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| Unless you are wandering, it can be useful to have a map. A personal creed is such a guide. |
Sometimes it is good to wander without direction or destination. I do it regularly when I go out into the woods. Where ever you wander, you never know what that muse known as serendipity will bring. However, at other times, it is helpful to have a map, even if it is something basic jotted down on the back of a napkin.
Regardless of whether your map is in words, scribbles, doodles or pictures, it will come in handy in the pursuit of specific destinations or goals. To make something happen, you have to first think it. The next step is writing it down, which has a way of making it real in the material plane. From that comes action.
In certain situations I like to know where I am going, and how I will manifest my intentions. That is why I have been working on things like the Not Buying Anything Vision Statement, as well as Manifesto. What is left, you may wonder?
I thought I would take a crack at a Personal Creed this time. What is a personal creed? It is a guide for living your beliefs with your whole being. It helps one guide actions with beliefs. While there are many ways to set out a creed, the following are the questions I pondered before putting my chisel to stone.
- Who am I?
- What is my purpose?
- How do I embrace relationships with my tribe and the larger world?
- How am I at acknowledging an acceptance of reality?
- What actions will I take to fulfill my purpose?
Actually, a creed is not written in stone, and can be changed any time, or disposed of completely if you prefer to indulge your wanderlust instead. Whatever works for you.
I am testing to see how this one works for me:
My Personal Simple Living Creed
I am someone that lives in ways that allow all living things to enjoy the precious gift of life. I do not acquire things that won't make me happy, so my possessions and desires are few. When I use less, those without enough can have more. This is my guiding principle.
My purpose is to help resolve all personal and global challenges, even though they may be many and appear insurmountable. I engage in joyous life-long learning in order to become proficient in the many ways that make harmonious lifestyles possible for all.
I have a loving tribe that supports me in everything that I seek to attain. In turn, I am there for them in good times, and in bad. My love is unconditional, and encompasses all living things. Together, we work things out to mutual advantage.
How do I treat other living things? There are no other living things - all life is One. I treat the One as I treat that small part of it that is me - gently, truthfully, and with compassion, love and respect. The success of one is the success of all. The failings of one, are the failings of all. True happiness occurs when we are all well-adjusted and content.
I find peace in accepting how things are, regardless of how flawed and defiled they appear in the moment. This gives me the strength to persevere, however difficult, in facilitating changes personally and globally that promote the ways and means necessary for all living things to survive and thrive.
I live each day with joy while giving thanks for the tribe around me, and the ample gifts the Universe has bestowed upon my life. When a day goes by that I don’t laugh, I know to take heed and engage in deep thinking and corrective action. Moment to moment, I keep an awareness of the magic of the Universe, of which I am an important and integral piece.
There is the map. Will it lead me to manifesting simple living treasures for myself and all life forms? I think so.
Having an internal guide is useful. I like your point of accepting reality, this is part of Zen practice - knowing what the world is rather than what you want it to be. The Taoists have the idea of cloud wandering where you move with Tao. As people we create roads to move on and routes of learning etc, but these can move us away from the true nature of things.
ReplyDeleteThere is also the concept of a cognitive view of the universe where people create the world including science. An anecdotal example would be when reading about the nature of black holes it sounded very similar to the locus of control in narcissism. I did some research in Stephen Hawking's life and his parents appear to have traits, possibly a unconscious projection of cognition. From what I've read black holes make sense scientifically, but a lot of the speculation added on is unproven:
https://relay.nationalgeographic.com/proxy/distribution/public/amp/news/2014/01/140127-black-hole-stephen-hawking-firewall-space-astronomy
Peace,
Alex
Alex,
DeleteI love the sound of "cloud wandering".
What is the locus of control in narcissism? Had to look that one up, only to find that they have 100% external locus of control. I guess that makes sense, I've just never applied the concept specifically to narcissists. Interesting.
If we create the world with our thoughts, humans collectively must have very dark imaginations.
Locus of control would be in regard absolutely blaming problems on others. The comparison with black holes is that nothing can pass back across the event horizon and there is no communication between the self and the narssistic projection. Information is contained within the black hole and can not leave. So in this way the nassicist is trapped in their dysfunctional world. Narcissists are famously treatment resistant.
DeleteThe cognitive creation of the universe is interesting. Another way of looking at things is the Chinese way that would suggest we are a microcosm of the macrocosm so black holes are woven into our world that would include nature and psychology, but are so suttle they would be unnoticeable.
The world has many good things, but as humans we are hard wired to notice more negatives.
I hope this makes sense and these are just some ideas.
Peace,
Alex
That sounds like a hologram, or fractal. The piece is same as the whole. Pattern apply all over. Fascinating to compare black wholes with human behaviour.
DeleteA lot of our "entertainment" focuses on the negatives. Popular science fiction often disappoints me because it is usually always based on human negatives, instead of human positives. Too many dystopias, not enough utopias.
It is almost like we think that anything other than war, violence, and adversarial relationships/situations would be boring. Most of our narratives are based on conflict. We need to break out of this style of thinking if we are to move ahead.
Narcissists are well adjusted to our sick system. This system also seems to be treatment resistant.
What a worthwhile exercise Gregg. I like the fact that you mention there is no 'other'. It is such a fundamental truth that we are not separate from the earth, if we injure the earth we hurt ourselves. And if we hurt another person, no matter how indirectly (eg buying clothing made by slave labour) we are also hurting ourselves. If that knowledge can inform everything we do then we are on our way to a great map for living.
ReplyDeleteMadeleine.x
Madeleine,
DeleteIt seems so simple. It is so simple.
We are being manipulated terribly by the purveyors of the "make things more complicated to make a profit" way of doing things. It doesn't have to be this way, but greed is a powerful force.
Writing my creed was a good exercise. I was inspired to do this after looking over The Four Bodhisattva Vows in Buddhism. That eventually led me to the concept of creeds. It was an interesting bit of research that got me into writing this post.
I really like you creed. Thanks for sharing with Madeleine how you got on this, The Four Bodhisattva Vows.
ReplyDelete