Four Word Self Help

Patti Digh has taken an interesting idea and turned it into a delightfully rich little book.

The concept: compile self-help directives which are exactly four words long. How much insight can be delivered in so few words? When I first heard about her intention, I tried myself to concoct four-word sentences which carried valuable insights into living a life. It's not easy to do!

She has succeeded in not only delivering great, impactful statements of such brevity, she has also used those statements to invite a deeper level of reflection.

One of Patti's strengths is her ability to offer up new ways of considering our daily lives, to step back and feel the implications of the decisions we make each day and the cumulative effect not only on ourselves, but on those with whom we interact.

Her professional background in diversity training and consulting informs her more-personal work, what began as essays written for her daughters years ago, became a blog, then a book (Life is a Verb), and now is an ongoing and ever-enriching journey which she has offered to open to anyone wishing to walk along.

On a personal note, it was three years ago today that Patti and I began corresponding as a result of a comment I left on her blog, 37days. I had dived in for the first time a couple of days before and read many of the existing essays, works she was posting once a week. She responded to a comment I left, and we still are in contact to this day.

It was my great pleasure to be an attendee at the first Life is a Verb retreat in September of 2008 and to meet Patti in person and play with her Circle Project partner, David Robinson. I wrote about that experience here and here.

Four Word Self Help is a little book packed with a great deal of the Digh magic, a wonderful adjunct and a complementary eddy to the main flow which started with Life is a Verb and continues next month with Creative is a Verb. While it is a delight to read on its own merit, I do heartily recommend reading it as a companion to Patti's other books, as they set a philosophical framework within which this little book carries even more weight.

Besides, Life is a Verb contains within its pages the only published illustration I have ever created. That, alone, is reason enough to get a copy and become a fan of the work of Patti Digh!

About a month to go

Julia and I are moving to Raleigh, North Carolina in about a month.

Of course, when you have a month to get ready to move from a house you have lived in for nearly 11 years, a house with a full basement and a family with a slight tendency toward accumulation of stuff, you need to stay busy with sorting (this goes with us, this is trash, this is...oh, look! What is this? I better spend an hour paging through this material which has had no importance to me at all for the last ten years!) and boxing for shipment or tossing into the trash/recycle/giveaway piles.

And, if you are the Hamricks, you take a two-week break right in the middle and drive 1350 miles to the cottage on the lake.

We have a perfectly reasonable explanation: there is work to be done in the house to make it ready for renting to some loving family who will take care of our home by making it their home for as long as they want. The work can happen more efficiently if we aren't in the way.

Any reasonable explanation for heading to the lake (Lake Michigan, really an inland sea) is one we accept and dutifully act to align with.

It means we need to be really productive between now and head-for-the-lake day, and we will need to be really productive when we get back, but we both know that the break will do us a world of good.

We invested a tremendous amount of energy in launching Choosing Easy World, Julia's new book which was released a month ago today and is doing very well (thanks for asking!), and to go straight from that project to the moving-prep project was looking a bit too much like not-easy to us.

So, we will do all we can do until it is time to leave for Michigan, take our break and enjoy it just as if every day there is one which offers us all that is nurturing, fulfilling, and refilling of the reservoirs of energy, then come home and pick up stakes.

It is an exciting time. Julia is going home, as she has lived the majority of her life in North Carolina, and I'm going to my ancestral home--I was born in Chapel Hill, but have lived 95% of my life elsewhere, most of it in Denver--where both my dad and mom's families of origin put down roots.

I've been a Denverite since I was junior-high age, and giving up the familiarity and comfortable feeling of a place I have called home for more than 40 years is worth it, but it is also scary. It is sad to be moving so far from my mom, too, but that's why God made Skype. My kids are already gallivanting the globe, so us living in NC is just another stop for them as they travel all over.

We are very lucky to have found the ideal place in Raleigh for us, and that's what prompted the move to take place now. Julia found the house, I said no--too much money--and she called the number anyway.

After instantly bonding during that phone call, she and the owner's son started working to figure out how to make it possible for us to rent his mom's home. They got it figured out well enough that I was able to get on board, so now we have a signed lease and a home in Raleigh! (as you can see from the not-great photo grabbed from the Google street-view images, we are in a grade A location [groaning and rolling of eyes okay])

The house is in a beautiful, tree-filled area which has no through traffic--the enclave has one way in, and you exit right back that same way--rural-feeling streets with no curb and gutter, just asphalt and grass, and a pretty little lake only a block from our place.

The house is bigger than our Denver place, although without a basement we won't be able to stash nearly as much stuff. This is a good thing, if adding to our current challenge a little.

This new chapter is one we have been anticipating for a long time, and now we are turning the page to see how the chapter starts. I know it will be filled with adventure, joy, thrills, and satisfaction in all ways possible. There will be opportunities to grow and chances to learn more of our own courage and determination. All in all, it will be one more chapter in the book we started writing about the middle of last century. Julia and I each wrote many chapters, and only since 1998 have we cowritten them. This means our shared chapters have an interesting flavor of new mixed with experienced, still learning about each other mixed with the "here I go again...how many times does this lesson need to revisit my life?" feelings which come with the stuff we find to be our companions. Maybe this chapter, we learn some of those life lessons and move on to the next level!

Helping by staying out of the way (My Sacred Life, Sunday)

It has been a long time since I have written a formally acknowledged Sacred Life Sunday post.

