot of great ideas here, and I love all of them. I'll just pick one to briefly comment on, if only for my own fun. Namely, that every concept is wrong. As soon as we say "I am that," or anything else at all, we might as well be the sound of wind rustling through leaves. It's just a sound. Or ink on paper. Or voltage differentials in tiny calculating rocks we call microchips. Whatever it is, it's not some kind of Truth that really encapsulates what the universe is really all about, or even partially about. It's just the universe doing its thing. And I am so grateful to, somehow, get to witness and experience and BE it! From this gratitude for experience, it's easy to see where we move to fear of death, which is the end of SOME kind of experience. I'd like to think I've made progress towards being less afraid of death. Of course I agree with everything you've written about it just being a transition, no matter what your beliefs or metaphysics. I haven't come close to death, really ever (another thing to be grateful for), so it's hard to say if I've actually made progress in this way. But really, who's to label it "progress" anyway? I just am, and I am part of Nature, and we are all beautiful, and I will continue to love being your friend and love writing poetry, though I know it's all just scribbles and wiggles. Wait a second, who's to say it's "just" anything?? OK I better end this comment before this spiral of absurdity goes another layer deep.
😀🤪🤣 thanks for making me laugh, Mike! Yesterday, I was feeling incredibly anxious about an upcoming therapy appointment with my son. And I had a similar response; I almost laughed at myself for ever thinking that I would be able to overcome anxiety. Perhaps the reason for the fear of death is because we think. Can we stop thinking? I doubt it.
Laughter is the best! When we're laughing—and I mean REALLY laughing—it's uncontrollable and the universe laughs with us! How lovely and important to find the humor in things, even very difficult things. I think this is why nervous laughter evolved...nature/society/ego's way of trying to imitate the effortless dance of true laughter, to cover up or pretend when we're really in the throes of anxiety.
‘Energy is neither created nor destroyed’. Always so comforting.
People like to attach themselves to beliefs that they consider to be ‘Truths’. The older we get, the more we realise that nothing is that black and white. Life experience teaches us so much that is ‘logical’ Is not actually ‘True’. (Examples range from assertions about a damp or dry rag being best to clean up with, to things like ghosts! Life teaches us so much if we just remain open to it.)
These are my little thoughts ‘inspired by’ your little thoughts. 😃🤗 Thanks so much for sharing. 🤗❤️💕
I love hearing your thoughts, Beth, thank you so much! 🙏💚
Diamond is making his own calling, of course, and yes, there is no 'fate' dictating what we're supposed to do here or not. There is no 'supposing,' there is no predetermination. Fate only lies in hindsight, and that a human construct of recollection and sentiment. That said...there are tracks that are formed with following a goal-oriented path up the ladder of nirvana/spheres/planes. But there are many paths that have nothing to do with vocation nor conclusions of actions. As you well know, being a man of being. :)
All very good points. Thank you for commenting, Frank.
Yes, I had shared this journal entry with Diamond in a private message. I didn’t want him to think I was contradicting him. It was more that he had inspired some thoughts 😊
He is an inspiring being. :)
“Everything that exists may change, but it doesn’t end. It continues to exist, only in a new form.”
.
Indeed, every thing changes and continues in a new form…
Each thing is moved by nature’s pattern.
Signals give direction.
The whole divides in to parts. 🧬
The parts move around and in and out of each other.
Like water flowing in rivers 💦 and oceans 🌊 and changing into vapor 💨 and snow ⛄️❄️and ice 🧊.
The water flows in and out of creatures 🐿️ and plants 🌱.
Every part is circulating, round and round. 💫☄️🪐⛈️🦠🧬🌪️
Things unFold 🌱 then enFold 🍂 .
Everything in the UNIverse fits 🧩 because each part belongs to the ONE whole cosmic song 🎻 and dance 💃🏻.
Thanks for your comment! I like that: “Everything unfolds, then enfolds.”
David Bohm often says unfold and enfold.
I love this. We do attach such importance to our work, finding our calling/whatever, I think because work occupies so much of our time in life.
But in that, too, there is choice. And when I look back on my own work history, I see I was given a culture that attached moral value to work. I worked so hard for so long and then when it didn’t “pay off”, tangibly, this gave rise to bitterness and resentment. How could I now be at mid-life with so little to show for my work?
In the larger picture, though, I wish I’d simply de-prioritized work overall. What I did for money didn’t need to preoccupy so much of my consciousness. I wish I’d focused more on relationships, instead. And having learnt that lesson, I’m trying to carry it forward into the second half of my life.
Late-stage capitalism has us thinking that our work is who we are!
This is a great and interesting take on work, Liya. The subject is important to me, for similar reason to yours. The journal entry to which you’re referencing was meant to be an essay in itself, and now I’m beginning to see that I was on to something! (so many are responding to this part of my cobbled-together post).
You’re certainly right that work occupies so much of our time, and I think our relationship to work is a mix of so many different elements, different needs (money, purpose and meaning, structure, sense-of-self).
