Category: personal growth and spirituality
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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 Possibility
The Desire to Be, paper collage, 2022 A few months ago, another blogger posed to me, during the course of a lengthy conversation about psychology, a hypothetical scenario: he was depressed, drinking too much, disshelved, had lost all interest in work, relationships, hobbies, had become, in some sense, indifferent to living. What’s the first thing […]
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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 […]
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Part of the Silence
Mourning Dove In order to see birds, it is necessary to become a part of the silence. Robert Lynd I was recently told that my birdwatching hobby is “quaint”. Whether this particular comment was intended to be complimentary or not (I think not), I chose to take it that way. I have, it seems, reached […]
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When We Face Ourselves in Daylight
Pieces No. 14, paper collage, 2022 Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. Viktor Frankl even now an atom in the drowning sun a wilderness on its knees invokes a whisper as if to suggest absurdity is a prelude to happiness a woman underwater is an orchid without wings don’t be […]
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Productive Perceptions
Perception, paper collage, 2022 When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending. Thich Nhat Hanh It occurs to me that, in every situation, I am capable of viewing other […]
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