Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.  ~Ambrose Redmoon

 

 

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.  ~Winston Churchill

 

 

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.  ~Mark Twain

 

 

People are made of flesh and blood and a miracle fibre called courage.  ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

 

 

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.  ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters to Lucilius

 Source: http://dwhamby1.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/courage.jpg

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear – not absence of fear.  Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.  ~Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar, 1894

 

 

Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.  ~Ernest Hemingway, Men at War, 1942

 

 

The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.  ~John F. Kennedy

 

 

There is no such thing as bravery; only degrees of fear.  ~John Wainwright

 

 

To him that waits all things reveal themselves, provided that he has the courage not to deny, in the darkness, what he has seen in the light.  ~Coventry Patmore

Source: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3125/3149942255_1325221807.jpg

One has just to be oneself.  That’s my basic message.  The moment you accept yourself as you are, all burdens, all mountainous burdens simply disappear.  Then life is a sheer joy, a festival of lights.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

We are meant to midwife dreams for one another… Success occurs in clusters.

Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Take heart, truth and happiness will get you in the end.  You can’t lose in this game.  Have fun.

John and Lyn St. Clair Thomas

A human being is a part of the whole…. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical illusion of… consciousness.  This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Albert Einstein

We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

It took me a while to pick the best idea for the post on March the 8^th, the International Women’s Day.  What do women cherish the most?  Careers?  Perhaps… But love is always the safe bet, so I decided to talk more about love and meaning of life because this is the most important thing for me.  And for the rest of the world?  That is for the rest of the world to decide.

From Katherine Woodward Thomas “Calling in “The One”

Are you frustrated by stymied relationships, missed connections, and the loneliness of the search for someone to spend the rest of your life with?  Are you ready, instead, to find “The One”?  In Calling in “The One”, Katherine Woodward Thomas shares her own personal experience to show women that in order to find the relationship that will last a lifetime, you have to be truly open and ready to create a loving, committed, romantic union.  Calling in “The One” shows you how.

Based on the Law of Attraction, which is the concept that we can only attract what we’re ready to receive, the provocative yet simple seven-week program in Calling in “The One” prepares you to bring forth the love you seek.  For each of the 49 days of Thomas’s thoughtful and life-affirming plan, there is a daily lesson, a corresponding practice, and instruction for putting that lesson into action in your life.  Meditation, visualization, and journaling exercises will gently lead you to recognize the obstacles on your path to love and provide ways to steer around them.  At the end of those 49 days, you will be in the ideal emotional state to go out into the world and find “The One”.

An inspirational approach that offers a radical new philosophy on relationships, Calling in “The One” is your guide to finding the love you seek.

From the Chapter 13 “Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall”

Source: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/uimages/ny/3-11-fiction-mirror-1.jpg

An ordinary man behaves like a dog which, upon entering a hall of mirrors, barks at all the other dogs.  The sage, entering the hall of mirrors, sees only himself.”

Gurunathan

I no longer try to change outer things.  They are simply a reflection.  I change my inner perception and the outer reveals the beauty so long obscured by my own attitude.  I concentrate on my inner vision and find my outer view transformed.

Daily Word

Like attracts like.  Whatever the conscious mind thinks and believes, the subconscious identically creates.

Brian Adams

A loving person lives in a loving world.  A hostile person lives in a hostile world.  Everyone you meet is your mirror.

Ken Keyes Jr.

Page 84

We often have more faith in the act of assertion than we do in the Law of Attraction – trusting more in trying to make things happen by taking actions than we do in drawing things toward us and allowing them to happen.  This doing-ness could be called the masculine aspect of the creative process; that part that goes out and gets what it wants.  It is the hunter in all of us, both male and female.  The masculine creative principle is largely how our Western culture works.  It is the principle that we are most familiar with and the one that we trust in the most.

