Today's Meditation(s): In my dream, I had a chance to pull the lever. If I pulled the lever, it would fix my pursuit of virtue. It would cure my sins and purify my motives. It would vault me past worries of ever being virtuous enough and I would intuitively understand how to follow Nature. I missed my chance. Which is honestly for the best. I fear any shortcut on the path to enlightenment is counterproductive.  (It's not worth it if it's easy?)  Oh well. Next step tomorrow. 

Today's Meditation(s): Realizing that I am not creative has been an epiphany, and a letdown, for me.  All my life, I've believed that worthwhile things — art, leadership, entrepreneurship —  all involved creativity. All required a vision to make something new or improved.   But thats not me. I do best within a system. Granted, my best is when I am breaking the rules of said system, but that's only when I've mastered the system. It's using loopholes and ambiguities to do what I want while breaking the rules in only just the right way. But that's just playing with the settings until it works the way I want it to work, it's not coming up with a novel idea or purpose or passion. It's not a wholesale creative act. And I always wondered why I wasn't successful in such endeavors: I never had a spark that separates those who attempt from those who merely try.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 65 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English) Simplicity is fundamental to understanding Tao? It sounds this way. But is that too . . . simple? And what of those of us who do not want to rule? Or to be ruled?

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations , 5.6, 7.73, 9.42 (Waterfield) Helping others is both Natural and Proper for me. I should lean into this, focus more on being helpful to others, raising them up. I don't usually crow about my accomplishments, so that part is less troublesome for me than perhaps for some others. Still, I shouldn't assume competence at not doing things for the good feeling of recognition.  Always keep trying to be kind just because it's the right thing to do.  Also, I recognize that sometimes doing things for others might profit me. That should not make me more, or less, inclined to to help when I can. And even mentioning this works against my previous claim.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 64 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English) Doing nothing, doing much, doing good, doing well. Wanting none. Holding not even thoughts. Giving none giving all. Ten thousand times. A child of all those fairy tales. Holding me up.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 63 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English} Do and do not. Do not and do. Do be do. Scooby Doo. Yabba dabba doo. Doo wop. Dood. Is there a parallel to amor fati in the last two lines? Can I understand it that way? ( At least that way, if not more?)

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 62 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English) Find what I seek. Be forgiven my sins. I'm in. Where do I sign up? Remain still and offer the Tao. Do not seek refuge in the ten thousand things. But how shall I do this? Stop.  Do .

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 61 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English) Yeah, I don't understand this one at all. I get the words, but any meaning I gather from them is not even wrong. Perhaps I should just focus on being more receptive and accepting, yielding.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching, 60 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English) I wish I understood and could even approach attempting to bring about a world such as this. I can't even find myself in the picture. Maybe I'm not there. Maybe too small to notice. Whatever. Today has been a good day. I will do it again tomorrow.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 59 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English) Giving up my ideas, my designs? Letting Tao / Nature lead me where it may? It will not be easy; it is the easiest thing for one who can see. The store of virtue, where did it come from? From daily following. From daily doings and training. With enough, I would know. I don't know.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 58 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English) Thinking on my comments yesterday about this record, it occurs to me that it should more accurately be called What I Was Exposed to In My Studies This Morning . Perhaps Learned was overreaching, in my hubris.

Today's Meditation(s): Five. Five years of Morning Studies. Woohoo? I started this blog as a simple record of what I read and the basic topics: That was it. The whole thing. Perhaps more appropriate fodder for a blog with the title this one has.... Since then, I've moved on to (on good days at least) more in-depth thoughts about what I read or think or experience or feel. Since then, I've finished reading the three Big Stoics (Marcus, Seneca, and Epictetus) through completely, worked on several longer books about Stoicism ( A Companion to Marcus Aurelius, Marcel van Ackeren ed.  and  Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Sceptics by A. A. Long  foremost among them), and generally found myself more thoughtful in my daily life. I am learning to lean on my Stoic thoughts / behaviors / techniques / processes more naturally and automatically.   "Why should I let this bother me?" "How would my dad (role model, natural Stoic) have handled this?" "A...

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 57 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English) Oppression engenders revolution.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 56 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English) Knowing is quiet and solid. It is calm and confident, wordless and still. Speaking and moving are needed to convince where no convincing should be necessary.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching, 55 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English)  Become like a child. Seems many, many paths to wisdom mention this a a step, or a path, to enlightenment. It's also often mentioned when discussing art and creativity, too.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching, 54 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English)  More similarities to Stoic thought: virtue and cosmopolitanism; arrete and oikeiosis.

