Category: personal growth and spirituality
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On Overwhelm
Contemplation, paper collage, 2022 I get overwhelmed easily and often. More easily and more often, perhaps, than I would like to admit. I get overwhelmed by strong emotions. I get overwhelmed from feeling my to-do list is too long. I get overwhelmed by too much stimulation (e.g., loud noises, bright lights, too much social media, […]
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Everything I Am, I Was Once Afraid Of
Times Are Changing, paper collage, 2021 Everything I am, I was once afraid of or vehemently disliked or found to be boring, uninspiring, or otherwise not worthy of my own time and attention. It’s true. When I was a child, I was terrified of water. And I mean terrified. Screaming, wailing, panic-stricken terrified. So, my […]
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The Road I Know
Life of Objects No. 3, paper collage, 2022 I’ve been sprinkling food on the ground beneath my bird feeders for the past year. The squirrels very much appreciate it, of course, as do the doves and sparrows, who often show up in large numbers during cold weather. Although, the reason I do it, really, is […]
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Trust in Everyday Life
Stuck in the Middle, paper collage, 2022 The ego is not master in its own house. Sigmund Freud I made a trip to my favorite used bookstore on Saturday. They have the largest and most eclectic psychology section of any local bookstore I know, and since I began Freud’s New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis a […]
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The Nature of Belonging
Self-Portrait with Machine, paper collage, 2021 My last post began with a statement, or rather, a realization, that came to me Saturday morning on waking: It is not your job to acquire belongings; it is your job to figure out what belongs to you and create extensions of its light. This was a wonderful thought […]
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What Belongs to You
Ascending, paper collage, 2022 It is not your job to acquire belongings; it is your job to figure out what belongs to you and create extensions of its light. It is not often that my first thought of the day is as meaningful as this one. But on those rare occasions when, suspended somewhere between […]
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Input & Output
Hibiscus Flower I’d like to begin this post with a short apology. (I was hoping not to have to write an introduction like this, but I am afraid certain things can’t be helped.) At the end of April, I left home for a few weeks of traveling. In terms of the blog, I had planned […]
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Sensitivity Is a Virtue
Sensitivity Is a Virtue, collage on book cover, 2022 We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. Anaïs Nin I sometimes think I’ve grown more sensitive as I’ve gotten older. Indeed, I seem to have reached that age at which a great deal of popular culture now offends my sensibilities, […]
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On Capturing Moments
Northern Cardinal (male) Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it. Ray Bradbury I generally prefer the term, “birdwatching” to “birding” when it comes to describing my bird-observing activities (and […]
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Eye, Heart, and Mind
Simplicity, paper collage, 2022 Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, this is me and the damned world can go to hell. Rollo May When I first started The Used Life in April 2017, I wanted to create a space in which to not only […]
The Used Life 