A Certain Goal

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.

Dale Carnegie
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Hello Ernie
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"Watchman, tell us of the night."
The night is ablaze with secret places.
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There are many writers like Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale who have been issuing advice to the world wrapped in the technique of Positive Thinking. There's nothing wrong with that. It is certainly preferable to the opposite. But Positive Thinking is really a finger pointing to a certain goal.

Many people use the elements of Positive Thinking to achieve success in life. That implies some degree of self awareness. As Christopher Morley wrote, "There is only one success, to be able to spend your life in your own way." And which way would that be? Implicit in that remark is knowing yourself well enough to at least avoid the ways that are not your way, but does it mean you know where you want to be going? To know something does not necessarily mean to understand it. Does knowing yourself automatically make you comprehensible, intelligible to yourself? How well you know yourself is also just a finger pointing to a certain goal.

As I stated in a previous journal entry, self discovery often brings out things, attitudes, traits, beliefs and behavior that are less than what you imagine or wish yourself to be. Then a struggle ensues and it's a hard one. Gandhi wrote "It is far easier to conquer others than to conquer oneself." It's a mighty and valorous fight and also a finger pointing to a certain goal.

But what of the person who doesn't want that struggle, who would prefer to stay the way they are and not grow? Those are the ones who spend their time and money to try to preserve what they think is youth and beauty, to regain some artificial sense of themselves, to identify themselves in some superficial way, usually with the help of chemistry, instead of letting themselves grow and evolve into true manhood and womanhood. To let go of fantasies about oneself and grow to achieve what one believes one is capable of is another finger pointing to a certain goal.

Mind is the master of life and the thoughts and images carried in the mental satchel determine the kind of life we live, which is why the positive thinker has the advantage at the task of living well and if allied with self awareness and self knowledge the thinker is enabled to observe the finger and point himself toward the certain goal.

Along that road to discovery to which the finger is pointing we come across a gate and at the gate is where we must leave behind the human mind, as improved and useful as it is, for the enlightened mind, where ideas become thrones and thoughts are candle flames. Who knows but one who has been there, who has achieved that consciousness, who has won the right to pierce the cloud and dwell in the secret place, what the blazing symbols mean and what power is available. Purity and inevitability are there, and the simple answer to the simple question "What is Truth?"

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Enjoy The Ride

I do not believe in right angled turning points.

Timothy West
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Hello Bruce
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"Watchman, tell us of the night."
"Whadya wanna know?"
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There is no such thing as an "about face." The face must make a 180 degree turn to get to the opposite side. One can't go from wrong to right, or from evil to good or from fat to slender in an instant. There is always a transition curve.

I used to conduct a seminar in public speaking and one of the things I told the participants was that if you were trying to sell a commodity or an idea to a roomful of people you will probably be facing three types of listeners: those who agree with you, those who disagree with you and those who aren't sure. A good public speaker, while entertaining those who agree with him, will be convincing those who aren't sure and turning those who disagree into to those who aren't sure.

We are so much in rapture over the instantaneous these days. We want everything NOW: instant communication with far off places on the Internet, Instant Messaging. instant breakfast. But imagine trying to instantly learn a foreign language or to play a trombone.

I remember a conversation I had with a young fellow who had just purchased a guitar and was immediately trying to sound like his favorite guitarist. I suggested that he buy a book of guitar fingering and exercises and really learn how to play the instrument, maybe even study with a teacher. He had no interest in that. He wanted to be a rock star, instantly.

A few days later I happened to read in the New York Daily News an interview with one of the leading rock musicians of the day in which he told about the hours he spent with scales and finger exercises, learning all the mysteries of the guitar. I sent the interview off to my young friend.

"There is more to life than increasing its speed," wrote Gandhi. Indeed during that 180 degree turn there are mysteries to behold and much of life to be enjoyed. You may wish to go from north to east in a flash, but don't miss north north east, north east, east north east, and so on. Life has curves. Enjoy the ride.

DB - The Vagabond
Never give up.
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