Living Imperfectly

 



November 16, 2009

Dodging a Bullet in Time..

Tweet me ... Facebook me...Poke me...

It's all fun an games until you see a moment in time that shakes you to your core...

I dated a girl.. Very smart.. incredibly smart.. Ivy league for the most part..... but it just didn't seem right.. I won't get into the details but something seemed off... A year later I see her on Facebook and she is "in a relationship" and apparently has a baby now. I guess not married... I don't know.  She seems incredibly happy and I am very happy for her.. but I wonder what my life would have been like if ..... Thoughts like this keep me up at night...and I enjoy resting comfortably... 

I wish her and her family the best...but I also know I am not not not ready to sign up for this.. not yet anyway.. 

 

 

 

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [3]

November 15, 2009

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett on What to Do With Your Life...

What should we do if we don't know what we want to do with our lives?

What should we do if we don't know what we want to do with our lives?
GATES:  Well, finding the thing that you are passionate about and that you are good at can sometimes take a period of years.  I think Warren and I were lucky we kind of ran into it.  I wasn't even sure it was software.  I was kind of obsessed with it but then it wasn't clear it could be a career.  When that happened, it was great.  I think most other people get into their 20s and have to try out some different experiences.  And some things will expose you to a lot of different businesses, a lot of different work opportunities.  And I think you can make your first few jobs optimized for getting that exposure.  And then when you want it, see the thing that you want to be fanatical about and just jump on to that.

BECKY:  All right.

BUFFETT:  First of all, I'd say marry the right person. [LAUGHTER]  And I'm serious about that.  [APPLAUSE]  It will make more difference in your life.  It will change your aspiration, all kind of things.  It's enormously important who you marry.  Beyond that, I would say that do what you would do if you were in my position, where the money means nothing to you.  At 79, ... I work every day.  And it's what I want to do more than anything else in the world.  The closer you can come to that early on in your life, you know the more fun you're going to have in life and really the better you're going to do.  So don't be driven where you think the last dollar is presently or anything of that sort.  And then also go to work, if possible, for an organization or an individual that you admire.  I mean I offered to go to work for Ben Graham because there was nobody I admired more in the business than him.  I didn't care what he paid me. 

When he finally did hire me in 1954, I moved from Omaha to New York and I didn't know what I was getting paid until I got my first paycheck.  But I knew I wanted to work for Ben Graham.  And I knew I would jump out of bed every morning and be excited about what I would do and I would go home at night smarter than I was in the morning.  Go to work at a job that turns you on and a person that turns you on and institution.  [APPLAUSE]

Source: CNBC 

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [1]

November 14, 2009

The Sweet Spot of Passion, Expertise and Economic Opportunity

Too often we can't find balance in our careers.  Perhaps we focus on our passion at the cost of economic opportunity. Sometimes we focus on our area of expertise at the expense of our passion.  Finding something that we can do that combines all 3 (passion, expertise and economic opportunity) is a real challenge - but successfully combining all three can make for a real opportunity.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [1]

November 4, 2009

Madness or Brilliance ..or Both - CG Jung's Red Book

The years, of which I have spoken to you, when I pursued the inner images, were the most important time of my life. Everything else is to be derived from this. It began at that time, and the later details hardly matter anymore. My entire life consisted in elaborating what had burst forth from the unconscious and flooded me like an enigmatic stream and threatened to break me. That was the stuff and material for more than only one life. Everything later was merely the outer classification, the scientific elaboration, and the integration into life. But the numinous beginning, which contained everything, was then.” — C. G. Jung

Carl Jung was a giant in the dawn of the age of psychoanalysis. A student of Freud who broke with Freud. Champion of the individual spiritual quest as doorway to the universal.

In midlife, he looked for his own soul and found nothing. Dug deeper, for years, late at night, recording wild visions: gods and demons, winged snakes and crocodiles. Found his soul’s footing, but feared he’d be called insane.

Jung said his “red book,” in which he recorded his visions, was the base of everything else he did. But it was locked away for years in a Swiss vault. Now it’s out. 

"If you want to find paths, you should also not spurn madness, since it makes up such a great part of your nature.” -  C.G. Jung in the Red Book

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html

http://www.onpointradio.org/2009/09/carl-jungs-secret-book

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393065677/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0618428585&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0P9XC6DSHQWZXYYNW0MY

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [2]

October 29, 2009

The Seeker

The Seeker by Pete Townshend  

I've looked under chairs 
I've looked under tables 
I've tried to find the key 
To fifty million fables 

[chorus:]
They call me The Seeker 
I've been searching low and high 
I won't get to get what I'm after 
Till the day I die 

I asked Bobby Dylan 
I asked The Beatles 
I asked Timothy Leary 
But he couldn't help me either 

[chorus]

People tend to hate me 
'Cause I never smile 
As I ransack their homes 
They want to shake my hand 

Focusing on nowhere 
Investigating miles 
I'm a seeker 
I'm a really desperate man 

I won't get to get what I'm after 
Till the day I die 

I learned how to raise my voice in anger 
Yeah, but look at my face, ain't this a smile? 
I'm happy when life's good 
And when it's bad I cry 
I've got values but I don't know how or why 

I'm looking for me 
You're looking for you 
We're looking in at other 
And we don't know what to do 

[chorus]

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [0]

October 29, 2009

Do Used Books Speak to You? - Lessons in Synchronicity

I am floored. Truly.... I'm almost spooked

 I am constantly amazed by how simple, seemingly "common" events in our life can be meaningful...or ignored. The choice is up to us. To the extent you're caught up in yourself, your "goals" or other things it's easy to just tune out what might be a symbol or a sign about how you should live your life.  