The feminine aspect of the creative principle, however, draws toward itself that which it is actively creating from within.  We often mistake this stillness as passive and static.  Women, who are usually cast in this inactive role, are often frustrated by the “sit and wait by the phone” thing.  However, this is a misunderstanding of the power of the feminine creative process, which conceives by cultivating a strong inner vision and then working internally to draw that vision in.  Feminine creative energy is like a barber role.  It alternates between the red and the white with no beginning and no end.  The internal vision is the magnet for the external condition and they dance fluidly and in harmony with one another constantly.

[…]

Many of us feel so desperate and driven to find love.  But the feeling of desperation is really a panicked response to inner belief that you will not get what you want.  This belief then causes an anxious ambition to have this not be so, and we start trying to push, manipulate, and cajole the events of our lives in reaction.  But there’s absolutely nothing you can do externally to prove that your own internal belief is wrong.  Because it’s neither right nor wrong.  It’s simply your belief.  As such, it has the power to magnetize that which does – and that which does not come into your life.

[…]

What can’t come through you, can’t come to you.  If you want to attract in the people, situations, and circumstances that support the manifestation of love in your life, then you must feel love, believe that it is possible for you, and claim it as your own.  Because we draw toward us that which is most compelling within us, believing with all your heart that you can and will have love is the single most important thing that you can do on this quest for fulfillment.

From Robert Greene “The 48 Laws of Power”.

Law 48 – Assume Formlessness

Page 419

Judgment

By taking a shape, by having a visible plan, you open yourself to attack.  Instead of taking a form for your enemy to grasp, keep yourself adaptable and on the move.  Accept the fact that nothing is certain and no law is fixed.  The best way to protect yourself is to be as fluid and formless as water; never bet on stability or lasting order.  Everything changes.

Source: http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/eduoff/vt-2004//mt-2003/mt-mercury-map6-normal.jpg

In martial arts, it is important that strategy be unfathomable, that form be concealed, and that movements be unexpected, so that preparedness against them be impossible.  What enables a good general to win without fail is always having unfathomable wisdom and a modus operandi that leaves no tracks.  Only the formless cannot be affected.  Sages hide in unfathomability, so their feelings cannot be observed; they operate in formlessness, so their lines cannot be crossed.

The Book of the Huainan Masters, China, Second Century B.C.

Character Armor

To carry out the instinctual inhibition demanded by the modern world and to be able to cope with the energy stasis which results from this inhibition, the ego has to undergo a change.  The ego, i.e., that part of the person that is exposed to danger, becomes rigid, as we say, when it is continually subjected to the same or similar conflicts between need and a fear-inducing outer world.  It acquires in this process a chronic, automatically functioning mode of reaction, i.e., its “character”.  It is as if the affective personality armored itself, as the hard shell it develops were intended to deflect and weaken the blows of the outer world as well as the clamoring of the inner needs.  This armoring makes the person less sensitive to unpleasure, but also restricts his libidinal and aggressive motility and thus reduces his capacity for achievement and pleasure.  We say the ego has become less flexible and more rigid, and that the ability to regulate the energy economy depends on the extent of the armoring.

Wilhelm Reich, 1897 – 1957

Observance of the law

When you want to fight us, we don’t let you and you can’t find us.  But when we want t fight you, we make sure that you can’t get away and we hit you squarely…and wipe you out… The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue.

Mao Tse-Tung, 1893 – 1976

Keys to Power

The human animal is distinguished by its constant creation of forms.  Rarely expressing its emotions directly, it gives them form through language, or through socially acceptable rituals.  We cannot communicate our emotions without a form.

The forms that we create, however, change constantly – in fashion, in style, in all those human phenomena representing the mood of the moment.  We are constantly altering the forms we have inherited from previous generations, and these changes are signs of life and vitality.  Indeed, the things that don’t change, the forms that rigidify, come to look to us like death, and we destroy them.  The young show this most clearly: Uncomfortable with the forms that society imposes upon them, having no set identity, they play with their own characters, trying on a variety of masks and poses to express themselves.  This is the vitality that drives the motor of form, creating constant changes in style.