This morning, I reached a tipping point which inspired this.

The world is a big mess. All those folks on the other side of the political chasm are jerks and worse. We are ruining the planet with uncaring and irresponsible actions, best illustrated lately in the Gulf of Mexico. Needless killing continues all over the globe, and we in the United States are providing both cannon fire, and cannon fodder.

What can I possibly do about it all?

My own path to peace--a path so short I can traverse it even as I type, and the keyboard will never be out of reach--is my way of helping.

Becoming a beacon, a human Klieg light intensely lighting the way from where I am to where I am peace, is my own salvation from despair. It is far more than that, though.

By making that journey of a single breath and shining my light, I grant others implicit permission to do the same in their lives, lighting their own lamps.

The very lighting of the lamps provides just what is needed to heal the wounds we have inflicted on each other and on Mother Earth.

The level at which all of the perceived troubles of our existence will be solved is the level we reach when we pause, accept our divinity, and create ourselves as peace, as Love, as accepting beings who know all is well.

The beauty of it is that no knowledge of deep-water drilling or insurgent engagement or dietary requirements for the starving is required.

We help by getting out of the way. It is by allowing all that is, to be, that we come to the aid of our fellow beings. Stepping away from the anguish allows infinite compassion. Radiating Love allows endless capacity for healing.

Breathe.

Relax.

Allow.

Enjoy.

In gratefulness, I remain your good and faithful servant in the Great Game we call life. See you next time around the game board.

I live in Easy World

I have had a thought ripening in my head for a week, and I believe it is now time to let it burst forth.

Even as there have been times during the last month, as my wife and I have done all we know how to do in order to make the launch of her book Choosing Easy World as successful as our little Earth-bound selves could make it, that we have stressed out during the process, there have been long stretches of time when I have been flowing along without a care or concern, going about my chores in Easy World.

I do the family grocery shopping, usually with the largest amount of it done early on Saturday morning. A week ago, I drove to the grocery store where I start the odyssey--I shop at three stores on the average Saturday--because it is the one which opens at 6 a.m. and is virtually deserted at that hour. Plus, they are not stocking shelves as they are at my main destination store so it is less of an obstacle course.

What was unique about that drive to the store was that I did not stop all the way there. It's about four miles, and the route includes ten or more traffic lights. One, in particular, is always red if I make the three lights just prior to arriving at that intersection (hey, a computer guy has to do something with all that spare brain power when he is out of work! I track traffic signals and remember the patterns). A week ago, it was green. Heck, all of them were green either in time for me to breeze through or in time for me to slow a bit but not stop and wait.

It's exactly the kind of thing many people would miss! I noticed it because of my, uh, unique passion for such things, and because when you are in Easy World, you are much more aware of RIGHT NOW. You are not trapped in your past or wasting energy worrying about stuff which probably won't erupt into your life at all.

[Editor's note: Rick gets carried away by stuff most people find excruciatingly meh. Skip ahead if you are not fascinated by parking-lot pull-thru's]

Last week, in addition to my "make all the lights" experience, I noticed at my first stop as I drove into the parking lot that the parking place I chose was a pull-thru, which is an opportunity to pull into a spot and keep going so that you are in the spot which would have been occupied by a car facing toward you...only, there is no car there.

I like pull-thru spots because you are heading out, therefore no backing up is necessary when it is time to leave. I really don't like backing out of parking spaces in grocery-store parking lots. It's just scary, as I have thousands of pounds of metal under my control, and the pedestrian I might not see is vulnerable to significant injury if they don't see me coming and I don't know they are there.

At the first store today, I had parked in a spot, a regular spot, and expected to need to back out of it when I came out of the store. In other words, there was a car in the spot opposite me, meaning I could not pull on forward.

Lo and behold, when I come out of the store, the car which had been blocking me was gone. I had a clear path to pull forward, and then head on out of the lot without any backing needed.

Look out! The Hammer is in Easy World!!

Next stop, I see the same situation, in that the parking spot I chose has an occupied opposite spot. No problem! I'll get my stuff in the store, come back out, and the person will have left. I'm understanding all of this now. I have this figured out!

When I finish shopping, I come out to discover that the car blocking me is still there.

Oh, the agony! The car blocking me is still there.

I have fallen out of Easy World!!

Thank goodness I was able to let go of that initial impression easily. I had fallen for a Difficult World Dictator trick, which is to lure us into thinking that we are able to control/drive/predict exactly how Easy World will deliver the goods for us. Of course, we are not. If we fall for the trick and think we are in control, our first conflict with reality will sell us that the DWD was right. Life is not easy! It is hard, hard, really hard.

Wrongo, moosebreath!

Easy World is totally autonomous when it comes to playing out how something happens when we are there to witness it. Think about it! If the way to Easy World is paved with ALLOWING tarmac, you gotta know that allowing is a required action in order to stay put in easy, breezy, lemon-squeezy, twice-as-nonsneezy world.

That's where I had booted myself to the curb. I had decided that my first experience of the day, where the opposite car was gone when I came out, would be replicated at store # 2.

When my expectation wasn't met, when the car opposite was still in the way and I had to back out, I doubted at first. Practice in this tricky "allowing" thing made it possible for me to get over myself and continue on my route. Before I had traveled even six blocks, I was rewarded with another light sequence made which normally is red, and I noticed a traffic policeman on the side of the road awaiting speeders in time to make sure I was at a legal speed (not that good, law-abiding Rick would *ever* exceed the posted limit!).

