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Having the drive. . .

A post to the sd ishmael group.

Added by colin #442 on 2006-02-23. Last modified 2006-04-14 19:44. Originally created 2006-01-28. F0 License: Attribution
Location: World, United States, California, San Diego
Topics: personal
: Ishmael

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SDIshmael/message/1461

From: Colin Leath <cleath j9k org>
Date: Sat Jan 28, 2006  5:17 pm
Subject: Having the drive . . .
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I was planning to study Spanish for a while, but I got to working with
the picture Brad took. . . and seeing how it might be added to
Wikimedia Commons (complicated).
 
Then I got a friend request from a stranger on facebook.com, and
putzed with that a bit.
 
Then I got to thinking. . at our first meeting myspace was mentioned. . .
 
And for those of you who have our email addresses, I don't think I'm
giving anything too much away to recommend that you look up our group
members there.
 
Laura's page is wonderful. (and for us others who have pages there,
they all show where we are -- and thanks to Loxie there is an SD
Ishmael group we can join).
 
As I've finally managed to free myself this week from an overhanging
project, I've been let into that space where I can question all I'm
doing and all I've done and wonder why the hell I am in this place so
dominated by the car. . . where to live here is to be harmed, where
the people who can live here (and I) are either shamed, wounded,
limping, or have somehow bought in to what SoCal might represent--this
place, in a way like Washington, DC, feels like a strange fantasyland/
dystopia, maybe like Rome was once. (maybe you can say that about
anywhere that only exists because of human culture).
 
I mentioned reading Covey's _Eighth Habit_ and he emphasizes finding
your voice--following your conscience (the still small voice--that for
him. . . is God. For me I suppose it is the same, but I call it the
silence and would not give it a name--it is the place, the void, from
where everything comes and came).
 
I think about Randy Ghent-- the guy, a main guy behind http://worldcarfree.net/
 
and I wonder, what weaknesses prevent me from doing something similar.
 
I also wonder, what weaknesses prevent him and the rest of the WCN
groups from doing what the guy behind http://geohaz.org did.
 
And I think about another of Covey's comments: you can have great
skill (like a great doctor), but without great leadership/vision, (of,
say, a functioning medical system), it amounts to little. We can have
great doctors, and at the same time have a medical system that ruins
health.
 
So I froze yesterday, and pondered this. . . am I missing something?
Should I be elsewhere? Why should I focus on studying here and
finishing here? Maybe if I went more places, I would find something
better.
 

The same questions so many of us have, I imagine, that prevent us from
doing any thing at all.
 

So, I thought and thought, and gave up (this is what you're supposed
to do. . . you ask the question of the silence and then leave it
there. . . the answer may come now [see _The Life we are given_] ),
and I got back to reading my Spanish.
 
But, I think we're getting somewhere. I think the answer is coming.
 
I think the strange unique aspects of our combined isolation (or maybe
just mine) and the strange propensity of people to publish and write
_so much_ that the world can read. . .
 
That these people are "finding their voices, and
helping others find theirs". . .
 
"Every Life Is A Hypothesis"
 
So what question is mine asking?
 
So why do some people get encouraged in leadership and power, and find
the motivation to go after it. . .
 

And these people are the ones who could "get the cars out".
 

Writing that--it seems like such a trivial thing.
 
I don't think it is. . . it is also "get the noise out".
 
It is also "develop a wise relationship with technology" across the board. . .
 
The world will continue to change in amazing ways. . . I do think
people will eventually be able to live in health for 100s of years (at
least some people). . .
 
So do the ones who can't deal with it. . . who aren't empowered for
whatever reason by their particular age. . .
 
Who can't get enthusiastic about their car or their stereosystem (or
their spear and the boar they are supposed to hunt). . .
 

At this point I'll just leave this here. I don't have the answer.
 
Why is the world not great for us, when, for others it is just fine?
 

How do we find our place in the particular historical forces we have
to deal with. . .
 

Covey also quotes Mother Teresa, something like this:
 
"It's between you and Him
If people tell you not to build because it will get knocked down--build any way.
 
If they tell you not to have ideals . . .
Have them any way."
 
And so on.
 

I think that's all. . . I can go back to what I was meaning to do.
 
Colin

Colin Leath <>    

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