Today's Meditation(s): The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin.  This gives me hope. I'm not a creative person by nature — at least, not as traditionally defined. My talents lie elsewhere. I'm quick to grasp ideas. I'm good at alaysis and synthesis. I'm good at working within a given ruleset, even adding grace notes and texturing to improve my work. But producing something from wholecloth? Playing a freeform solo? Writing something fresh and enticing? Something significantly novel? Not so much. To work on this, having long ago accepted that I'm great at using systems but not at being the force behind one, I've been looking into ways to increase my creativity. Something, anything , that can open me up to new ways of doing things. So far, the search has been . . . less-than-successful. At least I found the idea above which, as I said, gives me hope. (Though I fear that redefining creation — and art — in this way may make it miss the mark wh...

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 53 (Deng Ming-Dao and Jane English) When the court is arrayed in splendor, The fields are full of weeds, And the graineries are empty. Yes. True twenty-five hundred years after stated. One thing I am forever grateful for is my utter lack of desire to tell other people how to run their lives. Fuck that. Earlier in life, I mistakenly thought I could participate in politics and help my community. I even moved to DC and worked on the Hill. I ran campaigns. I was involved in a gubernatorial race. I ran issues campaigns. I did it all. Then I ran. I ran from this pit of treachery and inhumanity as hard and as fast as I could. I saw behind the curtain and feared for my soul. If I stayed, I was lost. I went. And now I'm here. Reading words from a different time and a different culture, and finding the same situation. No more. No way.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 52 (Gia-fu Feng and Jane English) Stop trying so damned hard. Find the small, the quiet way forward, the path in the garden that flows around obstacles and leads to everything in its proper time and course.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 51 (Gia-fu Feng and Jane English) Parallels extend. Not demanded, but the Natural way of things. I like that. I can choose differently, but to do so is not to follow Nature.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 50 (Gia-fu Feng and Jane English) Where's the last person? What is their destiny? Are they 'those who know how to live'?

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 49 (Gia-fu Feng and Jane English) What others do is not up to me. I must fulfill my role and be good, be faithful, be shy and humble. Do this in conjunction with, or despite, what others do.  If someone is rude, I don't get to be rude. If someone is inconsiderate or cruel, I remain considerate and kind. People are. No world exists without them. Since I must deal with them, I get to choose how I do that. If I want to be good, if I want to continue my prokoptonic path, I will deal with them in a spirit of cooperation, harmony, love, kindness, assistance, and cosmopolitanism. They are my tribe. Me and my brothers and my cousins with the world. Meditations 2.1 (Waterfield)

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 48 (Gia-fu Feng and Jane English) Trust the world to be as it should. Leave it alone.  Reach for excellence before things. People before things. Truth and connection before things. Care for others before things.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 47 (Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)  This eludes me tonight I'll sleep on it and comment in the morning.... 

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 46 (Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)  Want less, have more. The less I want, the more I have, no matter how little that may be.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 45 (Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)  Opposites. Contradictions. Mysteries. Ringing in my ears. Distracting me from Tao, from Nature, from that which leads to eudaimonia. This is awkward. Must be great eloquence.

Today's Meditation(s): Tao Te Ching , 44 (Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)  This is easy for me to map to my Stoic frame of reference. Put faith in virtue and living correctly. Things are indifferent. So long as excellence comes first, I remember their temporary nature, and I keep my commitments to my community, things are fine. Learn to take them or leave them with equal aplomb.

Today's Meditation(s): Stoic Week — Sunday I think my favorite part is the temporal imperative. Now. No; now. Yes, now! Again, basics: 1. Use assent to identify impressions and treat them appropriately. 2. Oikeosis : think of the world as my family.  3. Amor fati : love fate. Do these and I will do good. And well.

Today's Meditation(s): Stoic Week — Saturday One of my favorite Stoic quotes. I use it often to help keep myself focused on what's important. When I get confused or notice I've been doing poorly, I find that recentering to be essential. 1. What virtue can I use here? 2. What would help my community? 3. What would help me? 4. Are there preferred indifferents to take mind of, behind concerns of virtue? Going through a list like this forces to be step back and be (as) reasonable and virtuous (as I can be) in any situation. That's all I can ask.

Today's Meditation(s): Stoic Week — Friday The famous  View from Above : stop; step back; broaden my perspective; reevaluate the situation; choose a response under my control. I try to remember to do this when I get frustrated, thwarted, surprised, or feel otherwise out of my depth. When I do remember, it's proven to be one of the most effective ways I've found to recenter my thoughts and find the best route through I can.