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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The Tree

No bomb ever burst shatters the crystal spirit.

George Orwell
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Hello Diane
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Out in front of the house here there was a tree. It was s small tree which never seemed to get bigger. Every spring it put forth leaves. They were scraggly looking leaves but they felt very firm and healthy. It also dropped a bundle of seeds which turned into a large clump of foliage at the bottom. This past Spring the tree sent forth no leaves at all, so at some point during the Spring the woman on the first floor, who takes care of the flowers in the front, decided the tree was dead and cut it down. Now that clump of foliage is very lush.

But instead of growing out into a full fledged bush as she expected, it's growing up. She expressed her curiosity about that and I just said that it's a tree. It's growing into a tree. A tree is what it was, and that's what it is. No matter how many times you cut it down it will grow back into a tree, because a tree is what it is, and that's that.

A wise person once said that success is getting up one more time than you fall. If failure is not an option then it doesn't matter how many times you fail.

All the oppressive legislation of congresses, all the erroneous decisions of governments and courts, the plundering by banks and corporations, all the damaging influence of inept teachers and parents, all the vicious acts of terrorists and suicide bombers don't mean a thing and accomplish nothing. A lot of property may be destroyed and a lot of people hurt and killed. But under the dirt, down among the crystals, are the roots of the human spirit, and it will grow again. It cannot be destroyed. And that's that.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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AUTUMN QUESTION

What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?

Only 3 answers so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

I await your answers.
DB
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Inventing Art

Success is a journey, not a destination.

Arthur Ashe
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I used to say that I reinvented the art of acting with every new role I got. I was half joking but there was some truth to it. Naturally I would bring my skill and my accumulated experience into rehearsal. But there was always a new landscape, a new fabric to the event.

There was q totally different character to portray and give life to, with a different constellation of mental, emotional and psychological elements to him. Perhaps there was an unfamiliar playwright who presented a language to that character that I had to get used to and master in order to express him properly. Or there was a director new to me and hence getting accustomed to a different way of conducting rehearsals. And maybe there were other artists in the production I had never met before. That meant adjusting my way of working with other's ways to create a harmonious whole. And sometime it was an unfamiliar theatre building itself that I needed to learn how to work in. So there was a lot of starting from the beginning.

"A good reputation may get you to the pitchers mound, but it won't win the game."* A few times I witnessed famous actors, stars, come into rehearsal with the attitude that their fame would play the role for them. After all, they evidently thought. people would come to see them anyway so all they needed to do was show up. I vowed that if I ever became famous, which I didn't, I would never let that attitude control my earnest desire to knuckle down, conquer the role and really act it. I owed that to the audience, to the author, to my fellow artists and to myself.

Since I had set about reinventing the art, every time I finished a production I came away knowing a little bit more about acting than I did when I went into it. Almost every actor can say the same if they conscientiously do it. So can every tennis player and every ball player.

Success is not the end of the road. Success is doing it, doing it well and doing it better next time.

*Bate

DB - The Vagabond
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Champion Cuisine 4/07/09

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

Truman Capote
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Yo.
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Although it has its uses, "failure" is a nasty tasting dish. And if you make the mistake of mixing it with "I give up" then you have something which is really foul. It's good for nothing but to be flushed.

Ah but wait! Take the "failure" and put it in a bowl along with a stick of "lesson learned" (melted) and a packet of "I'll try again." Mix that up. Then check the spice rack for a container marked "I deserve success." Throw some of that in the bowl, stir and taste. Still not right? Okay, look on the shelf in the back of the fridge for a jar labeled "I can do it." Spoon some of that into the bowl and mix it up. Now you have a zesty Tartar Sauce, or what Edward, my teacher used to call "Ta Ta Sauce."

Dab a couple of generous helpings of that on your red snapper of success and say "Ta Ta" to the failure.

When I started to learn art I went to a life drawing class every Saturday morning. In my first class the model was a very large retired fellow. There was so much to him I thought it was like drawing a mountain. It was a ten minute pose. I drew a picture a little bit larger than my thumb. The instructor came by, looked at it and said nothing except "Carry on."

I was at the point where the nasty peck of "failure" was saying "You can't do this. Give it up." But I didn't give it up. I signed up for even more classes and kept drawing until I could do it. Eventually I learned something about painting. I won a few awards in exhibits and sold a few things.

I kept that first drawing around for a long time, not just to humble myself when I needed to, but also to show me how far I had come.

Failure happens. But all one needs is the right recipe to turn it into the right sauce.

DB - The Vagabond
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May you see "crowds of daffodils."
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