All the World Knows Beauty…


All the world knows beauty, but if that becomes beautiful
This becomes ugly
All the world knows good, but if that becomes good
This becomes bad
Tao 2

"What we call beautiful or ugly depends on our feelings. Nothing is necessarily beautiful or ugly until feelings make it so… Sages transform their feelings and return to their nature and, thus, become one again." LU HSI-SHENG**

If you are familiar with the Meyers-Briggs personality profile, then you will know what it means to say that I am an INFJ. If not, suffice it to say I am an introvert who navigates the world through intuition and feelings.

Sometimes, of course, this can be very helpful. Other times, not so much.

What I have learned in my 60 years is that feelings are not facts. Actually, feelings are rarely facts. They are simply my feelings at that moment that can be the result of many factors. Maybe a bad childhood memory. Or possibly even a hormonal reaction to the current situation. As much as we resist the thought at times, so much of our reactions to reality are chemically induced. Whether stress hormones like cortisol or adrenaline, or sexual hormones and endorphins, much of my life can be directed by my animal brain rather than my higher brain's direction.

But, just as genetic predisposition is not a final judgment, I do not have to succumb to the impulses of my lower nature. Even if I am irritated and threatened by a person or situation, I can choose to act contrary to my first impulse. This is rarely easy.

The adage that life is what you make of it is more true than we'd like to believe. So many of us are "glass half empty" people in a universe always trying to show us it is actually half full.

In the midst of depression, it is easy to walk past the beauty of spring flowers, or ignore the early morning songs of birds at the feeder. Like that picture I remember from Psychology 101, there is always a photo of either the young and vibrant woman or the older bitter one. http://www.optical-illusionist.com/illusions/young-lady-or-old-woman-illusion

The interesting thing is not only is it hard to see the other once you've seen one, it is similarly difficult to shift back and forth. It takes effort of perspective. It takes higher thinking to shift the initial perspective.

I think all of life is like this. We all have our own creation story of how we came to be. Whether it be the Garden of Eden in the Hebrew Scriptures or our own family narrative of whence our short temper resulted - most of us need to know the beginning point.

The warning here is that we must be careful not to allow that past story to define our current and future ones. Just as nature is constantly changing - the seasons come and go - so also are entire species and biomes growing, changing, and fading away.

There is both evolution and extinction of species. As the coy-wolf shows us, nature abhors a vacuum- just as do our own minds.

If you don't like who you are, change it. If you don't like your own story, change it, too.

The only constant in life is change. Whether that change is good or evil is entirely up to you.

**from TAOTECHING, translated by Red Pine with selected commentaries





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