Beyond Good and Bad

Beyond Good and Bad
Category: Goals, Plans, Hopes

Experience is utility. Utility is the value of a thing to be used for certain ends - basically its usefulness. For example a set of tools are 'utilized' to perform certain mechanical tasks. Experience in and of itself has utility. What I mean by this is that every experience serves as a tool for use to expand our possibilities.

Often, we filter our experiences through a lens that tags circumstances and situations with a 'bad' label or 'good' label. This way of thinking is ancient. Ancient in the sense that it is obsolete and dangerous. To truly make utility out of experience we must create new filters through which we can 'see' reality through a pragmatic lens.

We can see value and utility in all experiences by asking questions that guide our awareness and focus. For example, instead of presupposing a situation is good or bad, you can ask "how is this situation useful.' Also, we can ask 'what opportunities does this situation present?'

By stopping yourself short of analyzing a situation as good or bad, it gives you a chance to apply a new filter and gradually acquire a habit that will increase your quality of life.

- Angel Armendariz

How To Be As Deliberate As Nature

How To Be As Deliberate As Nature
Category: Life

"God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by
the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. The universe constantly and obediently answers to our conceptions; whether we travel fast or slow, the track is laid for us. Let us spend our lives in conceiving then.
...Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito's wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation..." - Henry David Thoreau

Consistency of purpose - that is the creator of futures yet to be seen. Nature's lessons are abundant, and thoroughly pointed out by Henry David Thoreau. To consider each moment sacred is the way of nature. The way of modern man de-sensitizes us to the continual renewal of present awareness. We must attend to our aim and nurture it with our purpose theat burns from within. Aim without purpose is tiresome and purpose without aim is meaningless. To live deliberately is the highest art; leave nothing to chance unless it be chosen such, and mold a sacred presence about you so that your beauty may shine forth.