Every single item on the grocery list my lovely wife had made was found with ease and acquired without the slightest difficulty. This is not always the case! Do you think it is easy to find free-range, organic spring mix? Most of it is grown in captivity, not allowed to roam. [grin]

Bottom line: Easy World thrives on residents which allow it to do its work, to provide exactly what is needed at exactly the proper moment with exactly no drama at all.

We are the source of all of our drama! When we allow our lives to unfold while, at the same time, holding to our passions and seeking their expression, we are in a sweet spot, a divinely designated place, a matrix I like to call Easy World.

Julia Rogers Hamrick interviewed by Káren Wallace

Check this out!

My good friend Káren Wallace, she of http://thecalmspace.com and my buddy from Joyful Jubilant Learning, sat with Julia in a virtual space filled with joy and laughter.

This is the resulting chat.

Enjoy!

Death, that's all you got?? I scoff at your cowl!

How do we deal with the tender horror, the awful truth of our approaching departure? We're all dying. It is the inevitable end to the achingly beautiful adventure we are born into.

There are a million tactics which folks choose. Some seek to deny that they are ever leaving. Some spend their entire lives in fear of that final day. Most find a middle ground between the extremes, doing the best they can even as, deep inside, they acknowledge the temporary nature of the experience. We're only visiting.

Randy Pausch, the Carnegie-Mellon professor who was diagnosed with terminal cancer shortly before he gave a lecture in a series which was supposed to be an imagined "Last Lecture", what the featured speaker opines as the most-important message to pass along to those in the audience, is an amazing resource when one considers this topic.

This morning, I was guided to watch a series of videos, some of interviews he did with Diane Sawyer--meeting her is on my personal bucket list--and some snippets from the Last Lecture itself, an event which became a Youtube video which has been viewed millions of times.

What sticks after all that video viewing is this: the man was insanely stubborn. His persistence in staying with a lifelong commitment to having fun teaches me that I'll be okay. I'm only half as stubborn as was Randy Pausch when it comes to having fun.

He said this:

"Don't tell people how to live their lives. Just tell them stories, and they'll figure out how the stories apply to them."

...and this, specific to his addiction, his marvelous addiction:

"I don't know how to not have fun. I'm dying and I'm having fun. I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left."

And, as powerful a message in a sentence as he ever gave, he said this:

"I've never known a situation which anger made better."

Randy Pausch died two years and three days ago, on July 25, 2008.

That's not the end, of course. I have to decide what to do with the inspiration which Mr Pausch delivered to me this morning, more than two years after he died.

Today, I will have fun. This is not an intention. This is a freakin' guarantee. I only used "freakin'" as a polite gesture. That's not the word I would use in adult conversation.

Today, I will work intensely and with full energy and a big-ass smile on my face to alert more and more people to the amazing opportunity they have just in front of them.

"Just in front" means right now, not a month or a year from now or "when I get the the promotion" or "once the kids are grown" or "when we can make time for it" or any other excuse we are using to postpone our joy.

See, that's the magic of knowing we are dying. It's the sweetness of life today balanced by the sadness of the end which is coming. It is that balance which works best for me. I need the slightest hint of salt to perfect the ideal chocolate taste. The knowing can impart a certain determination to move now, not when the circumstances line up exactly as our fearful little selves insist they must. We have all day, but we don't have forever.

Odds are very high that today is not my last dying day. I'm confident that I am not, today, already in the 37-day countdown which my buddy Patti Digh has used to frame her work in the world. But what if I were? Am I doing anything today which I would not do were I to learn that I will die in two weeks? In five days? Today?

Nope.

Today, I will spend every creative spark born in me to help people learn of my wife's mission in life. Why? In the small, human sense, in order to sell books. In the broader, what's-in-it-for-all-of-us sense, I do this work because it will help people. Lots of people. It will help people in ways that Julia and I have never considered. It already has, and it is not born, officially, until next week.

That's what I will do today. If I see tomorrow, that's what I will do then, as well. That's far enough to project for right now.

What will you do today? Why will you do those things? Are they what you would be doing if you knew your remaining time was finite and the end was approaching?

I want, more than anything, to feel at the end that it has all been worth it. That's all. If the end is today, I'm good to go.

Easy? Not easy? Who chooses?

I was struck this morning by the delightful juxtaposition sent to me as a result of a Google thingy which tells me when the phrase "Easy World" is discovered on the internet.

Take a look.

As you can see, two different folks have quite different opinions. Jill says it isn't an easy world to live in. Greg, on the other hand, finds that it is an easy world to live in right now.

Who is right?

They both are.

Here's how it works.

Every single one of us has a choice to make, each moment, about what kind of experience we are going to have. If we choose to see things as hard, harsh, dangerous, and scary, that's what we will find as we live out our day.

If we choose to see the entire universe as our creative playground, a place we can make fun stuff and meet fun people and flow Love all day long, that's what we are going to see.

What do you choose, right this instant?

Presence? All it takes is a toe

My buddy Kelly of Kikipotamus the Hobo is a consistent blogger, making her quite different than I am. Yes, I am capable of it--heck, I wrote every day during the month of June because I had committed to doing so--but it's just not a passion of mine. Love to write, not so clear on writing on any set schedule.

I am, though, a consistent reader. Kelly writes in such an accessible style about matters of interest to me that I find her blog irresistible.