The powerful are often people who in their youth have shown immense creativity in expressing something new through a new form.  Society grants them power because it hungers for and rewards this sort of newness.  The problem comes later, when they often grow conservative and possessive.  They no longer dream of creating new forms; their habits congeal, and their rigidity makes them easy targets.  Everyone knows their next move.  Instead of demanding respect they elicit boredom: Get off the stage! We say, let someone else, someone younger, entertain us.  When locked in the past, the powerful look comical – they are overripe fruit, waiting to fall from the tree.

Power can only thrive if it is flexible in its forms.  To be formless is not to be amorphous; everything has a form – it is impossible to avoid.  The formlessness of power is more like that of water, or mercury, taking the form of whatever is around it.  Changing constantly, it is never predictable.  The powerful are constantly creating form, and their power comes from the rapidity with which they can change.  Their formlessness is in the eye of the enemy who cannot see what they are up to and so has nothing solid to attack.  This is the premier pose of power: ungraspable, as elusive and swift as the god Mercury, who could take any form he pleased and this ability to wreak havoc on Mount Olympus.

Human creations evolve toward abstraction, toward being more mental and less material.  This evolution is clear in art, which, in this century, made the great discovery of abstraction and conceptualism; it can also be seen in politics, which over time have become less overtly violent, more complicated, indirect and cerebral.  Warfare and strategy too have followed this pattern.  Strategy began in the manipulation of armies on land, positioning them in ordered formations; on land, strategy is relatively two dimensional, and controlled by topography.  But all the great powers have eventually taken to sea, for commerce and colonization.  And to protect their trading lanes they have had to learn how to fight at sea.  Maritime warfare requires tremendous creativity and abstract thinking, since the lines are constantly shifting.  Naval captains distinguish themselves by their ability to adapt to the literal fluidity of the terrain and to confuse the enemy with an abstract, hard-to-anticipate form.  They are operating in a third dimension: the mind.

Image:

Mercury.  The winged messenger, god of commerce, patron saint of thieves, gamblers, and all those who deceive through swiftness.  The day Mercury was born he invented the lyre; by that evening he had stolen the cattle of Apollo.  He would scour the world, assuming whatever form he desired.  Like the liquid metal named after him, he embodies the elusive, the ungraspable – the power of formlessness.

Authority:

Therefore the consummation of forming an army is to arrive at formlessness. Vitory in war is not repetitious, but adapts its form endlessly… A military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: The ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius.

(Sun-tzu, fourth century B.C.)

From Robert Greene “The 48 Laws of Power”.

Preface, page xvii

The feeling of having no power over people and events is generally unbearable to us – when we feel helpless we feel miserable.  No one wants less power; everyone wants more.  In the world today, however, it is dangerous to seem too power hungry, to be overt with your power moves.  We have to seem fair and decent.  So we need to be subtle – congenial yet cunning, democratic yet devious.

This game of constant duplicity most resembles the power dynamic that existed in the scheming world of the old aristocratic court.

[…]

The successful courtier learned over time to make all of his moves indirect; if he stabbed an opponent in the back, it was with a velvet glove on his hand and the sweetest of smiles on his face.  Instead of using coercion or outright treachery, the perfect courtier got his way though seduction, charm, deception, and subtle strategy, always planning several moves ahead.  Life in the court was a never-ending game that required constant vigilance and tactical thinking.  It was civilized war.

Today we face a peculiarly similar paradox to that of the courtier: Everything must appear civilized, decent, democratic, and fair.  But if we play by those rules too strictly, if we take them too literally, we are crushed by those around us who are not so foolish.  As the great Renaissance diplomat and courtier Niccolo Machiavelli wrote, “Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good.”  The court imagined itself the pinnacle of refinement, but underneath its glittering surface a cauldron of dark emotions – greed, envy, lust, hatred – boiled and simmered.  Our world similarly imagines itself the pinnacle of fairness, yet the same ugly emotions still stir within us, as they have forever.  The game is the same.  Outwardly, you must seem to respect the niceties, but inwardly, unless you are a fool, you learn quickly to be prudent, and to do as Napoleon advised: Place your iron hand inside a velvet glove.  If, like the courtier of times gone by, you can master the arts o indirection, learning to seduce, charm, deceive, and subtly outmaneuver your opponents, you will attain the heights of power.  You will be able to make people bend to your will without their realizing what you have done.  And if they do not realize what you have done, they will never resent nor resist you.

