BS: The Road To Becoming

Subject: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 12:26 PM

No, this isn't a thread about one of the lesser known Bing Crosby - Bob Hope movies. It's a response to brucie's asterisk thread. For me, "To be" is a statement of the moment. "To be" is who we are right now. Life is "To become," not just "To be." I'd hate to think that I can't get any better than I am today. That would definitely make me another melancholy Dane.

Becoming the person we are meant to be is a lifetime task and an unattainable goal. It's something you can't do on your own... like trying to lift yourself up by your bootstraps. One of the greatest gifts we can give to each other is to help each other become the person we are meant to be. My friend Art Thieme has done that for me over the years. My wife does that for me, more than any person I have ever known. Without others to help us, life can quickly become a downward spiral that we can't escape. I am who I am at the moment because of the love and mercy of the Lord, and all those who believed in me when I couldn't believe in myself.

What a joy and honor it is to help pull each other up, when we have fallen. One of the things that Mudcat does is to help us to "become."
Forget "to be."

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 02:50 PM

"To be" is an important step on the road to "becoming", Jerry. So I value one just as highly as the other. If we don't fully embrace who we are right now, we can never move forward to become all that we are capable of being. And the same goes for how we regard others. If we want to help them in their process of "becoming", the best thing we can do for them is to unconditionally accept who and what they are right now.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: gnu
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 03:16 PM

So... I be too.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Once Famous
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 03:52 PM

DOOBY, DOOBY, DO.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 04:16 PM

What's that Martin? Name that tune or something?
I know..it's "Strangers in the Night" by Sinatra!
DOOBY, DOOBY, DO, BE DOOBY DOOWAH , DOOBY DOOBY DO, BE DOOBY DOWAH,
It turned out so right, for Strangers in the night!
Got another one please?
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Wesley S
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 04:18 PM

I think the trick is learn to enjoy the journey - not the destination. Hopefully some of my goals are within reach - some are not.

Don't forget - wherever you go - there you are.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: KathWestra
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 06:05 PM

Amen, Wesley! When we are obsessed with "becoming" something other/better than what we are, life becomes about that striving, and the "there you are" disappears unnoticed in the "what I want to/ought to/could/should be". Enjoying the journey and living in the moment do not preclude the intention of being good or compassionate. Or caring. Or loving. It just keeps the intention where it belongs--in the moment, which is the only one we know for certain we have.
Kathy

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 06:14 PM

Ah, but it is the balance, Kathy. We live with the wisdom that we've learned from the past, try to fully realize the moment, and reach for and anticipate the future. If you live in any one of those three places, I don't think that you're fully alive. We all know people who are so weighted down by the past that they can't appreciate the present. And those who ignore the past and continue to make the same mistakes. Those who are always waiting for the good times to come miss the joy of the present. As far as I'm concerned, the good old days are still to come. But, only living in the moment is very limiting to me, if that's all we do. Without dreams and desires for the future I think that we set our sights too low. Each of us tries to find our own balance between those three perceptions of our life.

I think..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: freda underhill
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 06:33 PM

I have lived through periods where "to be" was a relentless, exhausting, and painful struggle. it's during those times that becoming is important.

we can't necessarily change some horrible situation we may be stuck in.

but to accept that we will move and "become" at a future point is an understanding that time brings new and different situations, with or without our conscious intervention.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Amos
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 06:50 PM

If I may offer a slightly contrarian point of view, most of our culture is predicated on becoming, starting with the early childhood question about "what you want to be when you grow up", our entire educational process, our corporate hierarchies, and our fiscal score-cards.

But the one ability that is sorely under-valued in our society is Being, which is the power toward which all meditation and many other therapies are aimed. Being in the fullest sense is an ability which transcends time itself.

Just some food for reflection to contribute to one of Jerry's wunnerful thoughtful threads.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 07:18 PM

Of course, you're right freda, and Amos. Just as it is self-defeating to live in the past, it is foolish to live only for the future. Sometimes, just "being" is about all we can handle. And, there's a big difference between "being" meaning "exisiting" or "being" meaning "being fulfilled." We strive to be as complete as we can and realize the moment to our fullest potential, while still straining toward the future.

The issue isn't whether we are "becoming" because if we are alive we are "becoming." Life is change. It's a question of how much we are a part of how we change. Or whether we let life change us. Like everything else, both things happen.

I ended a song about a great visionary whose "dreams" seemed ultimately to be wasted with the final verse:

"If you're worth your salt, you'll hold on to your dreams
They're still the best measure of man"

Animals just live for the moment. Dreaming of the future is a particularly human quality I think.

But then, maybe squirrels dream of nuts..

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: wysiwyg
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 07:29 PM

Animals just live for the moment. Dreaming of the future is a particularly human quality I think.


