What stands in the way becomes the way.

If you saw the movie Gladiator you'll probably remember the character on the left; and on the right you'll see a more ancient rendering.

Meet Marcus Aurelius; Emperor of the Roman Empire.

We don't know a great deal about about his life - details considered accurate are sketchy.

But we do know a great deal about what he thought and believed because his great legacy was his writings entitled The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius; these are still being read, and his thinking embraced, nearly 2,000 years after his death. I have no fears that my own scribblings will be exposed to the same lengthy scrutiny.

I am an avid reader and I have read his meditations and I came across a recently written book that focuses, using the Aurelius texts, with laser-like precision on dealing with issues in life - and with failure.

So today I meditate on the words of Marcus Aurelius, written two millennia ago, about dealing with issues.

We can be confident that these words have some validity because, as author Ryan Holiday explains: In his own reign of some nineteen years, he would experience nearly constant war, a horrific plague, possible infidelity, an attempt at the throne by one of his closest allies , repeated and arduous travel across the empire - from Asia Minor to Syria, Egypt, Greece and Austria - a rapidly depleting treasury, an incompetent and greedy stepbrother as co-emperor and on and on and on.

So in our imagination we can see Marcus Aurelius sitting, perhaps in a tent on a snow covered battlefield somewhere in northern Europe, or in a palace overlooking the River Tiber amid the splendors of Rome, or in a plain room with whitewashed walls and scant furnishings musing and meditating on, and composing the empowering words and sentences that we still read today.

Marcus Aurelius wrote about taking action to overcome issues:

Our actions may be impeded … but there can be no impeding our intentions or dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting.

The impediment to action advances action.

What stands in the way becomes the way.

Toolkit.

http://www.amazon.com/Obstacle-Way-Timeless-Turning-Triumph-ebook/dp/B00G3L1B8K/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1418527017&sr=1-1&keywords=the+obstacle

There's living life. And then there's living life. Interestingly no matter how you do it, there's one constant truth.

I've had a pretty good life. I've been healthy. I've had several great partners and I have more near-lifetime friends than I can count on the fingers of one hand.  I've always had enough money to get by. I failed at school but succeeded at life by understanding that school has little to do with gaining essential education. And I've been blessed with having discovered a number of capabilities and talents that have been rewarding in every sense of the word. I've had, and I'm having, a great time.

But living life is relative; take for example the four members of the eighties country supergroup, The Highwaymen: Nelson, Jennings, Kristofferson, and Cash.

These guys have LIVED life. And two still are, almost in spite of their lifestyles. Good ol' boys. And bad boys.

So, still at it after all these years, Willie Nelson at 81 is living a life that seems - larger than life; just recently I watched The Judge and there, over the credits, is Willie doing a brilliant cover of the Coldplay song The Scientist. Check it out.

The other remaining star of The Highwaymen is Kris Kristofferson who says of Willie: "He's a carved-in-granite, samurai poet warrior Gypsy guitar-pickin' wild man with a heart as big as Texas and the greatest sense of humour in the west".

So when I am looking for a way to put my life in perspective I sometimes take Willie's advice by reading a few pages from his book: The Tao of Willie. Who would know more about squeezing something extra from life, right?

Willie offers some great advice:

And more great advice when he sings: "I live one day at a time, I dream one dream at a time, Yesterday's dead and tomorrow's blind, and I live one day at a time".

Some of the best advice I've ever had.

But even so I keep in mind another Willie gem: "Trying to be someone else is the hardest road there is."

Live in the moment. One day at a time. One dream at a time.

But let's each do it our way.

Toolkit:

The Highwaymen in action: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyO1eRtDRcs&list=FLIWvycylcRwgUiQPqGZ5-xw&index=2

Read the Tao of Willie:

http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Willie-Guide-Happiness-Heart-ebook/dp/B000PC0SDM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1418275349&sr=1-1&keywords=the+tao+of+willie

She.

For some days now I've been reading the works of Rider Haggard; his stories are the prototype for the more recent Indiana Jones movie epics.

Rip-roaring adventure is the name of the game; and English gentlemen, natives, big game animals, mysterious and generally evil shamans, and ancient undiscovered ruins all have their well defined place in the yarns. If only life were now, still, so clearly defined!

