Inspiration

In Doing, I Find My Way

/ James Browning

DSCN2700

“Everything I do is a step on a path to where I end up”. That’s an almost too obvious statement and maybe the reason most know the words but don’t grasp the full meaning. A million course changes, intentional and not, make up the route of this ship of life I ride in. Each happening, choice or splinter of destiny set me in the direction of exactly where I am today.

In retrospect, a lot of time slipped by before the wisdom of forward motion soaked in. Often I thought, “I’ll decide/make a choice/figure it out” tomorrow, next week or after so and so happens. The days came and went with no insight or inspiration arriving. Instead frustration grew.

Some of my best decisions have been rooted in the illogical notion Sir Richard Branson frames as “screw it, let’s do it”. When something feels right, it usually is, even if logic can’t reassure that. My breakthroughs come from making a choice and just getting on with it. Conversely, logic and reason have pushed me into a lot of decisions that in hindsight were mistakes.

More often than not waiting for inspiration has meant letting time expire without much to show for it. Revelation has usually come while I was busy implementing some uninspired choice. Insight has rarely come while sitting still and instead usually shows up while I am busy painting myself into a corner. Need is a rapid and prolific incubator of concepts, ideas and possibilities!

The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case. Chuck Close

“In doing, I find my way”. That sums up one of the more insightful pieces of wisdom life has taught me. In movement, no matter how uninspired, purpose is found. Sitting motionless in one spot trying to decide is akin to being partially dead. I am grateful to realize living is always in the trying, even if I fail.

The only thing standing
between you and your goal
is the bullshit story
you keep telling yourself
as to why you can’t achieve it.
Jordan Belfort

Beyond Ideas of Wrong-Doing and Right-Doing

/ James Browning

flock of migrating canada geese birds flying at sunset

Almost a year ago I saved a poem by American poet Mary Oliver titled “Wild Geese”. From the first reading the words touched me with their directness and clarity.

I felt certain the poem would be a good item to include in a future G.M.G. installment. Going back to it several times there was never a morning when it seemed to fit exactly into my thoughts. Today Mary Oliver’s poem surfaced again from my hard drive and I gave in to my desire to include it here. Instead of continuing to wait for it to fit into my writing, I have chosen to include it in place of my thoughts.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I long suffered with “trying to be perfect”. My future was held hostage by holding my past to my head and firing it into my brain over and over again. Mary Oliver’s poem tells me I don’t always have to be good, nor do I have to repeatedly repent until it hurts me. She goes on to assure me that it is okay to love who and what I love. Her words about a changing landscape are a reminder how quickly things change and how fast life passes by.

Then there are the Mary Oliver’s words that ring with the most comfort: “Whoever you are, not matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination…announcing your place in the family of things”. With an emotional uprising in my chest each time I read those words, there is assurance I belong to this world and it to me. I am grateful for the peace that promise brings.

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing
and right-doing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.”
Rumi

Living Too Long With a Single Dream

/ James Browning

the-great-gaatsby edit

A lot can be packed into forty-four years. F. Scott Fitzgerald proved it. In more than one or two ways his life paralleled those of one of his characters, James Gatz or Jay Gatsby. Both suffered from the ill effects of wealth and a decadent lifestyle, their own ego and overt self-confidence, and alcoholism.

Take away the drinking and I too, have a little in common with Fitzgerald, but to a greater degree with his Gatsby character. Money things corrupted me as it did him. Growing up poor I too wrongly thought material wealth was the key to happiness. I have loved women who were not good for me just as Gatsby’s “Daisy” was for him. Just as she did to him, more than once my heart was given wholly and completely to one who professed love for me, only to be ultimately left behind.

Having never read “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald nor having seen the movie version made in my time I did not know what to expect when I headed out to take in the movie yesterday. It was a film I was determined to see on the big screen but almost missed out. My last chance was at a nearby “cheapie movie” theater. It is the writer’s use of language and ability to pant vivid images in my mind I will long remember. Here are a few quotes particularly memorable to me.

