Mud and the Stars

Henry David Thoreau wrote in Waldon that "things do not change; we change". I think that this should be the official mantra for those who make New Year's resolutions and as a general action phrase for life. To overdose on quotations from other great writers, Jean Paul Satre stated "Man is condemned to be free" and George Bernard Shaw follows this up by scribing that "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."

We are able to apply these notions to several venues in our lives, whether it be in reference to issues such as the upcoming federal election here in Canada to how we conduct our affairs with others, and right down to how we see ourselves. Apathy is a psychological plague that has caused a blight on the climate of consciousness in Western society as I have experienced it. "Empowerment" is a catch phrase in our world and people are always flocking to inspirational speakers or watching Dr. Phil as opposed to looking internally for solutions. People are more apt to moan or remain seditary than to act. When I look around me at folks that I know, at politics, things in my workplace, relationships, etc. I see slow motion train wrecks in the making everywhere. These proverbial wrecks are preventable and simply require an exercising of that freedom and liberty that is inherently ours and within our control.

...But I am becoming way too preachey here and that is not the intent of this missive. I guess all I do want to do is remind people that the moment that you are presently in is the only thing that you are able to affect and the smallest gesture can create the momentum to make changes in the self and our habitat. Just as one finger can detonate a bomb or discharge a firearm and create tragedy, so too can one step begin a marathon or reading the first word be the fisrt step in broadening one's insight or marking an "X" create a change in government. Little things do matter - just try to start your vehicle without a spark plug or grow a flower without a seed! Life is all in how you see it - from the great Taoist Lao-tze:

"Acting without design,occupying oneself without making a business of it, finding the great in what is small and the many in the few, repaying injury with kindness, effecting difficult things while they are easy, and managing great things in their beginnings: this is the method of Tao".

All I can add to this comes from "A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts" by the poet Frederick Langbridge: "Two men look out through the same bars:/ One sees the mud, and one the stars."

...and remember, it is the river who creates the see and the raindrop that creates the river.