Tag: meaning
Factivists
I recently saw a simple and profound bumper sticker with just one word describing the driver’s orientation to life: FACTIVIST. I thought, now there’s a person I’d like to meet—an activist with command of the facts. In the last couple of weeks, I also read Stephen Pinker’s wonderful new book, Enlightenment Now and Jeremy Lent’s inspiring new book, The Patterning Instinct. Both of these books arm us with the facts we need to become more Read More
Measuring Meaning in the New Year
“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.” —Thomas Merton OK, here’s the problem. When I searched the internet for “how to measure meaning,” the first item that popped up (the most popular Yahoo answer) was how to measure your penis. Apparently, a lot of men are still finding the greatest source of meaning in their life to be the size Read More
Pain and Empathy
Pain may not be your friend, but it may be your partner. And pain may be the path to empathy.
How AND Why
We hear a lot of either/or options in our lives. Either you can do this or you can do that. And how often is an acknowledgement of a different point of view accompanied, by a “but…?” Ya, but I think…! This post addresses the need to see the complementarity of differences and the need to ask “how” AND “why.” As the eastern philosophers would say, “there is a yin is in every yang, and a Read More
Possibility
As the world veers ever more perilously toward the precipice, it doesn’t seem like a giant leap to suggest that we need a major shift in thinking and relating. Essentially, we need to start thinking about ourselves as connected vs. separate and we need to start relating to each other interdependently vs. competitively. This post will address the possibilities of making that shift and the planetary potential if we can make it happen. I will Read More
Finding Meaning
“The human race is a monotonous affair. Most people spend the greatest part of their time working in order to live, and what little freedom remains so fills them with fear that they seek out any and every means to be rid of it.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Goethe describes well the experience of people who are trying to find meaning while living in the middle.