On Diving Deep and Stuff Like That
The thing about getting knocked down on your keister is that it gives you a bunch of time (as you recover and set things back in place) to revisit the past, mull over stuff and do some head-scratching and writing and filling up trash baskets with crumpled bits of paper.
Been doing a lot of that one after driving myself to exhaustion trying to ride off in all directions at once.
It helped to fall over the 17th-century Japanese sword-saint Musashi Miyamoto's dictum: "The purpose of today's training is to defeat yesterday's understandings."
In case you didn't know, Musashi was the guy who wrote THE BOOK OF FIVE RINGS, a martial artist's take on strategizing, the philosophy behind the "way" of the sword and doing battle, and totally cool stuff like that.
It got taken up for a time by a bunch of very astute business leaders and self-actualization mavens and fell out of fashion or something for a while. It looks like it may be coming back around again.
The book came out just before the warrior died in 1645. (Yeah, you read it right. That date is not a typo.) Its popularity waxes and wanes.
Miyamoto's dictum is a major truth, I am thinking. Looking back at your old understandings and trying to integrate new learnings in with the old stuff causes all kinds of things in your head to morph and evolve into yet another (maybe new and improved) mindset.
I've been mulling over my core "thing" about what I want to accomplish doing my blog, LIFE-BUILT POEMS: Living Out Loud. This is not anything new. I am ALWAYS trying to figure that one out.
(It's actually been getting kind of weird because it seems like my life situations seem to be following whatever foundational topic I am working on in my blog. I choose a topic; I get whacked by one or more situations that offer up some sort of lesson or other related to the topic. YIPES! Guess I have to pay better attention to what I am exploring!)
I got another whack on the head from a quote from U-2 singer-songwriter Bono (Paul David Hewson): "It is much easier to be successful than it is to be relevant."
And that one, too, is a truth.
The Light of My LIfe (LOML) says he has never been able to bring himself to eat grubs despite wandering through countries where they are a great delicacy. He asked a friend who had tried some deep-fried grubs what they tasted like. The guy said they tasted like "empty french fries."
One of my guiding not-exactly-goals is the one about NOT living life as a grub. When my LOML told me that factoid, I had to laugh. Now I know why I don't want to live like a grub. I just don't want to be an empty french fry!
Hope you guys are having fun (and maybe getting more serious revelations and such than I seem to be getting). Hee!
-- Netta
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Thanks for sharing so much about yourself in this post. In between, the lines you are writing about focus. I think that the diversity of our lives today, as we are bombarded by facts, events and instructions causes us to loose ourselves. I am going to take a look at the 5 rings.
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"I was moved to scribble off a fast poem and it all came back….the urge to blather was reborn."
A friend of mine wrote that. I blathered for a time, and I miss it. I also did time in Hawaii. I am very happy to have discovered you and your fun style. Talk soon.
Glad to meetcha, deelilah....
-- Netta
Likewise, for sure. I'm working my way through your website, Life-Built Poems, at the moment. The design is amazing in its simplicity, and the navigation is perfect. There is so much great content. It is truly beautiful. I'm going to enter a poem soon. I'll save more words for comments on your work there. Thank you for your reply.
Thanks for the encouragement, deelilah. I look forward to seeing your poetry.
-- Netta