Turn it.

~ Live & Learn

john-cage

There is a tendency in the West to be convinced of the badness of human nature… It is essential that we be convinced of the goodness of human nature, and we must act as though people are good. We have no reason to think that they are bad. […]

I noticed in New York, where the traffic is so bad and the air is so bad … you get into a taxi and very frequently the poor taxi driver is just beside himself with irritation. And one day I got into one and the driver began talking a blue streak, accusing absolutely everyone of being wrong. You know he was full of irritation about everything, and I simply remained quiet. I did not answer his questions, I did not enter into a conversation, and very shortly the driver began changing his ideas and simply through my being silent he began, before I got out of the car, saying rather nice things about the world around him.

~ John Cage, in Richard Kostelanetz’s Conversing with Cage

Notes:

“So I decided to start bowing to everyone who crossed my path.  Just a little teeny bow of my head.  Just enough to remind myself not to be a jerk, since no matter who I’m talking to, whether it’s a child, or a principal, or a gas station attendant, or a frenemy, or Craig, it’s GOD I’m talking to. And as I bow, I say Namaste, God in me recognizes and honors God in you. I just think Namaste in my head, like the way Orthodox Jews wear a yarmulke to remind themselves that they are living under the hand of God.  Or how Muslims pray five times a day to remind themselves of whom they serve.  The world and the people in it are so beautiful when you are awake.  And so the bowing and the silent Nameste is just a little practice to remind myself what’s real.  What an amazing life I’m leading and what a gift the people I meet are to me. I know all of this might sound a little nuts, but I have decided that I am just over worrying about that.  Robin P. Williams said, “You’re only given a spark of madness.  You mustn’t lose it.”  And maybe the world needs some crazy love.  So I am embracing my spark of madness.  Fanning it, even.  And I’m bowing.  And something’s happening because of it.  It’s working.  I’m starting to see God everywhere.

~ Glennon Doyle Melton,  Carry On, Warrior:  The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life

22 thoughts on “Turn it.”

  5. YES!!! BIG, FAT YES!!!!! It is so easy to see the “bad”, the “negative”, the “wrong”; it takes much more work to see the good, the beauty, the positive all around us. This is work we must do, whatever it takes. There is so much more to praise.

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  9. It’s been my experience that the law of attraction is a powerful thing…. Bowing to you, pal, and at the risk of overstepping, perhaps you could give *yourself* a little nod in the mirror each morning? Just sayin’….. 🙂

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  10. Gah! It’s so easy to fall into someone else’s negative natter. In no time flat, I’m slinging crap right along with them. And I always come away feeling splattered and sore. Silence is good. Silence is something I can do.

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  12. I watch a few around m3 who seem to swirl in the negative place so much and so readily, I wonder if they habe any idea? I must remember this silent Namaste. I see them working far too hard at all this negativity and irritation and I think..how exhausting this must be but I find my inner self’s blood pressure rising just the same . As I head to the office I’m going to bring this with me. Namaste DK.

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