3 years ago…

The first thing that I did on this journey was starting a diary.

This is not the first record, but I guess it explains everything.

24 Feb. 2007

It is extremely difficult to begin.  But I have to.

I’m afraid there is no other way.  Maybe I’ll do it slowly first…

I have a feeling that it might be “the rock bottom”, even if it is not, it’s painful enough right now.

I certainly feel the lack, or rather absence of courage, to look inside of me, to find out what is happening, why and what to do.

The whole endeavour is so scary that I’m ready to throw away the notepad as far as possible and preferably with a big bang.

Why am I living in this mess?

What would be my first step out?

[…]

Claim everything back…

[…]

It does not matter if it will or will not be understood…

I cannot come to grips (check expression) with my life and I have to.

Succeed (ME < L succedere <sub -  up (to) + cedere go)

1. turn out well; prosper : His plans succeeded. Any able person who works well can succeed..
2. accomplish what is attempted or intended: The attack succeeded beyond all expectations.  After much discussion, Jill succeeded in convincing her father that she needed her own car.

Of course, in a philosophical sense of the word, it is much harder to define what success really is.  Or failure for that matter.

Source: http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r320/nizz6pics/success.jpg

Quotes on Success:

“Success is not access to excess.” Anonymous

 

 

“The two hardest things to handle in life are failure & success.” Anonymous

 

 

“Yielding is sometimes the best way of succeeding.” Anonymous

 

 

“You cannot sit on the road to success, for if you do, you will get run over.” Anonymous

 

 

“A successful man continues to look for work after he has found a job.” Anonymous

 

 

“Health, happiness and success depend upon the fighting spirit of each person. The big thing is not what happens to us in life – but what we do about what happens to us.” George Allen

 

 

“Act as though it is impossible to fail.” Anonymous

 

 

“Choice, not circumstances, determines your success.” Anonymous

 

 

“Motivation is the fuel, necessary to keep the human engine running.” Zig Ziglar

 

 

”If you care at all, you’ll get some results.  If you care enough, you’ll get incredible results.” Jim Rohn

 

 

“Every one of us, unconsciously, works out a personal philosophy of life, by which we are guided, inspired, and corrected, as time goes on. It is this philosophy by which we measure out our days, and by which we advertise to all about us the man, or woman, that we are. . . . It takes but a brief time to scent the life philosophy of anyone. It is defined in the conversation, in the look of the eye, and in the general mien of the person. It has no hiding place. It’s like the perfume of the flower — unseen, but known almost instantly. It is the possession of the successful, and the happy. And it can be greatly embellished by the absorption of ideas and experiences of the useful of this earth.” George Matthew Adams

 

 

“Success comes before work only in the dictionary.” Anonymous

 

 

“Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.”  Dr. Joyce Brothers

 

 

“Men are failures, not because they are stupid, but because they are not sufficiently impassioned.”  Struther Burt

 

 

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.” Winston Churchill

Calendar Wisdom.

I am trying to stick to the monthly assignments from the calendar.  In February, I have not done such a good job.  Even though, I was thinking about love, but I did not write so much about it.  But it certainly made me think.  I even picked a couple of books on dating.  I did not expect to find much in them, but surprisingly enough they opened my eyes.  I even started following the advice given in them.  I hope I will write about some of my experiences in the LOVE department or as we used to say in Russia “on the love front” (I guess, everything is a battle for us!)

But there is a new beginning.  AGAIN.  A new Chapter.  Calendar Chapters are months.  So there is a new month.  March’s theme is “New Thinking”.  The major idea is in order to get where you want or anywhere at all, from point “A” to point “not A”, you need at least to start moving.  Forward, one might assume.  Or backward.  Or in circles (I hope NOT!)  Well…

New Thinking.

