Kinds of Power 8

Since ideas are already operating in our perspectives, turning ideas over and looking at them carefully becomes paramount for every endeavor of any kind. Because we take our usual ideas for granted, ideas have us in their grip without our realizing it.

That's why the investigation of them is freeing and the encouraging of ideas is enriching.Ideas need liberation; they need to be born again else they become not merely defunct but delusional.

For ideas to be born and stay alive through their precarious infancy they must be welcomed warmly so that their native power can come fully to mind.

Skepticism and irony don't belong at the start. At first, better the wacky and the weird than ideas whittled down to fit preconceived slots. Here we need courage to face their destructive force, for ideas also can lay waste cherished habits of mind.

Kinds of Power 7

The soul is desperately seeking the power of mind to be applied to the powerlessness it experiences. Though we want ideas, we haven't learned how to handle them. We use them up too quickly. We get rid of them by immediately putting them into practice. We seem to know only one thing to do with an idea; apply it convert it into something usable.

Fixed upon the "how" and the "who", we avoid playing with the "what", turning it over in our mind, an idea as an entertainment, ideation as a sport that gives as much fun and mental exercise as do many other kinds of play.

I worry lest the birds be caged too soon.

My idea about ideas is that they first need to be entertained. Then they may spark better ones in your mind and can lead to unforeseeable implementation in your life.

Let's talk ideas.

Kinds of Power 6

The struggle now and always is with the autonomy of ideas, their ability to invade the human mind, seize it and shape its formation into ideologies. Do we really know what has moved into our minds - those ideas, like furniture, that stand silently in the same place for decades determining every move we make in the interior habits of out thoughts and actions. Ideas we have, and do not know we have, have us.

My recent journey, if recent can include the last five years, has been one of "idea examination". Due to a host of reasons (eg. aging, painful as well as beautiful experiences, honest observations about certain systems and practices) I have systematically and unsytematically been deconstructing and reconstructing many of the ideas that I have inherited. It has been one of the most unnerving, liberating, individuating experiences of my life up to this point. A word of caution, however, it is not for the faint-hearted. And it's risky, dangerous business.

Kinds of Power 5

To go to the source, especially in America, calls for a new heartfelt appreciation of ideas in and for themselves. Perhaps ideas are the single most precious miracle in human existence. For ideas determine our goals of action, our styles of art, our values of character, our religious practices and even our ways of loving.

In my couseling practice I have found this to be so, so true. Most people have inadequate ideas for their current and future lives. They have essentially outgrown their ideas. Some ideas were appropriate and fitting to their pasts. Other ideas were useless or even destructive from the get-go. What would it look like to do an "idea assessment" periodically to see if we need to "trade up"?

Kinds of Power 4

Ideas need to be shaken before they can clarify. So I invite disturbance.

Expanding ideas comes first; widened practice follows.

To become conscious of anything we have first to get the words right, because words are loaded with implications.

Language can express every shade of emotion, that is precisely its beauty - and its power. Deprived of the sense of words our emotional expressions become primitive, physical and senseless.

The Chinese have said for centuries that people resort to physical violence because their words have failed.

Kinds of Power 3

As Einstein said: "Everything should be as simple as it can be, but not simpler." The seduction of simplicity tempts ever more as issues become more and more complex, so that voices of simplicity offer mental peace without mental effort. Simple ideas feel comfortable; they don't give us trouble. They seem to let issues settle down quietly into the bottom mud of the mind, all tension and sophistication denied. The mind needs richer foods and it likes to move subtly, like a snake or a fox, otherwise it will get blindsided by the narrowness of focus.

What simple ideas are proving insufficient to help me navigate the realities I'm facing?