This landed for me because it names something I’ve felt but struggled to say cleanly. I’ve watched how easily urgency turns into identity, how fixing can start to feel like virtue instead of a tool. Not because people don’t care, but because caring without stillness often leaves us chasing motion rather than truth.
What I hear here isn’t a call to disengage. It’s a warning about fuel. Action that rises from panic or moral self assurance doesn’t just exhaust the person carrying it, it quietly reshapes the work itself. I’ve seen that play out more times than I like to admit, including in myself. It’s how movements burn bright and then fracture, even when their cause is just.
I’m especially struck by the reminder that seeing is not nothing. That attention, real attention, already alters the field before a single step is taken. That doesn’t excuse inaction when harm is real, but it does ask a harder question about what kind of presence we bring into the moment when we do act. I read this less as a prescription and more as a mirror, one that asks whether our work is arising from clarity or from compulsion.
I don’t think the world needs less courage. I think it needs courage that’s quieter, steadier, and less hungry to prove itself. However imperfectly, this feels like an invitation to that kind of work.
In one half-day of silence at my cabin I feel I have “done” more meaningful work than all of the Christmas chaos. Both good but one much, much deeper and longer lasting. “the universe does not respond to your outrage. It responds to your state.” Great reminder.
Insightful. I do notice that I was trained to fix and certainly not to just be. I can see how actions that naturally arise from being are likely more genuine and effective. Fixing often is divisive and almost certainly judgemental. I feel a sense of relief after reading this. Now.........to practice.
I agree. My idea of activism is that it is done with a goal of mitigating the losses of the oppressed, to give them a softer landing—whatever THEY perceive that to be. It then is about THEM, not my anger at the system, nor MY activism.
Be an activist, or not, but intention is awfully important.
And anyway, in our connectedness to Spirit, the healing, the outcome is already known. Spirit can only act through natural law.
These thoughts really touch me, my heart, my life mistakes and successes - most often a combination of both. I’ve never gotten anything 100 % right. 😌
Your thoughts are affirming and comforting while also bringing correction on different levels. Especially a blessing in these present world and country challenges where a healthy balance can be hard to find🙏 I often am spiritually convicted of what to do and what not to do - for me personally - only to question myself as our culture and people around me pressure me to DO this and DO that instead, all wrapped up in “shoulds” and guilting attempts. Flowing from a spiritually being foundation isn’t even on the horizon.
So thank you. These insights really help. 🙏 We often laughingly slap our foreheads and say “give me balance or give me death”!! We’re only half kidding. 🤣🤣🤣
I fix things for a living. And I'm good at it. But the things I fix in my profession are programs, processes that can be fixed with logic (and obstinacy where necessary). Those same skills typically don't work on complex analog beings, because no matter how "smart" AI gets, it is still *artificial*. And I forget this more often than I like to admit. So when I read (meaning I *interpreted as*) Gandhi didn't defeat an empire by protest, my reflex was "but Gandhi *did* protest!". And yes, he did. He called it "non-cooperation", others have called it "passive resistance" (an oxymoron in my thinking) but Bapu was playing the long game. It was shortened by other circumstances (notably the economic strain of WWII) but there's a reason why the quote* "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." is so frequently (and inaccurately) attributed to him.
*Not actually a quote of anybody, but a synopsis of several similar quotes going back at least as far as 1818 -- roughly 50 years before Gandhi was born.
I want to memorize “The Sacred Roast” - oh so gently delivered ❤️ as well as where really power actually begins. I’ve been fucking that up without intending to for years ☮️
"Pray with your ears."
Yes yes yes
This landed for me because it names something I’ve felt but struggled to say cleanly. I’ve watched how easily urgency turns into identity, how fixing can start to feel like virtue instead of a tool. Not because people don’t care, but because caring without stillness often leaves us chasing motion rather than truth.
What I hear here isn’t a call to disengage. It’s a warning about fuel. Action that rises from panic or moral self assurance doesn’t just exhaust the person carrying it, it quietly reshapes the work itself. I’ve seen that play out more times than I like to admit, including in myself. It’s how movements burn bright and then fracture, even when their cause is just.
I’m especially struck by the reminder that seeing is not nothing. That attention, real attention, already alters the field before a single step is taken. That doesn’t excuse inaction when harm is real, but it does ask a harder question about what kind of presence we bring into the moment when we do act. I read this less as a prescription and more as a mirror, one that asks whether our work is arising from clarity or from compulsion.
I don’t think the world needs less courage. I think it needs courage that’s quieter, steadier, and less hungry to prove itself. However imperfectly, this feels like an invitation to that kind of work.
In one half-day of silence at my cabin I feel I have “done” more meaningful work than all of the Christmas chaos. Both good but one much, much deeper and longer lasting. “the universe does not respond to your outrage. It responds to your state.” Great reminder.
Let silence speak to you.
Insightful. I do notice that I was trained to fix and certainly not to just be. I can see how actions that naturally arise from being are likely more genuine and effective. Fixing often is divisive and almost certainly judgemental. I feel a sense of relief after reading this. Now.........to practice.
I agree. My idea of activism is that it is done with a goal of mitigating the losses of the oppressed, to give them a softer landing—whatever THEY perceive that to be. It then is about THEM, not my anger at the system, nor MY activism.
Be an activist, or not, but intention is awfully important.
And anyway, in our connectedness to Spirit, the healing, the outcome is already known. Spirit can only act through natural law.
And so it is.
These thoughts really touch me, my heart, my life mistakes and successes - most often a combination of both. I’ve never gotten anything 100 % right. 😌
Your thoughts are affirming and comforting while also bringing correction on different levels. Especially a blessing in these present world and country challenges where a healthy balance can be hard to find🙏 I often am spiritually convicted of what to do and what not to do - for me personally - only to question myself as our culture and people around me pressure me to DO this and DO that instead, all wrapped up in “shoulds” and guilting attempts. Flowing from a spiritually being foundation isn’t even on the horizon.
So thank you. These insights really help. 🙏 We often laughingly slap our foreheads and say “give me balance or give me death”!! We’re only half kidding. 🤣🤣🤣
I fix things for a living. And I'm good at it. But the things I fix in my profession are programs, processes that can be fixed with logic (and obstinacy where necessary). Those same skills typically don't work on complex analog beings, because no matter how "smart" AI gets, it is still *artificial*. And I forget this more often than I like to admit. So when I read (meaning I *interpreted as*) Gandhi didn't defeat an empire by protest, my reflex was "but Gandhi *did* protest!". And yes, he did. He called it "non-cooperation", others have called it "passive resistance" (an oxymoron in my thinking) but Bapu was playing the long game. It was shortened by other circumstances (notably the economic strain of WWII) but there's a reason why the quote* "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." is so frequently (and inaccurately) attributed to him.
*Not actually a quote of anybody, but a synopsis of several similar quotes going back at least as far as 1818 -- roughly 50 years before Gandhi was born.
I want to memorize “The Sacred Roast” - oh so gently delivered ❤️ as well as where really power actually begins. I’ve been fucking that up without intending to for years ☮️
I needed this today. I have been kicking myself over not being able to activate to resist - communicate with MOC, etc. This soothes my spirit.