The Ethics of Attention

“The great human error is to reason in place of finding out.”

—Simone Weil

She was a force.
She shames me.
She lived her philosophy.

She defined the price and purpose of philosophy. Attention for Simone was a crucial skill to develop if you were not going to live at the mercy of the the forces around you.

How to properly focus your attention was key to her philosophy.

A different experience of everything you do is available to you…right now. Or you can just accept your default perception.

You have to be open to receive what is beyond the circumstances of the moment.

This requires for you to pay attention to what is happening around you. Most just settle for their default state of attention.

Simone’s attention saw the world as sacred.

She didn’t care about becoming a famous philosopher, she was too busy living her life.

She became a teacher. She encouraged her students to think openly.

Staying open is the key to everything!

What if there is no single right answer, so common in life.

People find a position and then just vehemently defend and die on that hill.

A shame.

One must avoid this collectivist thinking.

Acknowledge at the beginning of any conservation you only have a partial truth and that there is always more to learn.

Don’t chain yourself to a fixed position. How to pay attention?

The middle path between no activity and too much activity, is to put in effort, but you remove your own prejudices from your experiences.

You look and listen and wait.

I am in awe of her focus, attention, and openness.

Amor Fati – Accept what is necessary

Burn 🔥 The Boats

Everything I write these days is meant to inspire self expression and individuation, for myself first.

Write openly about yourself to be yourself.

When you’re young, you think you have all the answers.

As you age, you realize, really, you have none.

The best people I have come across, have a single burning 🔥 purpose…

To live their best life and point others to the same in spite of all resistance and circumstance inside and outside, which are the same.

If you look into the past, you find every generation hoping the future generations do better than they did.

The great people in my opinion, have a common theme in their expressions, love this life and earth and be worthy of it.

“The writer of these lines has nothing whatsoever to teach anyone; his words are just his contribution to our common discussion of what must inevitably be for us the most important subject which could be discussed by sentient beings.”

—Wei Wu Wei

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself and that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with eternity.”

—The Alchemist

“Don’t be concerned with other people’s impressions of you. They are dazzled and deluded by appearances. Stick with your purpose. This alone will strengthen your will and give your life coherence.”

—Epictetus

I have one burning 🔥 purpose, to live the best life possible and inspire others to the same, have a great one!

“A burning purpose attracts others who are drawn along with it and help fulfill it.”

— Margaret Bourke-White

Burn 🔥 the boats!

Only one way through life now.

Straight on til morning.

Fear Falling, Courage Rising

“Courage is the mother of all virtues because without it, you cannot consistently perform the others.”

—Aristotle

Courage is not dead in me yet. I am thankful for that. It lives in individuals. Like a Lion waiting to move. But one can’t really know if courage will be there when needed until they are tested. Truly, we fear our own weakness most. Nothing and I mean nothing can replace experience. Courage is one of the 4 Stoic virtues. Courage is the ability to exert one’s will in the face of risk. Aristotle said that the highest risk was death and that the most courageous man was the one that acted fearlessly in the face of death.

I recently faced my own death, twice in a month. I can’t say I was fearless. But something arose inside me. Something I haven’t known very well, my will. I pushed myself forward beyond my fear and it was a catalyzing experience. Do what is necessary when it is necessary. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. One day, it won’t.

Why not give all you have to what you do? In your relationships. In your work. In your play. What are you saving your fear for? Fear is a corrective and it can be a poison. Honestly, I didn’t know I had much courage left in me. I have been reckless with my life and opportunities at times. But I have cultivated my focus and it paid off when I needed it to. The feeling of possible death feels like falling off a ladder from a 1000 feet up. You are totally alone and feel powerless. It is humbling, but necessary to know how life is like balancing on a pin. One day I will fall off and that’s how it will be. The one thing we can know for sure in life.

Don’t go looking for trouble, but when it comes, be ready. Until death and I meet again, I’ll smile like I mean my life. Every second of it. Success is just the next breath, the rest is gravy. Yum.

The Tree of Life

image

Always crying
Over spilled milk
Don’t be the Fool
Accept the gifts
Before you
Be quiet
And aware
You are home
You are loved
Take your rest
And be content
You earned it