Just yesterday, she made the point that, by awakening earlier than is her norm, she was able to greatly influence the way her entire day went. Everything happened in more of a flow than it sometimes does, and she noticed that she felt more present, more in the life she was living all day long rather than running along side it.

My own technique, recently experienced, was not intentional, but it has worked very well.

A week ago today, I stubbed a toe which was still recovering from a vicious stubbing of some months back. I don't know how common it is to abuse one's fourth toe, but that's the one which has suffered repeatedly at my hands. Well, not 'at my hands' but you know what I mean...more like, 'at my furniture.'

It was not pretty (note to self: no photos!).

Here's the thing, though. For every minute I have been ambulatory this last week, I have carefully paid attention to what was going on around me. Admittedly, I was most attentive to anything on my right side which required negotiating my right foot around. Still, I have noticed, again and again, how present I have felt, and more deeply than is typical.

I find it a curious irony that my own Self, that larger-than-Earthsuit part of me which is not only my guiding light when I am smart enough to allow it to be, but my always-on connection to All That Is, is more available to me...because of a stubbed toe.

There's a lesson in here somewhere, and I'd welcome your opinion as to what it might be, exactly. All I know is, I am deathly afraid of even touching my offended toe in any sort of offhanded way to anything I have not already calculated to be softer than baby's breath--and I'm talkin' actual breath from babies, not something you embellish your rose bouquet with--and that fear has helped me be fully in the moment for most of the last week.

It has been a startlingly amazing week, too. Crazy, in-the-flow stuff has happened in both the mundane--traffic lights I have never made in ten years, I suddenly find green as I approach--and in the spiritual/ethereal. Serendipitous events are commonplace, and stuff just seems to line up if I allow it the leeway to do so. My efforts are more about allowing than they are about striving to complete tasks.

Yes, some of this is a consequence of simply paying more attention to what is happening right before my eyes. Like the day recently which opened with this, less than 30 minutes after sunrise----->

...followed by this, same day, about 13 hours later!
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     V

My bottom line is not dependent upon cause, but upon outcome. We can each believe whatever suits us, and what we experience will likely reflect much of the energy of that belief system. I have learned what works for me--what actions and attitudes on my part result in the outcome I find preferable--and I have been experiencing more of it with my stubbed toe than without.

For next week, my goal is to learn the same kind of presence without having to abuse any part of my body. We'll see how it goes.

Thank you, and good night!

Folks who have been around this little neck of the woods for long are already aware of the fact that I am hardly a blogger with any motivation to put something up--anything--often enough to appease the imagined public.

Quite differently from that, I tend to write when moved to do so, and it can be every day or twice in three months.

At some point maybe a year or so ago, I finally added a badge to my many badges (and, I have earned every bleepin' one of them including the Zero Page Views badge, repeat recipient) which simply indicates that I blog when and if I am moved to do so. I won't apologize for going weeks without posting here because I never promised anything to those who stop by.

Well, except on rare occasions: my participation in the #blog30 journey, just concluded yesterday, was fun, and it gave me exactly what I hoped it would. It provided me the chance to feel some pressure to perform, even as I knew the real consequences of failure were virtually nil. Hell, some minority of the folks who signed up to blog every day for a month never blogged once.

Let me say that again. Folks signed up and promised to blog for 30 days, and never made a single post. Even more baffling, some signed up and didn't have a bleepin' blog to fail to post to! Yes, I'm telling the truth. There were some who signed up and had only some sales page to direct people to, and the page offered no chance to see regular updates (or a blog) at all.

I don't know if the last two paragraphs are preamble to my own admission, but if you take it that way, I won't dispute it.

I'm saying goodbye today.

Not goodbye forever or goodbye to my comfortable blogging home, just goodbye to daily blogging.

I feel good about the quality of the writing I did in June--every single day of the month--and yet, I know that the well has been drawn down below a safe level. I need to take some time to rediscover what it is I have to say so I can say it with just as much audacity as I hope you saw last month.

Don't expect a post from me tomorrow. I'm not saying it won't happen, but don't expect it. Go back to being surprised to see I wrote at all, which has been the case for months prior to June.

Just wanted you to know what is likely to transpire here.

Thanks, and please do keep reading.

Reconciling NOW with Earth

As anyone who has stopped by here can testify, I'm a big believer in the experiential, in being fully present with whatever snippet of life happens to be transpiring right in front of your nose.

Taken to its extreme, it becomes problematic for those who also want to be proficient at getting along and getting what they want in this world.

Of course, my railings are about those at the other end of the spectrum, so focused on the "gimme gimme gimme" aspects of life-successes that they are flying by the real truths life offers in a small voice which is easily drowned out.

Balancing the BE HERE NOW mantra with the mega-successful, jet-owning, four-houses-in-prime-locations-around-the-globe aspiration that lots of people have is not a challenge...it is darned close to impossible.

Here's the thing: balance starts with the assumption that one wishes to find a place in one's life where conflicting motivations can coexist. Some of us have no such wish! Halellujah, good for you, please tip your waitress generously and the valet will fetch your car for you as soon as you exit to the right. Be the monk, be the Wall Street millionaire. Your choice. Bless you and safe journey.

Others of us seek a peaceful place where these motivations can lay down arms and be calmly accepted.

It's for this audience that I'm scribing today.

Beginning the balancing process is simple. Stop judging either presence-in-now or achievement-and-acquisition as good or bad.

