I'm grateful that Yin Feng started to phlog again, otherwise
I might not have been lead to some of the thoughts his phlog
is leading me to. Actually, I could easily say the same for
many of the phlog posts that I've read from the various
authors on gopher; the content, in my opinion, is of an
entirely different caliber than what I have been used to
on the wider internet in the past few years. For that, I
thank you.

Reading through some of YFS' content (he signs his posts
that way, so I'll refer to him that way) brought some things
to mind that I would like to explore. Writing is, for me, a
good way to explore. It's at least a much more deliberate
way than flipping things over in my head.

I'll start with his most recent post, and wander from there.

YFS shared a story of a gnarled tree[1] that was judged by
the people of a village to be of no worth, because it did
not fit their understanding of what a tree ought to be. 
This, coupled with his later comments about never stepping
into the same river twice, gave me pause for thought.

I wonder, in this story, what the tree thought of itself. As
a human, I'm frequently aware of the judgements of other
humans. I allow those judgements to affect me, or affect my
decisions, for no deliberate or mindful reason. I just allow
it. At times I feel like the people around me have a sort of
white-blood-cell reaction to me when I am different: isolate
the foreign body and destory it. I could go on thinking on
this subject, but I want to explore other things.

Apart from myself, I thought of my children- and more
particularly I thought of my oldest son. I have a hard copy
of the DSM IV[2], which I purchased simply to make sure I
understood the myriad of armchair diagnoses that people
have contrived pretty much since his birth. I hasn't made me
feel more at ease with other people, but it has made me more
confident that I'm not doing any disservice to my son.

I've never really aligned myself with the subjective
measurements in those amateur diagnoses, nor have I sought a
professional diagnoses, primarily because I don't see a
need. My son- a highly intelligent being- is growing into
what he is, and as his parents we feel it is our duty to
help him do just that. The world would like him to "fit in"
more convinently, but I honestly would rather see him exceed
that expectation by being all that he can be individually,
without worrying about him being "the right kind of tree."

A few other things I found while digging around in YFS'
gopher hole caught my attention, on the subject of religion
[3][4][5].

First, there is a tendancy in many humans to beat themselves
up when they don't do the things that they think or feel
they ought to do. YFS mentions "resolutions in blood." In 
the book "The White Company" by A. C. Doyle, the main
character witnesses two religious men walking down the way,
taking turns flogging each other for their sins. 

YFS offers a better way, which I'll paraphrase with the hope
that I'm interpreting things correctly: when you find that
you have strayed from your goals or expectations of
yourself, instead of condemning yourself for the failure,
celebrate the reality that you are cognizant of the failure,
and that you're on the path to improvement.

I love this thought. I'll share a brief and nebulous story
about my past that I feel is connected to the idea. When I
lived in Phoenix, AZ, there was a time when I was trying to
overcome some personal problems; I was trying to be a better
person. But it was hard, and I felt like a failure a lot of
the time. One day I saw a billboard that was part of a
public health campaign to help people quit smoking. It had a
"note to self" on it, which read "Dear self; never quit
quitting. From, Your future self." 

For whatever reason, the billboard struck me as saying 
"Because you are trying, you are succeeding. The only time
you will fail is when you stop trying." This is akin, I
feel, to what YFS shared.

In another phlog, YFS described what he called "Weejus
prayers." I won't recount the whole thing, but go and read
it[4], it's worth it. My guess is that this sort of rut-
thinking is common in most religious groups. Consequently,
the advice YFS shares to overcome the empty methods of
prayer that some employ (or all sometimes employ perhaps)
is wonderful. I shared the phlog post with my wife, who
has been making some real efforts in changing the way she
prays personally, and she was very thankful. As a side note,
I'll add that she was also impressed by the quality of the
content on gopher; I may be able to convince her to join in.

There is more, but the family wants me to be present. I'm 
not sure my thoughts will keep, so I'll end now and re-read
some things another time.


[1] gopher://tomatobodhi.twilightparadox.com/1/phlog/01-11-18
[2] gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Diagnostic%20and%20Statistical%20Manual%20of%20Mental%20Disorders
[3] gopher://tomatobodhi.twilightparadox.com/1/phlog/01-08-16
[4] gopher://tomatobodhi.twilightparadox.com/1/phlog/08-03-14
[5] gopher://tomatobodhi.twilightparadox.com/1/phlog/01-11-18