A late-night conversation during the long drive home from an ultramarathon ... an online chat with a distant friend ... an early-morning trail run. Chances to talk about important things, stuff that one doesn't usually mention. Maybe obvious. Doubtless better-said by others. Embarrassing to put into words. Kindergarten clichés. Redundant, non-orthogonal, overlapping.

But setting all that aside, there are perhaps three points:

• Be Nice
  • Help other people at all times (from the Boy Scout Oath)
  • Don't do to others what you don't want them to do to you (the Golden Rule)
  • Revere life (Albert Schweitzer's "be in awe of the mystery of life")
• Seek the Good
  • Cherish beauty (cf. James Joyce)
  • Be all that you can be (aka self-actualization)
  • Remember "That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power against evil — widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with darkness narrower." (George Eliot's Middlemarch)
• Be
  • Don't cling
  • Practice mindfulness
  • Recognize the oneness of the universe

What else belongs on the list?

^z - 2012-05-20

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