If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promise of life… it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again.

His dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him.

It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four of five times in life. It faced – or seemed to face – the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on YOU with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.

He looked at her the way all women want to be looked at by a man.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in 1896 and died of a heart attack in 1940. He is generally thought of as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th Century and specifically remembered for his vivid descriptions of the “Jazz Age”, a name he coined. “Gatsby” has been frequently referred to as a cautionary tale regarding the American Dream. In spite of how Fitzgerald is viewed today, he died believing himself to be a failure and his work forgotten.

Seeing “The Great Gatsby” yesterday opened my awareness up to F. Scott Fitzgerald and his work. Now I have several novels to read and three old movies to see; one from 1949, another from 1974 and a TV movie from 2000. There was a silent version from 1926 made in Fitzgerald’s time I would dearly enjoy seeing but sadly it is a famous example of a lost film. A trailer is all that is known to exist.

For a man who loves skillfully written books, good stories and well done movies, I am delighted to have something new come on to my path. I am grateful to have discovered Fitzgerald and Gatsby.

…he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world,
paid a high price for living too long with a single dream.
He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky…
A new world, material without being real,
where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air,
drifted fortuitously about…
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Anniversary of Our Declaration of Independence

/ James Browning

First posted on July 4, 2011 by James Browning

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America,

declaration-with-glasses-large

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it…

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled… solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown…

Ever wondered what happened to the fifty-six men who signed the Declaration of Independence? Here are examples of the price some of them paid:

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or hardships resulting from the Revolutionary War.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Perhaps one of the more inspiring examples of “undaunted resolution” was at the Battle of Yorktown. Thomas Nelson, Jr. returning from Philadelphia noted that British General Cornwallis had taken over his home, but that the patriots were directing their artillery fire all over the town except for the vicinity of his beautiful home. Nelson asked why they were not firing in that direction and the soldiers replied, “Out of respect to you, Sir.” Nelson quietly urged General Washington to open fire, and stepped forward to the nearest cannon, aimed at his own house and fired. The other guns joined in, and the Nelson home was destroyed. Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis’s Long Island home was looted and gutted, his home and properties destroyed. His wife was thrown into a damp dark prison cell without a bed. Health ruined, Mrs. Lewis soon died from the effects of the confinement. The Lewis’s son would later die in British captivity, also.

“Honest John” Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she lay dying, when British and Hessian troops invaded New Jersey just months after he signed the Declaration. Their thirteen children fled for their lives. His fields and his grist mill were laid to waste. All winter, and for more than a year, Hart lived in forests and caves, finally returning home to find his wife dead, his children vanished and his farm destroyed. A few weeks later, John Hart was dead from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

New Jersey’s Richard Stockton, after rescuing his wife and children from advancing British troops, was betrayed by a loyalist, imprisoned, beaten and nearly starved. He returned an invalid to find his home gutted, and his library and papers burned. He, too, never recovered, dying a broken man.

William Ellery of Rhode Island, who marveled that he had seen only “undaunted resolution” in the faces of his co-signers, also had his home burned.

Only days after Lewis Morris of New York signed the Declaration, British troops ravaged his 2,000-acre estate, butchered his cattle and drove his family off the land. Three of Morris’ sons fought the British.

When the British seized the York house of the wealthy Philip Livingston, he sold off everything else, and gave the money to the Revolution. He died in 1778.

Arthur Middleton, Edward Rutledge and Thomas Heyward Jr. went home to South Carolina. In the British invasion of the South, Heyward was wounded and all three were captured. As he rotted on a prison ship inSt. Augustine, Heyward’s plantation was raided, buildings burned, and his wife, who witnessed it all, died. Other Southern signers suffered the same general fate.

These were men who believed in a cause far beyond themselves. These were not wild-eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing straight and unwavering, they pledged: “For the support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

My entire way of life and the freedom to live it I owe to those 56 men. I am deeply grateful for their courage, fortitude and sacrifice.

