Aloha Friends and Family,
I feel good. I have been home for three days and I feel nice. Last night I went out with a friend to the one and only local bar in McKenzie Bridge and listened to some live music by a local, acoustic guitar player and singer. It was fun. Doc played some Johnny Cash tunes and it was a fun evening. I had a Henry Weinhard’s Root Beer and some water. The $5 steak and potato special was good.
Perfection? I am looking at the perfect fir tree out my window. This is the same tree that is mending with an eight foot, steel, fence post, black duct tape, and a tall wooden pole. My mother and I mended this 12 foot tall tree when the weight of snow snapped it in half about 6 feet above ground level. I mended this tree because there was still some bark and wood fibers holding on. The top of the tree has not died and I can see that the tree has not lost any needles. I will enjoy watching this beautiful tree mend and grow.
You are perfect. As perfect humans, we make mistakes. That is what we do. It is our mission as humans to learn. Mistakes are one of the tools that we acquire knowledge and sometimes wisdom with.
I am a good yogi. I practice to make my postures blissfully manifest in the physical world. I practice for many reasons. One of the reasons I practice yoga is yoga is fun on many levels.
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”, Albert Einstein.
"The unexamined life is not worth living.", Socrates.
“You must unlearn what you have learned.”, Yoda.
Merriam-Webster defines “common sense” as sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts. “Judgment” is defined as an opinion, estimate, or evaluation, something believed or asserted. I believe many people have there own private definitions of what they believe common sense is to them. I assert that the definition of “common sense” is not common among human beings. That is not my judgment. That is my observation derived by experiment and examination.
I think Socrates’ great talent was his awareness of his own ignorance. From the humble and powerful position of awareness, a philosopher can study situations from new angles. From a powerful position of humility we can challenge old ways of thinking to develop peaceful, loving, profitable, and sustainable solutions where the “common sense” lore of doing more of what is not working to solve a perceived issue is failing. I have seen people put spin on failure by calling their results “better” than it was before. Out of respect of the election year and you my friends and family, I will not publicly mention any specific inanities especially those of the current administration that embarrass and shame America at home and around the world.
"The enemy of good is better.", Voltaire and my Orthopedic Surgeon, Dr. Goodknife.
I will follow my thoughts and experiences through on the thought above. I see people, and I used to be one of those people, concerned with better or best. Better or best means nothing to me if "better or best" is other than good. Sometimes good enough is good. How often have I tried to "fix" something that is good and messed up by making the good broken? Sometimes it is good to enjoy the good and attend to what is not good to make something good. If you take effort to make something not good into something that is good, the result will most likely be better. What is more important is the result will be good and the effort had a positive intention to create good.
I am not interested in better. I am focused on good. A punch in the eye may be better than getting hit by a speeding freight train in the eye, but neither are good options. I choose none of the above when confronted by choices like death or horribly maimed. Is it better to fight over there or over here? As a yogi, I know there are an abundance of possibilities and choices. Very rarely are there only two options available to thinking and feeling people.
I am prepared to elaborate but my elaboration may tend to the political. I will shy away from the kill or be killed, fear and be feared, success or surrender, acceptable collateral damage or cowardice, preemptive war or slavery, 100 year Iraq occupation or cut and run, and other moronic debates. If you roll around in the mud with a pig you both get dirty, but the pig likes it.
I want to dove tail that thought in with Mahatmas Gandhi's saying, "Satisfaction lies in the effort and not in the attainment." I think it was me who said, "The ends never justify the means." I guess I do not agree with Machiavelli on a few things. What defines us is how we do things not our results. I could mention that Benjamin Franklin said something like people willing to give up liberty for security deserve neither security nor liberty. I could say something more radical than that but I think I will go cure some cancer this evening instead. I could say that the President of the United States did the best of his ability to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States but I will not say that even though I know George’s best is not good.
Unlearn what you have learned. You feel what you feel and feeling is good. Humans can master the ability to think about what they want to think about. Our thoughts bring about our feelings. When I think of good things I have good feelings. I like feeling good. I have mastered the powerful ability of not thinking. I was advantaged with a giant brain tumor that thinking would cause intense headaches, vomiting, or seizures. A human can not think or think only about what they want to think about by will alone. More thinking is not always better than less thinking. It is important to be thoughtful and it is important to have good thoughts. It is also important to feel the universal life force energy. "Life creates it, makes it grow. It's energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we." , Yoda. Yoda sure is swell and I understand a dry, fly angler.
Peace and Love,
Jack Burton
"It takes courage, genius, or love to make things simpler, smaller, and peaceful."
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