Hand-Curated Practical Wisdom Weekly
Life In The Deep End. Dive In.
What does it mean to live deeply? It is to feel every day. Your heart is open and experiences the world in all its wonder and joy; splendour and sadness; and all the moments that into memory.
These articles ask us to dive deeply. Each requires time to sit and think. Enjoy.
Linda Graham asks us to look at our world and our lives with new eyes. She reflects on the book, Living Deeply, as a vehicle to sustain a new way of being. Each chapter is summarized with her insights touching on the experience of paying attention with intention and guidance as a way to transform our view of the world. Through quotes and poetry, Graham asks us to live as if everything is sacred. It is worth sitting down to take in the whole view. (30-minute read)
Living Deeply.
To live deeply we are reminded that it is a Now activity. Thomas Oppong reminds us what philosophers throughout history have told us: “life is a preparation for the future; the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none” (Einstein). We make choices every moment to fill our time with busy activities or we can choose meaningful actions that can fill out lives with depth. There is much to learn from those who have passed this way before us. (8-minute read)
Don’t Spend Your Life Preparing For Life
For another poetic trip through a philosophic reminder, dive into Maria Popova’s treatise on Marcus Aurelius. (5-minute read)
Marcus Aurelius on Embracing Mortality and the Key to Living with Presence
Trebbe Johnson asks us to see the gift in the ordinary world that sparkles around us every day, whatever the circumstances. She acknowledges that we are not alone in the sense that there is an enormous weight to our current challenges, and she reminds us that complex problems don’t need to have complex solutions. She hopes, in this article, that by shining a light on the beauty that only takes a moment to see, we will also see that, with our renewed compassion for the world, “spontaneous good-for-nothing-measurable acts” can “pierce gloom and worry, with colour, connection, acceptance, and joy, both for ourselves and for others.” (27-minute read)
Guerrilla Beauty
But,
Is living deeply a risk worth taking? The Risk of Living Deeply Perhaps our soul can decide.
Interlude
The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry
Am I Living Deeply?
What does it mean to live deeply? I think that I am here to think globally, act joyfully and live deeply. But, how will I know? Living deeply implies an ongoing process. It cannot be broken down into S.M.A.R.T. targets. It also implies that since I am currently drawing breath — living — it is something that can be attained imminently, and something more than that.
The living part is rather all-encompassing. I am living if living is a classification. Bacteria are also living. When scientists look for life on other planets, they don’t expect to find walking and talking creatures. They hope to find protozoa, at least on those planets close to us. From a scientific perspective, living things have seven fundamental characteristics. Although there is some controversy, the seven features “include the ability to grow, reproduce, take in and use energy, excrete waste, respond to the environment and possess an organized structure more complex than that of non-living things.” I am scientifically living by 9:00 AM after I exercise, shower, eat breakfast with my kids, and get dressed according to the latest on The Weather Network. I take a deep breath and am grateful for my life.
When life is looked at philosophically, things get a little messy. I think living deeply is more of a philosophical approach. There are many camps. The crux of my interpretation is whether living matter requires consciousness. For me, living deeply requires consciousness. It requires conscious choices: moral and empathetic or self-serving.
To live deeply, I reflect on the idea of knowledge can be gained widely or deeply. To know wide would be elementary school learning. We learn a little bit about many subjects. We talk about a well-rounded education and object when music or art, or spelling, are removed from the curriculum. The internet encourages us to accumulate wide knowledge. Links passed to us from newsletters, colleagues on LinkedIn, acquaintances on Facebook, or suggested viewing on YouTube, can have us looking far and wide.
Deeply requires love and passion. A master’s or Ph.D. student requires the dedication that comes from loving a subject enough to dive deep into its exploration. I imagine that living deeply is diving so deeply into life that you are immersed in its passion and love. It takes practice and study to get a Ph.D. in living deeply — to be open to exploring life’s experiences whatever they are and wherever they take us.
Mornings when I reflect on whether today will be a shallow day or a deep one, I make a conscious choice because living deeply cannot be done by rote. It needs to be learned every day and taken in, like a breath. My morning mantra becomes inhaling “deeply” and exhaling “living”.
Living deeply will not be a someday goal. I will be able to experience it imminently, today.
-Phronesis-
A way of being in the world that shows concern with one’s life, with the lives of others now & in the future and all ways we touch the world.
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