What Do I Really Trust?

     What do you ultimately trust? What do you truly believe in? In what do you take refuge from life's craziness?

     You probably didn't immediately come up with things like: eating, coffee, texting, gossiping, ethanol, wealth, fame, sex, shopping, working compulsively, etc. Whatever we immediately turn to for comfort is our refuge - what we actually trust.
     Our choices may embarrass us, even privately. We may vehemently deny our addictive relationship with the "substances" we abuse. But what happens if we try to end these relationships - either suddenly or by tapering off? 

     Ultimately, this is not a matter of morals - we're not "bad" or "sinners." The problem is one of frustration. We're "looking for love in all the wrong places." We exhaust ourselves sucking on pebbles, while starving for profound nourishment. Hitting rock bottom is finally realizing, not just intellectually, but ACTUALLY GETTING THE FACT that what we need is not in the pebbles.

     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/11/self-defeating-behaviours-repression.html
     and: http://www.johnlovas.com/2014/11/fear-based-rigidity-wisdom-paths-to.html
 

Rutger Bus   www.dpreview.com

What Works, What's Practical Right Now?

     Isn't it mind-boggling, when we look objectively, at the incredibly foolish things that supposedly mature, educated, intelligent people - including ourselves - have done?
     From the third-person observer's perspective, or our own 20-20 hindsight, the act is incomprehensible. Yet obviously, to the perpetrator, at the time, it was the best or even the only conceivable option!  
     This is why it's so easy to be harshly judgmental towards others as well as ourselves. With a clear, balanced perspective, a situation will appear radically different than through the ego's frosted lenses. And when our ego is threatened, we feel precisely as if our very life is in mortal danger - rational perspective can instantly vanish - welcome to the land of "temporary insanity" - "crimes of passion" - "that wasn't me" - "I don't know what got into me" - "the devil made me do it".

     “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”      Anais Nin

     So here's a very practical question: when we're in deep trouble, whose advice should we listen to, an objective third party's - OR - someone who supports our current perspective?

Dalhousie University campus - February 13, 2014