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By madpoet, July 26, 2011 5:45 pm

Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Writing is one of the ways I figure out what I’m thinking, and while I haven’t been doing a lot of it here (or in my fiction projects), I have been doing quite a bit of it in other, more private venues. And it’s been fascinating, on one hand, to get to the bottom of some issues that go right to the core of who I am and what I think. It was this Trust30 challenge that I’m horribly late on that got me started down this road and I’m grateful for what I’ve learned through the process. And at the same time it’s been hard and a part of me wishes that I’d never started.

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By madpoet, July 25, 2011 5:30 pm

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The prompt for this day says to take a big hairy life goal that you haven’t started yet, or that you have been having a hard time with, and write down three uncertainties – fears – that you have concerning it. Then break that down a little further and write three reasons for the fear. That’s a good idea, and I may get to that in a future post, but first I have to address the quote. I have a fundamental problem with the first part of this little couplet, because I believe it may contradict the second part. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself? Yes – By submitting to and following correct principles. Because it’s too easy to use that first part to say that “I am a law unto myself.” Without the appropriate perception and attitude, you can spend a lot of time beating your head into walls and thinking that you’re pursuing peace. You don’t get to the moon and back without an understanding of life sciences, gravity, metallurgy, navigation, physics, etc. With the right understanding of the principles involved, even the sky isn’t the limit.

So, what are the principles that we have to adhere to? What principles exist that we can cling to? Are there any?