When these stories were written each had one common factor; each story depended on one key certainty which is that no reader could be absolutely certain that the story couldn't be, at least in part, possible.

I'm currently reading She, a story about a tribe and a country ruled by an Amazonian woman described by her citizens as 'she who must be obeyed'. At the time of telling few if any knew whether the swamps, rivers, rock formations, and the ancient ruined cities described in the story were real; when these stories were written it was still possible that some of Haggard's fictions could prove to be true.

There were still nearly a hundred years of exploration before we could be certain his fictions were just that. Wikipedia didn't exist and even though Encyclopaedia Britannica was in it's ninth edition, and there were plenty of detailed maps, vast tracts of land were still to be described and mapped. And the idea of Google Maps would have been considered as mystical as the pronouncements of the shamans in Haggard's stories.

Despite all this, perhaps because of it, by 1965 more than 85 million copies of She had been sold.

All this leads me to wonder about our world today where there is little room for mystery - especially in encyclopaedia texts, and on maps. We know there is nowhere on the planet ruled by an Amazonian woman. We know when most archeological sites were built, populated, and when they fell into ruin. We can be certain that Shamanism is just that. We know. We have the facts. There is no room for the doubt that gives rise to magical uncertainty, and the possibility there may be adventure in the unknown.

And has this knowing improved our literature? Our movies? Has this certainty added one whit of unpredictable adventurous possibility to our lives?

I meditate today on what adventure I could embark on that is not already entirely predictable. And I meditate on whether this lack of uncertainty isn't just a little stifling.

Toolkit:

http://www.amazon.com/She-H-Rider-Haggard-ebook/dp/B007JLCVSC/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1418181014&sr=1-4&keywords=She

Dickens and Christmas go together like Christmas and pudding.

 

Christmas is nearly upon us.

I know it's quaint to talk about Christmas, instead of 'holiday season', but it's my blog and so I'll be as politically incorrect as I like. Christmas. Like it or not for hundreds of years this season has been Christmas and that's just how I like it.

Most years at around this time my thoughts turn to what I imagine as being a traditional Christmas environment and traditional Christmas fare: snow covered landscapes, roast turkey, roaring fires, mulled wines, drifting snowflakes, brandy infused christmas pudding with embedded sixpenny pieces, iced ponds, Christmas crackers and party hats, mistletoe, presents wrapped with bright paper and tied with silk ribbons, a decorated Christmas tree, Christmas cards above the hearth, Christmas carols, and chill winds.

Even though I was born in England, and grew up there, this really wasn't Christmas as I knew it; yes it was cold but in London there was rarely snow, and yes we had a large and festive Christmas lunch but in post WWII England large turkeys and other culinary treats weren't part of our food rationing regime.

But believe it or not, I could then, as I am now, still able to enjoy that traditional festive Christmas by turning to the works of Charles Dickens.

So when my thoughts turn to traditional Christmas I reach for Pickwick Papers, Chapter 28 where jolly Mr Pickwick and his intrepid friends are making their way to Dingley Dell to share Christmas with their friend Mr Wardle.

Dickens and Christmas go together like Christmas and pudding.

Now I live in Thailand you might imagine that there's not too much Christmas cheer but when I compare Phuket and North Melbourne I'd have to say Christmas is more in evidence here - than there. And I suppose that says a lot about multiculturalism because here, in a predominantly Buddhist country, I'll hear more Christmas carols than I will in politically correct North Melbourne.

One would think that in a multicultural society every season and tradition would be celebrated; but that no longer seems the case in Australia where multiculturalism has morphed into monoculturalism - and that culture is seemingly determined by anybody, as long as they are not Christian.

But wherever I am, when I want to be in a Christmas mood, I reach for Pickwick Papers - happily.

 

For more about the illustration above:

http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illustration/phiz/pickwick/23.html

 

Toolkit:

 

http://www.amazon.com/Pickwick-Papers-Illustrated-Charles-Dickens-ebook/dp/B00J195NJ4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1417863010&sr=1-1&keywords=pickwick+papers