Your profile description—”former teacher, failed academic…pursuer of good enough”—intrigues me and makes me feel we may have a lot in common. I’m looking forward to reading more of your stuff! 💚
Oh, great! I’m knee-deep in the painful process of reforging those core relationships — to work, to family, to ourselves, to our partners. To how we engage with the world. Work is a central relationship that I’ve been interrogating now for several years and finally starting to take some tentative steps towards creating a new one. I think we attribute too much value to work in itself, expect too much reward. The rewards tend to be more limited and very personal, which again points to our internal abilities and not our external ones.
I’m glad to have found someone of like mind, who makes his bread and butter in a way that’s good enough (yours is carpentry, mine is teaching, both are good enough!).
You know, Liya, I never put it in those terms—good enough—but that is exactly what carpentry is, and has been all these years.
I just started a public Note chat (on the Notes wall, not "chat" or DM) about this subject. I would love to see this comment there for others to see. Also, I just responded to someone else there about my attitude in my younger years toward work that was "more than good enough." (Basically, I couldn't do it if it didn't pay the bills. I wasn't able to concentrate on that kind of creativity)
I'll look for the note there!
Don, anything you write is enough for me. Case in point, that first journal entry is a whole world of wisdom unto itself.
My book "Loveable" had the working title "The Day You Find Out Why." Twain said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." So I set out to write a book about purpose, only to discover I couldn't do it without first unpacking all the baggage our shame attaches to our sense of purpose. Wealth, legacy, even impact. So the book dismantles shame from the start and ultimately substitutes the word passion for purpose.
Currently, I most resonate with Howard Thurman's way of describing a calling. "Don't ask what the world needs, ask what makes you come alive and go do it, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Don, you are letting us watch you come alive, and it is a great inspiration for each of us to come alive as well!
Thank you so much, Kelly. I also love and resonate with that quote!
I really appreciate the time you’ve put in here. Your attention is flattering and, all right, I’ll just say it, makes me feel lovable! ❤️❤️
Ha! Mission accomplished. 😊
always grounding, thank you. I've been struggling with feeling judged in a new social situation and this reminded me that life transcends the petty and small
I’m so glad my article was helpful, Liam. Thank you for reading and commenting. I wish you the very best in your situation. 🙏💚
Your take on a “life calling” really resonates with me, and is a much more mature, thoughtful reaction than my knee jerk, profane reaction to that type of thought. I’m maybe about halfway through my life (funny how you can never know when you’ve hit midlife - eh, let’s hope it’s approximately here and not decades ago 🤷♀️) so I’m sure there will be more learning, but something I think I’ve genuinely figured out is that regrets don’t come from what you didn’t accomplish. I’ve made some pretty poor choices that haven’t worked out for me and am in the grips of one now that is extremely uncomfortable and yet… I still have no regrets. Because no matter how I look back at the thing I really could have done better and prevented all of this, I did the best I could and was true to myself at the time. There’s no way I can twist it to make it better for me now that doesn’t betray who I was then. The ultimate self betrayal isn’t in refusing your life calling or any such thing… it’s refusing to listen to your inner self. It’s refusing to listen to your values.
You’re so right, Heather. If you’re a thoughtful rather than impulsive person, and you try your hardest with what you have at the time to make the right decision, and it ends up just about the worst decision you could have made, how can you be hard on yourself? All you can do is forgive yourself, accept that at the time, you didn’t have all the pieces. And those pieces may include strength of character, courage. We don’t just get those traits out of nowhere. We have to earn them through our mistakes and suffering.
I myself ignored red flags out of loneliness and fear when I was young. Still paying for those decisions! But it just is what it is (My son thinks that my acceptance of my mistakes is taking the easy way out and denying responsibility. I hope some day he, too, learns self-forgiveness and acceptance and how to live in the here and now and let go and all that).
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Heather. I really appreciate it! 🙏💚
Learning to recognize red flags comes sort of from education but mostly from lived experience. Most good people believe other people are good too and to believe otherwise would violate who they are. And it isn’t fair to expect someone to enter adulthood with the experience of a senior. Or even to expect your younger self to listen to your parents and not date/love/form relationship with someone they view as riddled with red flags. If they even dare try to tell you (which they may not because they don’t want to force you to choose and they can’t bear losing you).
Of course this means your son won’t be listening to your experience either! Alas. But by accepting it you have accepted responsibility. You’ve just refused to blame yourself. There’s a big difference! I don’t accept blame, for example, for my sensitivity to light and sound. But I do accept responsibility for living with it. (Dim lights, earplugs, time alone- then my family doesn’t have to deal with overstimulated tetchy me - responsibility without the blame)
Thanks, Heather. This is very thoughtful, wise, and kind. 🙏💚
Everything changes and everything stays the same that is how life is
Yes, indeed! 💚
Living life and filing it with study, especially the study of history and of life have taught me that change is the only constant element of life. I also like your answer about whether or not you are a Buddhist. I find many of the lessons I read from the Buddha and others on this path resonate with things I had already suspected are true. I’ve also concluded that the majority of the world’s religions have many good ideas in common but the institutions that identify with each faith have chosen to emphasize their often petty differences.
