Second Half of Life

Priorities change in the 2nd Phase of Life, verses the 1st Phase,........I regret not getting this right earlier, as it caused much suffering,……….but I am Grateful to realize it now,…….

It Matters What Path You Choose

“...there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do....” determined to save the only life you could save.”? ?-Mary Oliver

Is it only the "Sting" of the Mistake, the Event, the Mischief? that jolts us out of the Slumber? Do Curses always recoil on the head of him who imprecates them?

We are all Siloed Based on onLine Behavior

Therefore further separating us, so much so, yet unrecognizable,......and When Everyone in Our Circle of Influence Agrees with Us, it solidifies Believeing Our Own Bull Shit,......

Verses Holding Two Opposing Thoughts Simultaneously,.....And have a Fruitful Discussion,

So Much of which is Fearful, Of Being Different or Perceived as Such from said Siloed Group.

Surrender,....a much misunderstood word,.........

Surender the Magic Portal to Peace

Vulnerability is not a weakness, a passing indisposition, or something we can arrange to do without, vulnerability is not a choice, vulnerability is the underlying, ever present and abiding undercurrent of our natural state.

To run from vulnerability is to run from the essence of our nature, the attempt to be invulnerable is the vain attempt to become something we are not and most especially, to close off our understanding of the grief of others.

More seriously, in refusing our vulnerability we refuse the help needed at every turn of our existence and immobilize the essential, tidal and conversational foundations of our identity.

The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance, our choice is to inhabit vulnerability as generous citizens of loss, robustly and fully, or conversely, as misers and complainers, reluctant and fearful, always at the gates of existence, but never bravely and completely attempting to enter, never wanting to risk ourselves, never walking fully through the door.

“You must learn one thing:the world was made to be free in.Give up all the other world sexcept the one to which you belong.Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you a life that is too small for you.” ― David Whyte

When you get out of the driver’s seat, you find that life can drive itself, that actually life has always been driving itself. When you get out of the driver’s seat, it can drive itself so much easier—it can flow in ways you never imagined. Life becomes almost magical. The illusion of the “me” is no longer in the way. Life begins to flow, and you never know where it will take you.

The Significance of The Dark Night of The Soul

As the highs and lows disappear we sometimes feel a sadness and depression, a sense of having lost the richness of the romance of life. Indeed, an awakened being is not romantic, for nothing is special anymore. Every moment is all of it. No romance. Just the coming and the going. Coming and going.

As I check my email these days, Crickets, Nothing There. That was all First Half of Life Stuff. So I go searching for something, as my Ego Aches for attention of the First Half of Life Stuff. Yet, That No Longer Fits the Person I Am

So it is that we must weather that dark time, the period of transformation when what is familiar has been taken away and the new richness unfolds as ours

There Seems to be Much Turbulence

Localisation has the decisive argument in its favour for hard times coming, when we will be wanting to see alternatives to how we live now. My Recent Book; GrowingFREE SimpleLife outlines Lifestyle in Small Town Community. It helps to see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine some real grounds for hope.

The snag is that growth destroys the foundations on which it relies. The question to consider, therefore, is not whether the crash will happen, but how to develop the skills, the will and the resources necessary to recapture the initiative and build the resilient sequel to our present society.

The art of recognising the difference between honest argument and fraud has been in poor health of late.

If we are to usefully think through systems-solutions to the climacteric, the first system to be aware of is the system of language, insight and self-deception that guides, or confuses, the way we think. The accepted name for these is “fallacies”, errors with staying power.

They are so common that it is sometimes hard to think of any argument in which at least one of the participants has not built his or her case on one of these fault lines.

The potential for mayhem and grief is large. They are best avoided or, at least, understood.

SCALE AND PRESENCE

It is widely supposed that large size confers advantages.

It is claimed to be more efficient, since there are economies of scale: once you have got things set up for a particular task, you can get a lot more done for relatively little extra cost and effort (lower ‘unit costs’), and you can go on building on that principle—up to a point.

And yet, large-scale systems have problems, many of which apply to large-scale anything—including animals. They need large quantities of stuff (water, fuel, materials, information), which must be gathered over long distances; they may require complicated infrastructures; they then have to get rid of the waste; and they need complex specialisms to do all this.

And, in the case of a big-city state, there is disempowerment. It is like a wave: you can ride it, but not steer it.

While democracy has advanced, the part we ordinary citizens have played in the making and sustaining of the places and communities we live in has diminished.

Never has so much been decided for so many by so few.

The economics of the future will be benignly and inextricably entangled with social capital—with intense links of reciprocity—in comparison with which the reduction of economic and social relations to the piteous simplicities of prices is not up to standard any longer, and is due for retirement.

Slack is the space in which judgment lies.

The early shocks of descent may leave little room for choice: just one tolerable option could be a fine thing, and that may be as much as most of us can hope for, at least for the time being.

In the mature settlements that could follow, however, the tyranny of decisions being made in lock-step with competitive pricing will be an ancient memory. There will be time for music.

Slack Provides Space to Practice Discernment;??

The ability to judge well. Perception in the absence of judgment with a view to obtaining spiritual guidance and understanding. When we know that whatever we send out comes back, we begin to be Exercise Discernment, it causes us to think of the repercussions before we take action

Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth. We spend much precious time at Make Believe, versus Seeing What Is,.........

About Eric

Eric is a Writer / Published Author / Practicing Poet & Photographer

Reiki Master / Flower Farmer / Life Coach??

Real Estate Developer / Apartment Operator

Modern Elder / Nomad / Entrepreneur?

Find Eric’s Books, Courses & Coaching Offerings here;

https://linktr.ee/ericurbane

Eric is an Entrepreneur, and lives a Nomadic Lifestyle and is an OffGrid Practitioner. He is also an Instructor for Melina Emerson Small Biz Lady and an Adjunct Instructor at Drexel University. Eric is well seasoned in urban housing development.

He has built and developed over 14,000 market rate apartments on a national scale. He founded Urbane Apartments in 2000 and oversaw new business, general operations, marketing and branding at the company until retiring in 2021.

He established a proven track record of effectively repositioning existing rental properties in a way that added value for investors while enhancing the resident experience. He also established Urbane Media, a social media marketing and PR laboratory, where innovative marketing ideas are tested. Eric has been featured in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur Magazine and Business Week Magazine.