Find The Light Switch

I am often baffled and bewildered by life. In other words, I am a human being.

Unknown
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Most of the authorities in the world, aren't. Those who know the truth, don't. Those who have figured everything out, haven't. Those who can tell you the facts of life, can't. There are places where up is no longer up. There are times when the beginning is also the end. When is a crime not a crime and when is a falsehood not false? There are times when the solid ground we stand on starts behaving like the sea.

If I have gained any wisdom at all it's to know how uncertain things are and to adjust to the mutable and incomprehensible with grace and patience, to adapt to the changing world with compassion and an open mind as much as I can.

The human being is at a great disadvantage just being human. We make rules for living that sometimes take us down a dead end street, we are constrained to follow orders that make no sense, we set up idols of civilized life that often crumble into dust and oblivion. Today there is something that wasn't so yesterday and something we counted on being so that no longer is. What's the poor human creature to do?

A translation is what's needed, of identity and perception. Carl Jung wrote "So far as we can discern the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being." If that is correct then we all, each one of us, has the access to that light and the tools to kindle it. Darkness doesn't cover up the light, It's the other way around. It's a question of looking past the darkness that surrounds us and seeing our lives as otherwise. We limit ourselves by gazing upon our mortality and measuring ourselves solely by the matter that we carry around with us every day. Those are bad habits. But we all have invisible qualities of spirit and mental might that gleam when something strikes them. "It is the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing" it says in the big book. But most of the time we just wait until something comes along to generate those qualities and get them up and running. A beautiful song, an inspiring lecture, a sunset or a poem may be the thing that sets our thoughts in their orbit. But that we each carry the light of being is a noble obligation. To shine that light on every spot of darkness in our lives and others' lives is an activity of supreme importance. If we all did that all the time, every day, there would be no darkness of being.

DB - The Vagabond
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SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

Only 7 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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