Personal development: The power of accepting our mortality October 1, 2017
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development Potential.Tags: achieving goals, Carlos Castaneda, inspiration, life, personal growth, philosophy, self-actualization, writing
add a comment
It may be possible that we could fall short of reaching our full potential because we often act as if we are going to live forever; and because of that tendency we do not make a concerted effort to change.
This is one of the life lessons that Carlos Castaneda tries to convey through the following reported “conversation” with the shaman Don Juan Matus, who admonishes Castaneda:
“You think your life is going to last forever.”
“No, I don’t”
“Then, if you don’t think your life is going to last forever, what are you waiting for? Why the hesitation to change?”
This is a tough message.
For most of us, accepting our mortality and the very real brevity of our lives is something we put beneath the surface of our active thinking as we go about our everyday lives.
But we are going to die, and as Don Juan reminds us, “There is no power which could guarantee that you are going to live one more minute.”
What then, should we do?
“Trust your personal power. That’s all one has in this whole mysterious world,” Don Juan advises.
This verbal exchange* takes place in Carlos Castaneda’s book, Journey to Ixtlan: The Lessons of Don Juan. It is one of a series Castaneda wrote on “the teachings of Don Juan.”
They are intriguing and challenging books, featuring a lot of provocative advice on personal behaviour patterns and ways to develop our personal power.
* There is some discussion/debate as to whether this series of books by Castaneda should be considered as anthropology, as literature, or as a combination of both. It is a remarkable series, which some people have found transformative.
— Dennis Mellersh
Personal growth concept: “Big ears” and idea generation September 18, 2017
Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Personal Development and Creativity.Tags: Canned Heat, creativity, inspiration, Jason Ricci, life, personal development, personal growth, philosophy, self-actualization, writing
add a comment
Part of the path to success in personal development can be through utilizing and adapting the ideas of others to stimulate creativity within our own custom self-actualization program.
In the musical world, if you can effectively listen to the ideas of others and improvise, building on those ideas, you are considered to have “big ears.”
Musician Jason Ricci explores this concept and other approaches to creativity in free instructional videos he posts on YouTube.
In an improvisational setting, Ricci says, it doesn’t matter if your skill level (“chops”) is not as high as you would like it to be. By utilizing the big ears approach you can work at recognizing good ideas from others and react to them, first with imitation, and then by developing them further or improvising upon those ideas.
With big ears, you’ll never run out of ideas to work with.
Ricci suggests that when we are on the learning curve of creativity, we may frequently need to imitate before we innovate.
He notes that doing this also helps us get out of the loop of our own “self” and ego.
Note: The Jason Ricci video I based this post on, is focused on the album Hooker ‘N Heat in which Ricci is analyzing the harmonica playing of Alan (Blind Owl) Wilson of the band Canned Heat in a jam session with blues legend John Lee Hooker.
Jason, who is an exceptional blues harmonica player, takes about a minute and a half in the video to get to the point where he explains the creative concepts, but stick with him – he has great creative insights, which can be applied to many other disciplines besides music, such as personal development.
Here is the video link, if you are interested in exploring this further:
Hope you enjoy it – Dennis Mellersh
Personal Development Ideas 