160. Let Your Children Run Free

You’ve been practicing your art for a long time. Your work is getting better, more sophisticated and more interesting. Or at least it seems that way to you. You know your judgment is far from objective, and it doesn’t mean others would think the same.

The problem is that you’re isolated. You’ve been working quietly on your own. Other than a few close friends, no one has seen your work. You feel a need for some kind of recognition. You don’t mean fame. You just mean someone to see what you’ve made and give their opinion of it.

159. The Ability To Surrender

A person lacking in critical judgment hardens himself against the evidence his beliefs are false in the same way as a person who is lacking in empathy hardens herself against feeling the suffering of another as her own.

In both cases, the person retreats into the self and rejects the other, ignoring it or fighting against it. The alternative is to surrender — to allow the evidence to prevail over the false beliefs, and the suffering of another to prevail over the false peace of isolation. Through surrender, the self gains an opportunity to grow into more, precisely by accepting a part of the other.

158. Nothing Is Wrong

She has no idea what she is doing. She is fully aware of this and she has decided she is fine with it. What she’s trying to do is to make something, but she doesn’t know how to do this. There’s no plan or process to her actions. She’s only playing around, trying to see what might be possible in the medium, and what might be possible in her.

Nothing is wrong, everything is right. She keeps telling herself this as she plays. She’s making something. It’s emerging at this very instant. She can’t say what it is, only that it exists. She knows it exists because she can see it right in front of her. She’s following her intuitions, allowing them to shape her creation in the way she envisions it. Her vision is admittedly more lofty than her ability, but still she presses forward.

157. Barren Of Possibility

We sometimes do things that are wrong and harmful. We do these things not because we are lacking in knowledge or intelligence, or because we are especially malicious or evil. The real problem is that we are lacking in awareness. We cannot see the reality of our experience, and so we cannot act well.

We see instead a world of distinctions, where everything is divided up into neat categories. And we are divided too, not just from other people, but also within ourselves. We want to think we are one person but we are many, with parts for each of our desires, aversions, and beliefs. Our parts are in perpetual conflict, each fighting for dominance over the others. We simultaneously want to get everything we desire, escape from everything we hate, and confirm all of our beliefs.

156. Proximity To Intentions

Intentions are a central part of life. I notice a leaky pipe and I set an intention to repair it. I want to swim on the weekend, so I set an intention to go to the community pool. I remember there is a penalty for filing a form late and I set an intention to avoid the penalty. I hear that a friend has received an award for excellence, and I set an intention to congratulate them. I discover an interesting book, and I set an intention to read it.

155. Compassion Cannot Wait

In an ideal world, our every action would be reciprocated by others. Whenever we would give something to another person, someone would give something back to us in return. All that was given would be returned not out of obligation or duty, but out of the awareness of need. We would feel no lack, no rejection, no isolation and all of our needs would be joyfully met.

But we do not yet live in such a world. We hope for reciprocation, and we try to reciprocate when we can, but often little or nothing can be given in return. The socioeconomic systems we’ve constructed produce endless demands on our time and resources, preventing us from reciprocating fully.

154. A Helpful Provocation

You come across a quotation from a book and you are immediately frustrated by it. It seems to undermine an idea that is important to you, and so your reaction to it is both strong and negative. You judge it harshly, and you want to argue passionately against it.

But a quotation is only a fragment of a much larger text. To argue against it, you would first need to understand its broader context. On its own, a fragment is always only a provocation. And you already know this, because the quotation has just provoked your frustration and judgment.

153. The Other Side

I’ve been working all day, but it feels like I’ve achieved nothing. Despite my best efforts, I’ve failed to produce anything of note. I feel miserable because of this. When tangible results are lacking, the effort itself feels like a failure.

I’m stewing in my discontent when I receive a message from a friend. They want me to come to dinner this evening so that they can introduce me to someone — a person my friend claims I’ll find interesting.

152. Forgiveness Saves

Imagine you live in a small town in a remote area, isolated from the rest of civilization. One day, a member of your community does something that significantly harms other members of the community. The wrongdoer recognizes their error and takes responsibility for their actions. But the community struggles to accept the apology. You are angry because you cannot understand how anyone could do this and you feel betrayed.

The community must decide what to do. You cannot send the wrongdoer away, for they have no other home than here. There is literally nowhere else for them to go. The only solution is to come to terms with what has happened and rebuild. The community can punish the wrongdoer, but eventually forgiveness must come. You must forgive because any chance of living happily with the wrongdoer depends on them being brought back into the fold.