Read the full Declaration of Independence at: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence.
It is force; like fire, a troublesome servant
and a fearful master. Never for a moment
should it be left to irresponsible action.
George Washington

Inspiring His Father

/ James Browning

530916_10101173850880323_104345909_nIf a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn . . .
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight . . .
If a child lives with fear, he learns to be apprehensive . . .
If a child lives with pity, he learns to feel sorry for himself . . .
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy . . .
If a child lives with jealousy, he learns to feel envy . . .
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty . . .
BUT
If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient . . .
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns to be confident . . .
If a child lives with praise, he learns to be appreciative . . .
If a child lives with acceptance, he learns to love . . .
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves. . .
If a child lives with honesty, he learns what truth is . . .
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice . . .
If children live with recognition, they learn to have a goal. . .
If children live with sharing, they learn to be generous. . .
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith in himself and those about him . . .
If a child lives with friendliness, he learns the world is a nice place in which to live . . .
From “Children Learn What They Live: Parenting to Inspire Values” by Dorothy Law Nolte

My son will turn thirty-one years old a little later this year, and while I can see his imperfections, none of them keep this Father from seeing the perfection in him. Watching the joy in his discoveries and successes enrich my life. While the bright newness of life wore off for me a good while ago, seeing my son experience it awakens those old feelings within. Through observing his young adult life, old yearnings come alive and dreams from way back drift frequently into thought.

The son is now inspiring his father as he and I more closely connect as adults making the full circle of what we share more complete. There is no love greater than a parent can feel for a child. I am humbly grateful my life journey includes such a wonderful gift as my ‘boy’.

Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
Kahlil Gibran

Personal Points of Truth

/ James Browning

86775f6221c115d4c53ff4f4b2d43034-d306hyf“Soon You Will Understand… The Meaning of Life” is a book by William Blank published about a decade ago that only came into my awareness recently. The author is “a
middle-aged guy who has walked through a big part of the extreme yin and yang of human possibilities”.

The book sets out to give “a brief generic overview of why you are here, what your experience is all about and what it all means”. There are forty-four short sections that shed light on topics from “Work To Survive” to “Be Remembered” to “Have Tasks” included just below. Whether one agrees the with precise concepts, Mr. Blank’s book contains lots of good stuff for spiritual seekers such as me.

You come here to do certain
specific
things.
You may have one task
or many.
Your tasks may be obvious to you.
or you may need time,
effort,
maybe struggle
even to clarify
your tasks.
You may never quite even clarify your task
until the moment
your time in this body
ends.
You may work on your task for years
before you realize,
“This is my task.”
The tasks you came to perform
may take the whole of your life
or be done in an instant.
You may be aware
you are performing your life task
while you do it.
You may perform your task quickly,
hardly noticing
anything special,
unaware
you are doing the task
you came to do
while you do it.
Your task may be so easy,
obvious and
natural,
you never even wonder,
“What is my task?”
Your unique blend
of talents and interests
may lead you
to your task
and you just do it.
Or, your task may be a constant,
unpleasant
struggle
you fight
every step of the way.
Your task may be noble and wonderful
and gain you
recognition,
rewards
and honors.
Or, it may be simple,
totally unnoticeable
by anyone else.

http://www.themeaningoflife.org/0Introduction.htm

At least two or three dozen times within some seven hundred or so entries on this blog, I have said “what I need seems to show up at the time I need it”. Once again that has been proven true by becoming aware of  the book “The Meaning of Life…” by Bill Blank. I am grateful for his insights that are making me think, ponder and arrive at a few new personal points of truth.

Reason does not work instinctively,
but requires trial, practice,
and instruction in order to
gradually progress from
one level of insight to another
Immanuel Kant

Be Led By Your Dreams

/ James Browning

400_1209788157_wsredsunset1024x768 In my Internet Exploder bookmarks I found a post saved about a year ago titled “12 Things You Should Be Able to Say About Yourself” from a blog called “Mark and Angel Hack Life” ago http://www.marcandangel.com/2012/04/26/you-should-be-able-to-say-about-yourself/ (Thanks M&A for the inspiration. I will be a regular visitor to your blog from now on!)

