By Jim Selman | Bio
I was playing a trivia game and had to answer
what the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are. I got three out of four,
but had to go to go to Wikipedia to get them all: War, Famine, Conquest
and Death. These traditional Biblical symbols mark the ‘end of time’,
when all things are put right and presumably all karma is erased and
this journey will be complete. In researching each of them, I learned
that ‘conquest’ is best translated in today’s language as ‘corruption’.
The ancient notion of ‘famine’ can also be understood to encompass
epidemics and plagues. ‘War’ represents violence in all forms and Death
is pretty self-evident. These seem to me to be a good list of the dark
side of “The Force” which threatens our way of life and our collective
future.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at The Great Turning
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 By Jim Selman | Bio
As we watch the devastation in Haiti on
television, the world recoils at the horror and the suffering,
mobilizes its resources and tries to clean up the mess and help the
survivors. The media forages, looking for who to blame (usually corrupt
or incompetent politicians). We’ve witnessed this scene following
earthquakes countless times: in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake 2008 when
69,000 died in China; in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake when 230,000
died in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand; in the 2005 Kashmir
earthquake where 86,000 died in Pakistan; in the 1923 Great Kanto
earthquake when 142,800 died in Japan; and even in 1908’s Messina
earthquake when 100,000 died in Italy. If we think about the
hurricanes, volcanoes, fires, tsunamis and famine, it seems the “Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse” are doing a fabulous business these days.
The fact is[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Learning
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By Jim Selman | Bio
Perhaps the most pervasive and omnipresent
aspect of being alive is our moods. We are always in one mood or
another. Moods are either positive or negative and they ‘color’ our
experience of living, affect how we relate to others and our
circumstances, and have extraordinary power to open or close
possibilities. If we examine this phenomenon, we can see that our moods
are portable—we take them with us wherever we go. I can be angry at
home and find that mood affecting me at work or even on the golf
course. Moods are also[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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By Jim Selman | Bio
Last week was not a good week for the planet
and I've been taking it personally. Aside from the Iran Crisis and
North Korea, we had the usual games being played in Europe, South
America and Southeast Asia. At some moment, I realized that I had once
again drifted into a spectator role. I was trying to sort out the good
insurgents from the bad insurgents, the real terrorists from the
"revolutionaries", and I was finding that the conservative/liberal
divide seems to be a universal constant everywhere we look. As President Obama is declaring[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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 By Jim Selman | Bio
What is it about us that generates such
endless fascination with conflict and suffering around the world? As I
am watching Israel’s war with Hamas and the occupation of Gaza, I
become resigned that the situation there will never be resolved and I
fall into a kind of ‘funk’ about the Middle East mess in general. Now I
don’t know all that much—just what I get from television, magazines and
conversations with friends who don’t know much more than I do. I have
become like so many of us—a spectator watching war (and other
calamities) with about the same degree of engagement as I might watch a
football game.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Wisdom in Action
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By Jim Selman | Bio
I
have said many times that I view one of the biggest threats to our way
of life (and at least the medium-term future) is widespread and
institutionalized resignation. Resignation is a mood
that most of us have experienced and many are experiencing today. It is
a worldview devoid of possibility. It is the perspective that ‘nothing
can be done’ and ‘nothing will really make a difference’. It is giving
up, but in a way that justifies and rationalizes that giving up is the
rational and reasonable thing to do. The benefit of resignation is that
we can stop thinking or struggling.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Personal Empowerment
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I have written about resignation on several occasions. I think we need
to remember this is a condition in which we give up, but do so in a way
that hides the fact that is what we are doing. Resignation is a big
part of what we think of as the ‘human condition’ and, in my opinion,
it can become more pervasive as we age. I frequently speculate on what
will happen if enough of us become resigned about something at the same
time. My view is that the resignation becomes the reality when this
happens. I am in Buenos Aires this week.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Fearless Aging
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One of the nice things about traveling about as I have been for the
past couple of years is that you get an opportunity to listen to people
in other countries speak about the state of the world. As a fair
generalization, I would suggest that we in the USA and Canada are among
the most vocal ‘worriers’ I encounter. I would say that a high
percentage of North American conversations—at least among those I
converse with and based on my take on ‘the news’ on TV—are worried
about something. From head-shaking expletives about George W to the
justice system, the environment and the state of the world to, of
course, terrorism, it is just one thing after another. Even in Canada
(which has institutionalized optimism), the “Yes, but” appeal to a
balanced account is wearing thin.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at The Great Turning
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I was in a conversation the other day with some friends. It wasn’t long
before we were bemoaning the ‘state of the world’. We moved from
politics in Washington DC to global warming and the Middle East, then
took on the environment, the media and the latest arrest of suspected
terrorists in Spain. In a few minutes, we were feeling a bit of despair
at the seemingly endless list of intractable problems, most of which
are threatening our quality of life—if not the future of our entire
species. Even though I am almost a professional optimist, I still sometimes feel
the ‘pull’ toward resignation, an almost irresistible urge to just
throw in the towel.[ Read More]
Written by eldering at Fearless Aging
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I was playing a trivia game and had to answer what the Four Horsemen of
the Apocalypse are. I got three out of four, but had to go to go to
Wikipedia to get them all — War, Famine, Conquest and Death. These
traditional Biblical symbols mark the ‘end of time’, when all things
are put right and presumably all karma is erased and this journey will
be complete. In researching each of them, I learned that ‘conquest’ is
best translated in today’s language as ‘corruption’. The ancient notion
of ‘famine’ can also be understood to encompass epidemics and plagues.
‘War’ represents violence in all forms and Death is pretty
self-evident. These seem to me to be a good list of the dark side of
“The Force” which threatens our way of life and our collective future. When I think about the state of the world in the context of the Four
Horsemen, it is almost overwhelming. Can we even imagine a world where
these ‘dark powers’ don’t prevail?[ Read More]
Written by eldering at The Great Turning
Join discussion COMMENTS [0]
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