This is important, because no one wants to balance good and evil. I like to think of it as healthy and not. It is healthy and life-enhancing to pause and relish a rainbow. Equally, it is enjoyable to do a job well and be rewarded for it. So, there are aspects to either which are fine, healthy, enjoyable.

Take either to the extreme, and you make living among the regular folk problematic.

The next step is to recognize that balance doesn't mean stasis. It means maintaining a flow which includes yin/yang, earth and sky, NOW and GIMME. Both present, sometimes one at the fore, sometimes the other, but both clearly part of your life. Think pendulum. It swings one direction and then back the other, but the average point at which it resides is the center. It doesn't stay there (unless one allows it to stop, and that would be death, so let's not focus there for now), but it passes through that spot with great regularity.

What happens with those of us who want to live a spiritually centered life and have less desire for things and acquisition of them is that we get anxious when the pendulum swings out of the area where we are comfortable.

Exactly the same reaction occurs when the Type-A person discovers a sudden urge to let down their guard and pause to enjoy the clouds passing overhead. The pendulum has swung into foreign territory and uncertainty reigns.

Here's the secret: patience. Just wait, it will all return to where you are more comfortable.

It helps a bunch to keep this back-and-forth nature of the flow of life in mind when trying to understand and get along with folks of the other tribe. Even someone seemingly very different in their motivations and goals will, at times, be on the exact same page as you are.

Touch them then.

Little joys, slight smiles, happy heart

There is a great deal which takes place for me out of the sight of others. In other words, I'm introverted enough that my life experience, much of it, is lived out in the space where my sense of self resides.

The way it works for me is to make forays out into the world to collect experiences and touch/be touched by the lives of the folks who I meet as I wander, and then to return to solitude to cogitate.

The thinking may or may not be directly about the experiences I just logged. Certainly, the processing I do is influenced by what I have learned.

It can be simple, small changes in perspective that I allow to flow through the semi-fixed foundational structures which support the story I am writing, the story which is me becoming.

At times, it gets convoluted and impossibly recursive. It is at those times that I am best served to remember that life isn't either. I have created a trap and then willingly stepped into its maw.

Oddly, we are least able to step back and gain the perspective of distance exactly when we are most in need of it.

My wife, Julia Rogers Hamrick, has developed tools which help to find the exit and step out of the self-created trap. It's a good way to handle it: build mechanisms while you are able to do so which help the troubled you find the way to the light when you have forgotten how to.

It is amazing how resistant our self-in-crisis can be to proffered assistance. I know that, for me, there are times when I almost get comfortable in that sense of helplessness and doom. Yes, I always come back to knowing who I am--who I am becoming--and I pour a little more energy into the support systems I have in place for myself each time.

It would seem that, for all of us in Earth suits, there is a requirement for delving into the animal, the physical, the dirt and mud and grass-stained direct experience. We don't have to be there all the time, though.

Are you willing to step out of the mundane, to touch the miracle barely below the surface? I’m not asking you to do anything, just to consider if you might be willing to.

Life, explained (6)

One of the best aspects of the arrival of the maturation of one's offspring into gone-from-the-house people--I was going to say "adults" but I'm not comfortable with that label myself so I won't weigh my daughters down with it--is that there is more time for quiet reflection.

That's not to say that the space available is not often filled with busy-ness of the silliest degree, almost busy for the sake of busy itself, but the space is there.

I talked last time about the journey becoming more and more important as one realizes how much of it is now behind when compared to the journey remaining.

It is now that the search for meaning commences.

Cleverly, the Universe hid Meaning where we would least expect to find it, and that adds up to most people ending up as clueless as they were at the start.

Going on a "search for meaning" adventure!

Here's the thing: meaning is not an external entity of any sort. It is, instead, an assigned value consideration which each of us cooks up in the cauliflower-looking organ between our ears.

Over the centuries, brilliant men and women have expounded at length and at short--pithy is the new black--about what life means. While I have enjoyed a great many of these works of explanation and elucidation, I remain unconvinced that anyone else's is more than a small influence on what I will end up with.

I'm not planning on ending up with anything for some time to come, but you know where I'm going. My "meaning of Life" statement will be ever-evolving and, with any luck, ever-enriching for those who are exposed to it.

By the same token that my own result is only slightly influenced by that of others, I have very modest expectations as to the effect on you which you can attribute to visits here to Hamguin's little nest.

Let's get specific.

My joy in writing, particularly in writing this ongoing series on how I would explain Life, is in the sense of calm confidence it leaves me with, knowing I am doing what is mine to do in the world. My pleasure in your reading is in my mind's eye where I see you nodding as you understand where I am coming from. If you take anything from here with you as you leave, take a peaceful knowing.

The knowing is not knowing everything, but knowing that it is perfectly okay not to know much about anything, as it is our curiosity which keeps our hearts beating. We're curious to know more about the unseen parts of Life. We're curious to learn how we can steer. We're curious to know why it seems to work out better for us in the long run if we can let go of that urge.

Life goes on. So will my explanation.

Bury me not in Deer Trail, TN

This is a story from ancient history, back in the days when men were men and they wore the pretty blue uniform of the US Air Force.

I learned how to program computers in the Air Force, a time quite well spent. In fact, it gave me my livelihood and helped me develop a passion which I still love to pursue to this day.

Being an enlisted man, in addition to my duties as a computer programmer, I was expected to help with other tasks such as litter patrol and mowing grass. As it turns out, though, there was a way to avoid such mundane use of my time.