Before I filed the blog away the material got only a tertiary scan, but today’s look included a good read of the twelve things to aspire to. Some I am doing good at; others need work. However, I am especially proud of my current state with number 1 and number 5.

1. I am following my heart and intuition.

Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams. Live the life you want to live. Be the person you want to remember years from now. Make decisions and act on them. Make mistakes, fall and try again. Even if you fall a thousand times, at least you won’t have to wonder what could have been. At least you will know in your heart that you gave your dreams your best shot.

Each of us has a fire in our hearts burning for something. It’s our responsibility in life to find it and keep it lit. This is your life, and it’s a short one. Don’t let others extinguish your flame. Try what you want to try. Go where you want to go. Follow your own intuition. Dream with your eyes open until you know exactly what it looks like. Then do at least one thing every day to make it a reality.

And as you strive to achieve your goals, you can count on there being some fairly substantial disappointments along the way. Don’t get discouraged, the road to your dreams may not be an easy one. Think of these disappointments as challenges – tests of persistence and courage. At the end of the road, more often than not, we regret what we didn’t do far more than what we did.

5. I am growing in to the best version of me.

Judy Garland once said, “Always be a first-rate version of yourself instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” Live by this statement. There is no such thing as living in someone else’s shoes. The only shoes you can occupy are your own. If you aren’t being yourself, you aren’t truly living – you’re merely existing.

Remember, trying to be anyone else is a waste of the person you are. Embrace that individual inside you that has ideas, strengths and beauty like no one else. Be the person you know yourself to be – the best version of you – on your terms. Improve continuously, take care of your body and health, and surround yourself with positivity. Become the best version of you.

In #1 “Be led by your dreams” is especially meaningful to me now. Before my 50’s I mostly put others before me, rightly so in some cases, but misguided in others. Now at times I feel like I just woke up and started living my own life after sleepwalking in a dream (not necessarily always the good kind) for most of my adult life.  I am leaving my profession this year to follow my dream of travel and writing. There will need to be income of some sort down the road, but I am convinced it is waiting for me. I only need to put my feet on the path forward and believe. The rest will come.

“..trying to be anyone else is a waste of the person you are.” After a myriad of failed attempts to be like others, eventually I became too tired to try. Through that exhaustion, as much as anything else, I began to make peace with who I actually am. Frankly, today I just don’t care a whole lot about what others think of me. Of course, I’d prefer it be good, but at a deep level it just does not matter much. Reaching that point is some of the best “growing up” I have done. Yea for me (as I pat myself on the back unabashedly). I am grateful to who I am… no more; no less.

Your perceptions are derived from your feelings
and your ability to be yourself, to own
and trust yourself, and to say what you feel,
even when it may be diametrically opposed
to everyone else’s opinion.
You may be called the Devil Incarnate.
You may feel like cow pies are being thrown at you.
Sometimes that is part of being true to yourself.
Barbara Marciniak

Simply This Thing, and Then the Next

/ James Browning

fragile_as_we_are_by_nelleke-d5dqyfsIf we tune-in on thoughts of failure, illness, discouragement, despair and hate, the charts of our lives will take a sharp downward course.

If we tune-in on thoughts of victory, love, hope and faith, our lives will become larger, finer, more worth while.

If we tune-in on the surface things that break like bubbles and leave us nothing, our lives will be shallow and empty.

If we tune-in on the deeper things, eternal principles of plain living and high thinking, the riches which men have put into immortal literature, art and music, then entire personalities will grow and expand.

If we permit ourselves to become selfish and cold toward others, the springs of love and sentiment will dry up leaving us but the husks of life.

If, on the other hand, we are kind and thoughtful and considerate of others; if we strive always to pluck a thorn and plant a flower wherever we think a flower will grow, riches more valuable than much fine gold will enter our lives.

