[Main Blog Post] [Book] Blessing: the Art and the Practice

[jprussell]

Sorry for going a bit without a substantive post. This time, I share my thoughts on David Spangler's Blessing: the Art and the Practice, and as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Comments

[k_a_nitz]

Off topic, but I just read your previous post (https://jpowellrussell.com/#uplifting_the_everyday_against_pulling_down_the_stand_outs) and had a few thoughts.
1. it reminded me that the Odinic concept that learning is a sacrifice has its other side in that learning is also not a one and done.The choice is between continuously living - sacrificing a part of the old self in order to recreate the self anew - and ossifying.
2. excellence is relative and not fixed. There are many stories of athletes who at one stage in their careers were far from being the best in their bracket, but kept developing whereas those above them stopped (chose to stop?) developing and were overtaken. (The canonical example is Michael Jordan as a high school playet, though an argument could be made for Brady as well.) I saw this in my own high school teaching (past-life ;-) with an average student who chose to put the work in and within a year had overtaken the previous top student. I also saw this in my own early sporting career, and have seen it many times. The human is a supreme learning organism if we choose to make use of its powers.
3. Tolstoy's War and Peace is possibly the greatest discussion of the 'big man' view of history vs the weltgeist view - in many ways I interpret him as being for the middle path: the weltgeist is important, but it requires the great individual who is able to sense that spirit and work with it instead of against it (Kutusov being the great example in the book).

[jprussell]

Thank you for these thoughts, I agree on all counts (well, other than Tolstoy, to which I say, ah, there's another reason I need to get around to reading some Tolstoy!).

Cheers,
Jeff