I learned from the sergeant who ran the laundry room (we turned in our dirty sheets each week and were issued a clean set for our dorm beds) that he was also in charge of funeral detail.

Once a person has served in the United States military, they are entitled to a military funeral. Lots of folks take advantage (well, their surviving relatives do) of this entitlement, and that means the military branches have an obligation to provide the services.

I was stationed in south Georgia. That Air Force base was responsible for providing funeral detail for a three-state area. The sergeant, that day in the small building which smelled of hot, clean sheets and overwhelmingly of fabric softener, told me that his bugler had just been transferred to another base.

I not only played trumpet in high school, I had also played in the drum and bugle corps while I was in tech school at Keesler AFB, yet another of my "get out of mowing grass" exploits.

When I told him I could help him out, he excitedly described how easy it was, how great for me to get out of all other details, and how fun the trips could be. So, I signed up and became the bugler for funeral detail.

I became quite proficient at finding just the right spot from which to play Taps at the right time during the interment. I needed to be close enough so they could hear me, but I also needed to not be visible. It was okay for me, not too heart-rending a task, because I was separated from the actual ceremony.

After I had performed my duty for half a dozen funerals over a matter of months, we were notified that we were going to Tennessee. Since we were in south Georgia, it would be our longest trip to date, requiring an overnight stay.

We rode in an Air Force-blue school bus (it wasn't used for school, but that's the kind of bus it was--no comforts of long-distance commercial buses, just a typical school-bus-looking kind of vehicle) for hours after leaving the base before dawn.

Deer Trail, Tennessee. I don't remember exactly where it is, but it's not where Google claims it is. It is in the far northeastern reaches of the state, miles from anywhere of any size, and a center of commerce of the least impressiveness.

The funeral was held in the elementary school with burial in the cemetary a few blocks away. I got the sense that there was one school, one cemetary, and one dirt road which constituted in-and-out access. I remember we left the same way we came in.

Once we completed our assigned duties, we got back on the bus and headed for Sevierville, TN where we would be spending the night. It was, back then, a lovely little town which thrived on the tourist trade for those heading to the Smoky Mountains.

We stayed in a motel of the sort which costs little, offers about the same, but is suitable for arriving late and leaving early.

The person in charge of the detail, always an SP (this is an Air Force person, the Air Force's version of a policeman), was a woman. She was a little bit wild, and since she was in charge, we followed her lead.

We ended up playing strip poker in one of the motel rooms we had rented for long enough to discover that it wasn't all that much fun with seven guys and one girl, and then we went down to the swimming pool.

The pool was located on the side of the motel away from the office, thereby offering little in the way of supervision by the motel staff. Yes, there was skinny dipping.

Amazingly, nothing happened which caused embarrassment to the USAF. Or, more correctly, no one was caught in an embarrassing situation. I left before the party was over and went up to my room, but everyone made it onto the bus in the morning for the six or seven hours on the bus to get back to the base.

It's a pretty tame story, all in all. It's all I had this morning, though, so there you are.

Remembering, even as we know we will forget again

Yesterday, I spent some time watching videos which feature Burt Harding. He is a spiritual teacher of the lineage of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi.

I came upon his work via my typical path, meaning I am not sure how I found it. Were I one of the main characters in Hansel and Gretel, I fear I would not have found the witch's house after getting lost. Instead, I would have wandered until I stumbled upon a Holiday Inn.

That's how it goes for me: I get lost, I fail to despair, and I find out I'm not as lost as I was. After some years of this kind of activity, one becomes rather familiar with "lost" and doesn't really experience stress about it as rookies do when lost.

So, in losing my way, I find me.

At some level, those last two paragraphs are my unintentional response to Burt. I'll continue on more intentionally.

Take a look at this short video so you have a better idea what this man is up to.


I really like his description of our condition. Human: seeking, desiring, yearning. Being: just that...being. It is such a powerful concept, that of "allowing." I came upon it as a way of describing surrender in terms which were less indicative to assertive, driven American folks of failure. Of course, that's not what "surrender" means in this context. But, rather than fight the battle of old connotation, I hit upon "allowing" years ago as the same concept, more acceptable word.

Burt uses "allowing" in this video with powerful result.

To relate it to what I was saying earlier, the entire experience of looking around for something, seeking an answer to an unasked question, is what Burt terms the human part of us. When we become lost and pause, we experience the being part of ourselves, as we are in that instant. Not actively in want, simply being.

If that "being" state lasts a millisecond and is followed by large amounts of angst and worry, we are lost. If, instead, we allow, we just be, we find that the lost sensation loses its power. We may or may not know where we are, but we are no longer lost.

Make your own magic

Is magic something inexplicable? Are miracles beyond the capability of man to understand?

What I have come to believe is that there are realms beyond the mundane and visible which we can influence. It's nothing dark or forboding, but simply elements of the Universe which are not immediately obvious while we are journeying in these flesh-and-blood outfits we're wearing at the moment.

It is beyond the scope of today's discussion to get into, but suffice it to say that there is far more going on beyond what our senses can detect than is happening in our daily lives which we clearly see and think we understand.

Let's see if we can leverage what we do know so that the unseen is brought to bear in ways which we can enjoy today.

First Important Idea: the Universe is predisposed to support action. That's not to say that any random act will result in help from the miraculous or magical, but that right action--what my wife refers to as "inspired" action--is not only supported, it is magnified.