Saint and sinner, prince and pauper, the things men tune-in on become a part of them and make them what they are. Lilly Ames-Light

A hard learned, greatly meaningful lesson of my life has been nothing stays the same; given time every thing changes. Impermanence is the only constant that life offers. My attitude toward living is the fountain of richness of for my existence. Embracing living as it comes with as little consternation as possible is the key to my happiness. “It’s all good, even when it is bad”. I am grateful.

Life is perhaps after all simply this thing, and then the next.
We are all of us improvising. We find a careful balance
only to discover that gravity or stasis or love or dismay or illness
or some other force suddenly tows us in an unexpected direction.
We wake up to find that we have changed abruptly in a way
that is peculiar and inexplicable. We are constantly adjusting,
making it up, feeling our way forward, figuring out how to be
and where to go next. We work it out, how to be happy,
but sooner or later comes a change-sometimes something small,
sometimes everything at once, and we have to start over again,
feeling our way back to a provisional state of contentment.
Anne Giardini

A Blue Rose

/ James Browning

blue_roses_3_1400x1050Two thoughts by a favorite young writer living in the Czech Republic:

What if you could pick one day of your life, and everything would stop changing, every day would be similar and comparable to that one day, you’d always have the same people with you?

If you could do that, would you do it?

Would you pick that day and make that choice?

We crave for things to stop changing, we wish that things would never change.

But if we got what we wanted, there are so many things that are better, that we would never, ever know about.

Sure, things would stay the same as that one wonderful day, but then there would be nothing else out there, ever.

So can you remember the very first day when everything really did begin to change?

Is there a thing that can remind you?

Mine is a blue rose, and that’s when everything began to change because that’s the day I began to believe in things I never believed in before; the day I found three blue roses.

Think about your first day of change, can you remember all the new heights you’ve soared since that day?

All the new people?

All the better things and times?

Would you throw all of that time away?

I wouldn’t.

Instead, I want to finally accept all the things that I couldn’t change, which led to me being right here, right now.

Maybe we all carry around inside us one day we wish we could keep forever, something we wished never did change.

It’s time to let go of that day, and soar.
C. JoyBell C.

There have been times I wished for change to slow down or stop. Yet, I know that is not only unhealthy, it’s impossible. To wish for something that can never be is a pure waste of my energy. So instead I gratefully embrace all that comes to me for every happening, person or situation that arrives is uniquely a part of my life.

We can’t be afraid of change.
You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in,
but if you never venture out of it,
you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea.
Holding onto something that is good for you now,
may be the very reason why you don’t have something better.
C. JoyBell C.

It Is Within Your Ability

/ James Browning

solitude_sunset-wide

Today brings a morning where my intention is to leave a beautiful image or two here along with a piece of inspiration. And that I will, but am hesitant to not fill the space with more words. But instead of using language to hide my intent, I will instead let go and let what my instinct had me put here be enough.

You are equal to all others.
Some may have greater talents and power
where you are lacking
but you are greater in areas
where they cannot go.
Do not stop your own growth and progression
by trying to emulate… or follow… anyone.
Step out with courage,
develop all that you are meant to be.
Look for new experiences….
Meet new people,
learn to add all new dimensions,
to your present and future.
You are one of a kind….
equal to every other person.
Accept that fact;
live it… use it… stand tall
in belief of who you are.
Reach for the highest accomplishment;
touch it… grasp it…
Know it is within your ability!
Live to win in life
and you will.
Diane Westlake

7073625621_d59fc99cd4_zI am grateful to be reminded of what I know but don’t practice well all the time: the perfect imperfection I am and all that makes me capable of. With beautiful images and a comforting thoughts in my mind I am off into my day a happy man.  I hope the hours between now and my next post bring you all you hope for and need… and more.

Far away there in the sunshine
are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them,
but I can look up
and see their beauty,
believe in them,
and try to follow where they lead.
Louisa May Alcott