230. Change Is Primary

As we experience the world, we naturally get used to it. What was once novel becomes commonplace. What was once unknown becomes predictable. We adapt our actions to our new understanding and we develop habits that allow us to navigate the world with greater ease.

Eventually, we might come to feel we’ve experienced everything and there is no longer any novelty left in the world. We might then begin to live mostly in our memories, the only place where joy still exists for us. We might even become so profoundly bored that we start to tire of life itself.

229. Relationship Harmony

To have a relationship with another person is always a challenge. It is necessarily so because you have your desires, aversions, and beliefs and the other person has theirs. While there is often significant overlap, there will also be many differences. Perhaps they want something that you do not want, or you believe something that they do not believe. When these differences come to the surface there will be tension between you.

228. Looking And Looking

My shoes sink softly into the sand as I stroll across the beach. The bay is calm today, and there are no significant waves, only slight surges of water that wash over the sand before retreating back to the sea.

I’m watching the world when I see you up ahead, sitting on a large boulder. I’m far enough away that you haven’t noticed me. You’re staring out at the water, blank-faced and unmoving. You do not know me and I do not know you. We are two separate beings in our own separate worlds.

227. Awareness Through Compassion

If I’m unable to see the reality of my own experience, then I’m less able to act from compassion. I need to be open to the totality of the world around me and to all of the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions arising inside me to even have a chance of seeing clearly.

For my awareness to expand, I need to pay attention to everything that exists. I need to question my understanding of it and of myself, and allow for the possibility that there is more than I’ve already seen. As my awareness grows, my sensitivity to myself and the world around me improves. I notice changes in myself and my environment more easily, and my intuitions tend to guide me towards more compassionate actions.

226. The Emptiness That Is You

There are many subtle ways of binding yourself. You might have a secret desire so powerful that you feel you must fulfill it or not live at all. You might have an aversion to a certain kind of experience that arises regularly and operates quietly throughout your life. You might have a belief buried so deep inside you that it feels like a fundamental part of your being. All of these attachments prevent you from being free, from seeing clearly, and from living joyfully.

225. To Become Better

We generally try to follow the rules because we value the order, predictability, and safety they provide. We also know that a significant deviation from the rules could result in consequences that would make our situation worse.

But strict rule-following can also be harmful. By emphasizing conformity to rules above all else, we tend to become more rigid and mechanical in our actions. We learn to see the path delineated by the rules as the only one available to us, thus limiting our expression and creativity.

224. Language Is Political

If a text appears even slightly political, we approach it with certain expectations. We expect it to take a side, to strongly support one position and argue forcefully against the alternative. We see it as a combatant in a battle with clearly-defined boundaries articulated through centuries of political discourse.

In this discourse, there are always two sides, the good and the bad. The conflict between the two sides is constrained to this binary. Always the argument is for the good side, whatever that might happen to be. Every verbal and factual resource is mustered to tear down the bad side and prop up the good one. The intention is to defeat the bad side by showing it leads to nothing less than moral collapse and ruin, while demonstrating the good side is, in fact, right and good. We’re deeply familiar with this, so we approach such texts with our guard fully raised.

223. Fifty-One Words

He wants to write but he cannot find the words. He has already written three sentences, exactly fifty-one words in total. He knows this because he has counted them twice. Fifty-one words and nothing more. The fifty-second word is not forthcoming.

Whatever spring of imagination supplied his fifty-one words seems to have gone dry. He cannot help but feel despair at this realization. How can he write anything if there are no words available to him? He is trying to build a path to some unknown place but he has already run out of bricks.

222. Dominant Moods

A bad mood can be so strong that it dominates you. It changes the way you see the world by colouring it in a darker light. What was once fun and exciting can quickly transform into nothing more than a frustrating annoyance.

By changing your perspective, your mood also changes you. It shapes your behaviour, it modifies your speech, it alters the way you look. It can do these things because the way you are is less a response to the world around you than it is a response to your own self. This can be helpful, because it means you can solve challenging problems by approaching them with determination and optimism. But it can also be detrimental, like when you become stuck in a profound sorrow and you lose the ability to do anything at all.