This is where it becomes fun! If we are able to determine what action we can take which is in line with the direction the Universe is going, we will discover that our power to drive results is multiplied many times over.

The well-worn phrase Ben Franklin wrote, "God helps those who help themselves," is nothing more than an acknowledgement in pithy terms of my point.

Second Important Idea: miracles tend to flock.

I'm not sure why this is so, only that it feels right to me that miraculous events often occur in clumps rather than being randomly and widely scattered.

This means that, if we are able to learn how to invite miracles into our lives, we are likely to have these welcome houseguests around for a long time.

Third Important Idea: gratitude, childlike awe, and joy in being alive are engraved invitations to the Universe, inviting it to bring all manner of fun stuff to us in the realm where we can see it, touch it, smell it, love it.

Listen to your heart and take the action which is supportive of the next step you know you need to take. Be open and willing to accept anything which comes into your life, knowing that miracles are plentiful and looking for a place to stay. Touch the place inside yourself where there is an innocent, wide-eyed and very curious child who seeks nothing more than to be stimulated by life. Be grateful for this chance to walk around and explore with eyes and ears and other senses which bring the world into your experience.

Feel the amazingly gentle yet astonishingly powerful Love which flows through us.

So, there you have it. Your prescription for a joy-filled, miracle-producing life filled with Love.

Any questions?

A thousand neat little boxes

In listening to a podcast this morning, I was reminded of a theory I have heard espoused by many. It seems that people seek to solve any problem which comes to their attention by applying the tools they already know how to use.

Here are examples.

Policemen seek to address a problem by arresting it.

Elected officials who are legislators seek to pass new laws.

Carpenters treat problems as nails and hammer them.

Marathoners seek to train harder and enter more races.

Fat people eat.

Skinny people skip a meal or three.

People who typically deflect responsibility deny any involvement with the problem.

Those folks who take action by default run around and do stuff.

Doctors prescribe.

Therapists talk and listen.

Herbalists offer a new, custom-designed herbal remedy.

Strategists see the big picture, be it one which is evident or one they invent.

The podcast concerns bipolar disorder, and the guest on the interview is a woman who has experienced the illness as a family member to several affected relatives.

Her means of coping, as she shows during the podcast, is to talk about it calmly and openly. The courage and raw honesty is awe-inspiring, and her sense of humor is delightful. This is a lady who will be a great help to her two children who have been diagnosed as having the disorder.

In examining the methods of traditional medicine in dealing with mental illness, particularly when viewed with an historical perspective, it strikes me that the thousand-little-boxes analogy fits.

It's not at all that I don't think the docs aren't giving it all they've got. The problem is that their frame of reference tends toward the narrow rather than the open-minded. So, we end up with The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, now in its fourth edition. It was published in 1994. The fifth edition is due out two to three years from now.

Definitions of illnesses come and go from one edition to the next, and while there is no doubt it is a tool which is needed by the psychiatric community, it is also a huge profit center for the holder of the copyright, the American Psychiatric Association.

As of the last edition, there are close to 300 different illnesses included. While that falls short of the thousand little boxes I allude to above, we are easily already there with all the variants which are defined within the 300 illnesses. Yes, each person who is diagnosed has a specific box into which they can be placed, said box labeled with the expectation as to progress of the illness, appropriate medications, possible dangers, etc.

One thing we can count on in 2012 when DSM-V comes out: there will be more illnesses defined, more variants defined within the old favorites, and it will be vital that everyone buy the new edition. I don't know the numbers which are sold between edition releases, but when this new one comes out, it will sell like hotcakes because everyone will feel the urgency to get on the newest of the same pages.

One certainty, though: there will be more boxes, each one will be smaller, and traditional medicine will have simply taken more steps down a road which is only somewhat able to deal with the realities of mental illness.

Yes, I am a bit turned off by the process by which the APA raises money, but I don't pretend it is just that organization which is using the conditions which brought about the need for the group to further its growth and increase its income.

Consider any high-minded group of people who come together in order to collaborate in the diminution of some entity or disease or behavior which is seen as bad for humankind. At first, such groups are pure of heart and resolute of purpose.

Over time, and as money becomes part of the equation, the group becomes, slowly but surely, less about completing the mission and more about feathering the pillows of those who run the group. If you are making six figures running a charitable organization, it isn't in your personal best interest to solve the problem the group exists to fight.

Much as no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, no idealistic notion survives translation into a mission for any group of people who are paid to manage the group.

If you have evidence to the contrary, please share it! I would love to shine a golden light on any group which has paid staff which worked themselves out of a job by solving the problem.

Needing a break

In that odd way I am able to make sense of the world, I have decided, since I felt this morning as if things were getting a bit overwhelming and the to-do list a bit longer than I prefer, to join a 30-day blog challenge.

There is even a theory which backs my decision. Well, more a cliché, but still, it goes like this: If you want something done, assign it to the busiest person available.

It is rarely the case that I get this sense of overwhelm because I have gotten pretty good at saying "No" often enough that it never gets to this point.

Right now, though, with my wife's book approaching its emergence into the world, there are lots of tasks and meetings and decisions which cannot be put off. So, those get the prime spots on the calendar.