Thanks Robert. It’s true that as soon as you indoctrinate any great idea, you freeze it in time. Then you have to defend the idea even as the world and people continue to change.
The greatest shame is when clashes among ambitious individuals in such institutions are allegedly about an obscure point of doctrine rather admitting that it’s really about the individual’s self serving ambition.
You know, Robert, the only ordained Buddhist monk I know is (in my opinion) a narcissist. The priest from my childhood Catholic Church is under investigation for the usual. Krishnamurti chastised students for questioning him.
We’ve just got to be a light to ourselves.
There is richness here, Don. I'm struck, first, by how your voice on these pages and those of your journal are so much the same. I mean, duh! Of course! But my point really is that had you not told me these were just raw excerpts from your medications (...er...meditations...! thought I'd just leave that little typo for grins and giggles) I would not have noticed a significant shift. You journal as though you are communicating with an audience, an Observer. Perhaps we all do? I've not given that much consideration until now.
I quite appreciated your thoughts on how everything becomes something else, even and especially after death. In fact, as a recent post of yours described by using waves as an example, we are all always flowing into and out of everything around us, and they into and out of us. "It’s quite miraculous and dumbfounding and humbling to think that all of my ancestors, going back to the beginning of life on earth, surround me and encompass me right here, right now." Isn't that so exhilarating?! 🌟
Thank you, Elizabeth, that’s very nice. And I really appreciate your reading and giving my essay your energy and thought and time. I am deeply honored by that!
Another reader commented on this; that these writings are pretty polished for journal entries. She was relieved to hear that I don’t normally journal like this. Most of my journal entries, like hers, are messy half thoughts and ideas. It’s just that over the past couple of weeks. I had used my journal to compose responses to some Substack essays, And knowing I might share them, I wrote more slowly and carefully. It was just lucky that I had those writings available when I found myself in need of a post quickly.
I think, too, that now that I have a Substack blog, whenever I write in my journal, I am aware that my thoughts could become an essay. That probably influences my journal writing. 🙂
Thanks again, Elizabeth. I really appreciate you. 🙏💚
Ah, yes, that is illuminating - and smart! - so long as you can drop back into messy half thoughts when needed. I really appreciate you, too, Don.
Don, I get a lot of value out of your writing as it forces me to think of the manner in which I approach life and the world around me. One of the threads that has appeared time and again in the weaving of my own life is this idea of constant change. So many people are trying to discover who they are supposed to be or where their life is heading without really grasping where and who they are right now. Our true nature is in constant flux, taking in new information, molding ourselves to the moment. I am learning to live in this moment. To not impose unnecessary expectations on myself and to give myself a lot of grace. I find that serendipity brings so much good my way when I don't have a pre-conceived idea of how things should go.
Keep writing, keep sharing, keep simply being.
Something about your comment, Matthew, gave me a sudden really clear bead on this; that if life is constant change, then trying to understand “who we are” is a waste of time. It’s like trying to determine the shape of a blob of paint still running down the side of the paint can.
Thinking on the topics of 9/23 entry:
Raised Catholic with a chosen degree in Religious Studies from a Catholic college, I worried about my life's purpose, God's calling for me, for much of my initial decades. Five decades in and this isn't as worrisome anymore. The best way I have found (so far) to describe my understanding of Me in this manifestation comes from Alice In Wonderland: Don't try to cut the plum pudding, serve it and the pudding will cut itself.
To live is my purpose. I find the meaning is in the living of life.
Thanks for sharing. 🙏🏻
That’s a great metaphor/analogy! Thank you, Kathey.
Thank you, Don. Just what I needed to "hear." At almost 65, following a late transition from homemaker to retiree, I've realized that by our culture's standards, I've wasted my life. No more thinking Iike that! Also, I've been struggling with/ wondering whether I'm really a Secular Buddhist or an imposter in my weekly sangha. No more labels for me! It's finally time to just be :-) Thank you for sharing your honest thoughts from your journal. (I just noticed "journal" & "journey" link :-)
Good heavens,Joni, I was literally just thinking about this imposter question. My sangha is very open and welcoming, affiliated with Vippassana Buddhism, but not hardliner, And yet I still also sometimes wonder, just like you, If they would be mad at me if they find out that I sometimes think we need to forget all about Buddha. Keep the wisdom but forget about the man. It’s all Buddha this, Sutra that, 5 of this, 8 of that!
Ugh, those numbered lists! I realize they probably were useful memory tools in a pre-literate culture; but that structure seems dogmatic to me. My sangha, called the Zen Pub, is very open and accepting, too. But, secular buddhism is rather undefined; I'm not sure which parts we like or don't like ;-) As the ancient Zen writing Trust in Mind says, "To see the truth, don't be for or against. Likes and dislikes are the mind's dis-ease. If you miss this deep meaning, it is useless to still your thoughts."
Good one! I remember many years ago, before discovering mindfulness, meditation, and Buddhism, when I suddenly realized that when I say I like something or don’t like something, I’m saying nothing about that thing and everything about myself. That must have been my first step in realizing how all-encompassing our sense of self is, how it creates and defines this world that we think is “not us.”