I've written about this previously, but I have become a believer in the importance of synchronicity. Sometimes thing just show up in our lives for unexplained reasons.  These events or people can easily be dismissed...or they can be seen as a sign of something larger. 

I ordered an out of publication book from Amazon.  Great. Just got it. Cool.  It's used. ok.  decent condition and then I open it up.  Wham! 

This is what I see....a note.  This is not a joke or fiction. This is the inscription verbatim  

Happy Day of Birth.  Happy Life. Happy Living. Happy 40 years more.  This book talks a lot about the kind of ways I like to be alive and celebrate it.  I thought of you when I read it for the first time.  Maybe it is okay to make small art when ultimately it means you're using the biggest canvas possible - your life.  Much love.

Was the note written to someone else or to me?  My left brain concludes it's to another...my right brain thinks otherwise.   This is so profound and so on point in so many ways. I honestly want to cry. It's almost like a message from god's mouth to my ears.  Things happen for a reason and I'm guessing someone upstairs is trying to help me along the path.  Where it leads I can't yet know

 

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [2]

October 28, 2009

A-Rod is A-Buddist

Gatecrasher

Kate Hudson has A-Rod flirting with Buddhism

GATECRASHER

Sunday, October 25th 2009, 8:25 AM

Kate Hudson and Alex Rodriguez get cozy in the stands.
Kate Hudson and Alex Rodriguez get cozy in the stands.

RELATED NEWS

Some kind of higher power must be watching over Alex Rodriguez in the Yanks-Angels playoff series — but he's probably not sure which one.

A source close to the Bronx Bomber calls A-Rod a "religious chameleon" who lately has been flirting with Buddhism, thanks to girlfriend Kate Hudson.

"It's an important part of her life," says the insider about the religion of the slugger's squeeze, who was raised as a Buddhist. "And it seems like Alex really just wants to make her happy."

A spy sitting behind the blond bombshell atYankee Stadium last Friday night (right behind the dugout, natch) says the actress even brought Buddha prayer beads with her to the game, carefully laying them across the railing in front of her seats. "It was a long strand of brown beads, and she and her friends would pick them up from time to time," the fan said.

Her good-luck ritual must have worked. That night the Yanks crushed the Angels 4-1.

This isn't the first time Rodriguez has gotten religious for a galpal. Previously, the heavy hitter had a stint with the ancient Jewish religion kabbalah while dating Madonna. A-Rod even went so far as to rub elbows with the sect's NYC elite, including Kabbalah Centerhigher-ups Eitan Yardeni and Rabbi Michael Berg. But he left his red string and Hebrew lessons behind when he and Madge went their separate ways.

At the very least, Rodriguez's brand-new interest in Buddhism is bound to help him hit a home run with Hudson's family. Her mother, Goldie Hawn, is an active practitioner who has met the Dalai Lama. "Goldie more than approves of Alex," says the insider. "If he becomes a Buddhist, it'll only seal the deal."

While a rep for A-Rod refused to comment and Hudson's rep didn't return calls, Yankee fans are sure to support anything that helps the team get into the World Series. Everybody say, "Om!"

SEEN & HEARD: Diane Sawyer gabbing with Candice Bergen at Glenlivet's screening of "My Dinner with Andre" at Soho House on Tuesday. … Caroline Kennedy and Maria Shriver dining with HBO execs at Swifty's on Tuesday. … Singer/actor Kevin Baconrecording tracks with his brother at the Esquire Apartment at SoHo Mews on Wednesday night.

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [0]

October 25, 2009

Song Inside

  

Love this song from Ethan Lipton.  The lyrics are classic. Shame it's not on iTunes. I had to buy it on CD.  Really. 

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [0]

October 25, 2009

Lessons on Living Life from Jack Kerouac

 

I just watched One Fast Move, Or I'm Gone -  An excellent film about Jack Kerouac, a man with whom I've lately become fascinated by. Jack was asked to explicitly identify how he was able to write the way he was. He listed 30 techniques.  After watching the film and reading this list I think it might not only be a brilliant strategy for writing, but also perhaps provides some brilliant tips on how to live a full life.

 

Jack Kerouac, "Belief & Technique for Modern Prose"

 

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening 
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house 
4. Be in love with your life 
5. Something that you feel will find its own form 
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind 
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow 
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind 
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual 
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is 
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest 
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you 
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition 
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time


15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog 
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye 
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself 
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea 
19. Accept loss forever 
20. Believe in the holy contour of life 
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind 
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better 
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in your morning 
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of your experience, language & knowledge 
25. Write for the world to read and see your exact pictures of it 
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form 
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness 
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better 
29. You're a Genius all the time 
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

 

 

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88v/kerouac-technique.html

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [0]

October 24, 2009

"Unexpected travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God" - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I just heard this quote today, but somehow my heart has already known it. 

Loading mentions Retweet

Comments [0]