Sometimes the challenge of moving forward isn’t simply seeing the path, it’s taking the first step.  And to move our thinking forward, we have to make mental leaps into uncharted territory.  Pick your favorite word in the first line of a poem, using it from the tiles.  Each day use this word in the first line of a poem, using it as differently as possible each day: as a noun, a verb, an adjective, as something good, something bad, as something personal, as something public.  Stretch your imagination and see where one word can take you.

Quote of the month:

“Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”

 - Pablo Picasso

So… I am picking the word “SUCCESS”

Today is the last day of February and I don’t have time to say anything about love.  I was planning to write the whole essay.  Did not happen.

Love was promised to me in abundance for the year 2010.  Yep!  The year of the Tiger.  I read some astrological prognoses for a Scorpio.  Astrologers said it could not be any better for me as far as love goes.  It should turn my head and I should walk on air and rush about and float on the waves of love.

The year of Tiger began on February 14^th 2010.

It coincided with the St. Valentine’s Day.  Does that have any significance?  Probably not.  By the way, one of the horoscopes said that I would go on a wonderful date on St. Valentine’s Day.  I was on a date (amazingly enough!), but I wish I had have turned it down.  But maybe that was also meant to be.  The previous night was much better, when I went to a Salsa Night and danced the night away.  Maybe that can be counted as a wonderful event.  I had I a suspicion that I was almost asked out by my love (former!), but I missed his hint and we did not meet.  Maybe that is for the better as well.  Enough with the guesswork already, whatever will be, will be.

Will this year be full of love for me? No, really?  Some say, love is not enough.  Not enough for a marriage.  And they are right.  I was married, I should know better.

I shall come back to these promises next year and see.  And now, I simply continue living my life as is…

Source: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_mUB9YDdqDTQ/R5-bFUabA-I/AAAAAAAAADg/45l7Bc876oY/S660/background3-ballroom-dancing-paris-ithaca-nightlife-image-7002.jpg

This song was a favourite of mine for a long long time.  Maybe because I heard it in my childhood.  My son (of course!) said that it was very dumb.  The only thing that he appreciated was the clip – the puppets & their performance.  But he never likes anything that I choose, he just has to be DA BOSS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja_G2MSY9E8

The major point in this song is, of course, humour, but you might enjoy the clip, too.

Am
Это школа Соломона Кляра,
Am             A      Dm
Школа бальных танцев, вам говорят.
Dm6
Две шаги налево, две шаги направо,
E       E7   E      Am
Шаг вперед и две назад.

Кавалеры приглашают дамов!
Там, где брошка, там перед.
Две шаги налево, две шаги направо,
Шаг вперед и поворот.

Дамы, не сморкайтесь в занавески!
Это неприлично, вам говорят.
Это неприлично, негигиенично
И несимпатично, вам говорят.

Кавалеры, не держите дамов
Ниже талии, вам говорят.
Это неприлично, негигиенично
И несимпатично, вам говорят.

Дамы, приглашайте кавалеров!
Там, где галстук, там перед.
Две шаги налево, две шаги направо,
Шаг вперед и поворот.

Дамы, дамы, помогите Боре!
Помогите Боре, вам говорят.
Он наделал лужу прямо в коридоре -
Шаг вперед и две назад.

Дамы, дамы, не вертите задом!
Это не пропеллер, а вы не самолет.
Это неприлично, негигиенично
Шаг вперед и поворот.

Адик Рабинович, я имею выйти,
Я имею выйти, вам говорят.
Адик Рабинович, вы мне замените,
Шаг вперед и две назад.

Это школа Соломона Кляра,
Школа бальных танцев, вам говорят.
Две шаги налево, две шаги направо,
Шаг вперед и две назад.

source: http://www.ngavan.ru/gan/a01/b90/c0000/d0583/ind.shtml