Right behind those commitments are all the items related to my job search. This includes the fun parts--interviewing, talking to people in order to get an interview, networking with folks so as to broaden the number of people I know who are aware of me and my skills--and the not-as-fun parts, like spending time scanning the internet for possibilities and dealing with the sheer volume of rejections which are so prevelant in an economy which has created an environment where there may be 100, 200, 500 or more applicants for any of the jobs I am seeking.

The net result is a pretty busy Rick. Then, I heard about this challenge this morning from my long-distance buddy Martha Giffen. Aw, what the heck. I'm in.

For me, "needing a break" has been translated into, "take a break and write something; you know you want to."

Colorado

I'm a North Carolina native, a Tar Heel through and through. Heck, I was even born on the campus of the University of North Carolina, the nation's oldest university. No, I was not born during its first few years of existence.

Colorado has been home for a long, long time, ever since my family moved here when I was a kid. Today, I'm going to show you one very good reason why I love it here.

This, my friends, is this morning's sky. It's only about 3% of it, but it all looks just like this as of this moment.

We have days like this a lot here. The tourist attraction folks (I don't mean the strange-looking people at the circus--I'm talking about the PR folks selling Colorado as a destination for vacationing) claim we get 300 days of sun a year. I don't know how accurate that is, as my wife and I suspect that five seconds of sunlight during an otherwise gloomy day may qualify for the Board of Tourism's list of 300 days.

It hardly matters. We get lots of sun, regardless of how you tally it up.

For a frame of reference, here is a second picture with the tops of a couple of trees visible in the bottom of the frame.As one's eye approaches the horizon, the blue lightens. You can see it in this picture. If you look straight up, and the first photo was taken almost straight up, you see the deep, deep blue of the sky when you are a mile above sea level. That first mile of atmosphere which you look through in Chapel Hill but which we are above here makes a big difference.

In North Carolina, the sky is Carolina blue. I love Carolina blue. Here in Denver, today in particular, you can see Colorado blue. There aren't many places in the country where you can see a sky so deeply colored, so entrancingly inviting to the eye. You can get lost in that blue.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It seems that the amount of time, energy, and typing I devote to Facebook, Twitter, and OPB (other people's blogs) has impacted the amount of words emerging here.

Thank goodness there is no guarantee of a particular level of service here at good old Hamguin's.

To both of you who read what I write here, my apologies. That's not to say I will pretend to get better at regularly posting, only that I regret serving you less often than you might like.

Springtime, always a stop-and-start-and-stop process in the high plains, is stopped at the moment. We had snow a few days ago, and my lovely North-Carolina-native wife has only now ceased grousing about it. Since, we have had rain and temps in the 40's and 50's.

In Denver, Spring means 70's and impossibly deep-blue skies which go on forever. We're planning to see just that tomorrow or Monday. Maybe both days. Today, though, is supposed to be more wet and chilly weather.

We are now in the sprint stage of the runup to the release of Julia's new book, "Choosing Easy World." It has been a lengthy process, but in only 10 more weeks, the book will be out. It is a big deal, and not just for the Hamrick family. If ever the planet has needed the message Easy World reminds us of, now is the time.

I encourage you to help us get the word out. You can buy the book now at Amazon.com, and pre-publication purchases count toward the all-important best-seller statistics for the first week after publication. In other words, buy now, get the book in August, and help make it a hit.

If you do decide to buy, keep your receipt from Amazon. Julia is going to offer a bonus to those who preorder. I'll be sure to talk about the details here as they become available.

Looking forward, next week, to sharing lunch with long-time internet buddy Lynilu and her peeps. It is great fun to meet folks face-to-face for the first time who you feel like you have known for a long while. Pictures to follow.

It feels to me as if my long trip through the world of the underutilized may be coming to a conclusion. As much as I try to put a happy face on it, it is not easy to look for a job for a really long time and not find one. It is educational, self-revelatory, humbling, and a big reminder of the importance of persistence, but it is not easy.

I don't have any particular reason to believe the trip is almost over, just a feeling I have.

We'll see.

It's a new year, a new set of challenges, and new eyes

Julia has now been home for a full ten days, and we have embarked on our new eating plan. It includes a lot of raw food, probably 80% of what we eat, and about 20% cooked items such as fish, rice, and vegetables which require cooking.


We are coming to this from an organic approach, and by that I mean not only that we are buying organic produce, but that we are seeking to find our path to a regular food consumption plan by coming in planless. We're figuring this out in a natural, easy-to-adapt-to fashion. As we discover what we like, we will add those things or recipes to what we are already eating.

One real winner: green smoothies. I never would have guessed that a smoothie which starts with a few huge kale leaves would result in something delicious, but it is possible. Julia's latest attempt included kale, two bananas, four strawberries, enough water to make the whole concoction pourable, a couple of teaspoons of raw agave nectar, a few ice cubes, and wow! There is no discernable kale taste to the smoothie, and the banana/strawberry combination is really delicious. It is quite filling, too: I had no desire to eat again for hours afterward. So, it can serve as a meal substitute.

Over the next couple of weeks, we're going to try some other combinations. Virtually any green leafy variety will work: chard or spinach or collards or even romaine lettuce. And, the fruit you love can be the fruit you combine to make the smoothie your own creation.

This is not something we are embarking upon with a specific short-term goal in mind. On the contrary! We are seeking a more-balanced and healthier way of eating which we will maintain for a long time. I'm not going to pretend that we can know how we will be eating a year from now, but I'll bet it will include green smoothies and lots or raw vegetables.

In a few months, I'll report back with any results we attribute to this new commitment.