Filed under Articles on 28. December 2006 » [9]
In this world, some things that happen can appear to have no meaning or purpose. Mostly these are the things we judge to be bad, like being laid off from one’s job or having an accident of some kind. People are at a loss to understand how war, hunger, natural disasters and human suffering can possibly have any meaning, and why these things happen … Read on »
Filed under Articles on 22. December 2006 » [1]
Do you have a problem? Chances are you have several. The car just started developing a strange noise in the wrong place, you have three different bosses at work and none of them seems to like you very much, the NASDAQ is taking a beating, your back hurts, and so on and so on … Read on »
Filed under Articles on 18. December 2006 » [7]
One thing that we know unites most people who are really good at what they do, is that they love what they do. Yo-Yo Ma loves playing the cello, and Tiger Woods absolutely loves the game of golf. And this is obvious to everyone. However, when we think about people like that, people that are at the top of their game in something, we usually have at the top of our minds an image of the glory of success. The triumph of their public performance is what we see on television, and so it’s easy for us to see how they love what they do … Read on »
Filed under Articles on 13. December 2006 » [2]
I was out walking the other night, Chopin playing in my headphones and a crisp sort of winter stillness in the air. And despite the peaceful ambiance I was experiencing a hangover after a bit of binge-thinking earlier that day. The sort of thought trajectory that starts out when something great happens and opens up a flood of positive thinking; a thought stream that then gathers momentum and ultimately turns negative, as all unattended thought does eventually when left to proliferate … Read on »
Filed under Articles on 9. December 2006 » [18]
What would your life be like if you did not care what other people thought of you? If you were completely independent of people’s opinions, good or bad, and would go about your day without so much as a single self-conscious decision. It would be wonderful freedom, of course. You would feel free to do what you wanted, and have a clarity of mind that comes with not being constantly preoccupied with thinking about the judgment of those around you … Read on »
Filed under Articles on 4. December 2006 »
In the normal state of consciousness, it can be said that our attention is almost continuously occupied with form. Thoughts, objects, situations, and externally derived sense experience, leave us almost no room at all for looking within and being aware of that which is beyond form. If we were to look at life in terms of balance between inner and outer, the formless and form, the habitual ratio between the two is almost always in favor of the outer; something like 95% things, thoughts, and noise, 5% stillness and peace … Read on »
Filed under Articles on 2. December 2006 » [4]
When I read Jonathan Rauch's article Caring for Your Introvert in the Atlantic Monthly a few years back, I had an immediate recognition of what he described, about feeling drained by social interaction and about wanting to be alone whenever possible. I then went on to read books like Party of One by Anneli Rufus, Celebrating Time Alone by Lionel Fisher, and a nice little collection of quotations called The Wonders of Solitude … Read on »
Filed under Articles on 1. December 2006 »
So, yes, hello, and welcome to Everyday Wonderland. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to write the first post on a brand new weblog, but I’ll start off with telling you about what Everyday Wonderland is and how it came about … … Read on »
