The Practice of Your Life

The Exercise and Pursuit of a Consciously Created Life

Curiosity Killed the Cat

Apr 30
2008

In living your life as a practice one of the things that I encourage everyone to take on as a practice is paying attention to what comes out of your mouth. And of course, what you allow into your ears, but that’s for another post.

Words are creative or destructive, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton was right, “the pen is mightier than the sword”.

So consider this familiar proverb that is the title of today’s post. Ever thought about what this means or where it comes from? Really. What is it trying to tell us? I looked it up on Wikipedia and apparently no one really knows where it came from.

Seems the earliest known reference was in either in 1909 or in 1916 and had to do with the reported… Continue reading

Remember Pons and Fleischmann?

Apr 27
2008

These were the guys that announced to the world that they had solved cold fusion. For those of you who have no idea what cold fusion is, it is the ability to release energy (more energy than it takes to cause the cold fusion) from water at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. It would have been a safe, cheap, renewable, environmentally-friendly way to produce energy. It turns out that no one else in the scientific community could reproduce the results (sort of essential for it to have been a real scientific discovery), but I always wondered about this technology and what it would mean to the world if it were true.

Now in case you’re wondering how this relates to living your life as a practice, which… Continue reading

The Australia Experiment

Apr 23
2008

So I’m a closet visionary. I predicted electronic talking dictionaries in the mid ’80’s when the Apple IIe/c was all the rage. What that proves I can’t say, I just thought it would lend some credibility into my initial public foray into uncharted waters. In this case the Indian and Pacific oceans.

With this post, I start writing about my ideas of where we could be headed. Mostly for fun yet I’m also quite serious.

Last night at dinner with friends I went public with an idea for a possible solution to a whole slew of global issues: food production, overpopulation, ethnic cleansing, species extinction and global warming. It’s crazy.

You ready?

Junglize Australia.

You heard me. Turn Australia into a huge green habitat for all of the world’s endangered life forms. Let’s create jungles… Continue reading

Hello world!

Apr 22
2008

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!…

Clutter

Apr 21
2008

So with my “Getting things done (not)” as the background, I write about how “clutter” affects me.

Like our hero in this April 17th 2008 post, in the process of doing one task I find myself distracted by another. Does this happen to you? On the way to look for a folder or file, I notice that the apt is untidy, or there is a bill that needs to be paid yesterday, or there is the business card of someone that I need to call, or I see a book on the sofa that I promised myself to finish by the weekend.

Most times I would react to the distraction, which often would lead to another distraction and I would find myself feeling overwhelmed, doing a lot of… Continue reading

Getting things done (not)

Apr 17
2008

I’ll be musing about clutter, distractions and the importance of systems and routines in living your life as a practice, and I thought this cute story below would be a great set-up. I have no idea who wrote it. Enjoy.

Recently, I was diagnosed with Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder (A.A.A.D.D.).
This is how it manifests:
I decide to water my garden.

As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing. As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table, put the… Continue reading

Your relationship to the way things are

Apr 16
2008

Fundamental practice #1 is to observe and notice. Start paying attention to your relationship to the way things are: the government, the environment, getting ahead, making money, your mother, your husband etc. Do you notice you have a set story or conversation about all of these things? What’s your conversation about each of them? Pay attention.

Is it a creative positive conversation or a destructive negative conversation?

Where did you get this conversation from? Careful research?

Or did you pick it up from somewhere? Where? From whom?

How does your conversation about these things, actually pick one, color your world? Let’s say a relative, or your job, or work, or politicians or a politician. Just pick one. You have it that this thing, issue or person is a certain way. Do you accept it… Continue reading