The great trick is to really be in present-time while also dreaming of the future-- living IN the moment, FOR the present and the future.... including the dream in the moment of NOW being enjoyed and experienced-- holding both in one's mind/spirit.... attending to ALL of the present (which includes the seeds of the future), with aware intentionality.

In other words-- not either/or but and/and.

There is room in the universe (and thus the mind) for more than one thing to be so at any given time. That's why I tend to find pissing contests so... evident of a limited view.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 08:46 PM

A point that I think is somewhat tangential to the point in the opening post in this thread, but which is perhaps as important in its own way is the effect of focusing on what we think needs to be changed in others, to the extent that we aren't attending to our own inner business and growth, which I think can also result in stagnation, or at least in some degree of frustration in the long run.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 10:05 PM

You got that right, CarolC. It is so much easier to try to remove the mote from someone else's eye than recognize the two by four we have in our own. I don't know who anyone else is supposed to be come. I have a hard enough trying to figure out where I am supposed to be going.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 11:10 AM

Another "be" word... Believing. I had a wonderful friend who I always enjoyed being around because he had such a strong belief in the power of believing that you can do something. Often, the ideas he'd come up with would be hopelessly impractical and we'd talk them out together and he'd see that. He was not a impractical man... he was an extrremely successful businessman. He was that rare combination of practicality and belief. (I'm not talking about religious belief at the moment... just believing in yourself.)

I used to tell him how much I liked him because I know that if you believe that you can't do something, you can be pretty sure that you can't. It's very difficult to do something, if you think you can't. You get too discouraged and give up at the first dissapointment. If you believe that you can do something, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can, but that belief will carry you through the setbacks and make the difference between achieving what you've set out to do or failing.

If you believe you can't change your life for the positive, you probably can't. At least, not on your own. You may need to turn to some other power in your life and ask that you be given that belief. If there is no other power in your life, draw on the strength of those who believe in you. I think we can all look back on times in our lives when we hung in there because someone else believed in us and encouraged us not to give up.

As we say goodbye to 2004, this is a good time to give thanks to all those who believed in us and helped to carry us through the hard times. In the New Year, let us help our friends who need someone to believe in them, as others have believed in us in the past.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 11:14 AM

Good thread, Jerry.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Dewey
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 05:28 PM

The road to becoming is a road of intention and trust, of course there is effort involved as well as time too, but these are only secondary.

Intention is the Key. As is definiteness of purpose and a burning desire, necessary to stimulate your God given purpose in the creation and access your creative faculties/and or calling (we all have one).

The tree does not become a squirrel. It's intention, even though rudimentary is on become an Oak Tree SOMEDAY. It my take a lot of time, effort and obstacle to complete this purpose, but it is after all THE TREE'S PURPOSE.

NOTHING can stop PURPOSE, because it is grounding in the intergrating goodness of the perfecting God that knows the will, and does not condemn the timeline or the process necessary it takes to arrive at the devine benift of the intention and calling. Unlike human beings who often see each others purpose in their own terms and do not recognize the slow perfecting purposes of the unity of all through the seemingly choatic world that is.

The tree knows ITS PURPOSE, which is the starting point to all achivement, it does not try to become a cat, It does not worry if the cat matures and fulfills more of its duty in a shorter period of time.
We all all equals in the eyes of God, and we can be noone esle than the person we were meant to be.

Emerson said,

"There arrives a point in every man's education ( i.e. drawn out growth from within) when he arrives at the conclusion that to envy is ignorance, and that imitation is suicide (which it is)

Also he said the following,

Trust THYSELF, every heart beat true to the VIBRANT STING (GOD'S INFINITE INTELLIGENTS) accept the place of devine providence for great men have alway done so to become the genius of their age"

(above is not an exact quote but from my memory)

Desire, Intention and Being True to Yourself are much more important than what other think, or how long it may take you to arrive. Because we all arive sooner or later through intetion, when we trust ourselves and develope ourselves, whenever or however long that may take initially take.

Dewey

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: dianavan
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 03:47 PM

The act of "becoming" is a cultural trait. Not all cultures recognize this as an attainable goal. The people of some cultures define themselves simply as who they are are presently and what they have already experienced in life.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: freda underhill
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 05:02 PM

"..who they are are presently and what they have already experienced in life."

interesting, dianavan. I remember when my father died - i knew at the time, that as well as losing him, I was losing all the times and experiences that he carried with him, that made him who he was. he was born in 1910, a man who grew up in the Depression, left school at 13 to help support his farming family, had certain values of the time (he was a gentleman!) and loved the music of his times. he grew up in the western districts of Victoria (australia) and the lights, colours and environment of that area was soaked into him. he had an amazing life, and was the only member of his family to travel far and have a totally different life.

and as the decades roll past, i can feel the same thing in me, that i am made up of all my experiences, every single one. my hope is to keep moving, questioning, and growing through it all.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 05:46 PM

I liked the way Abraham Mazlo contexted man's growth as "self actualization" as to "becoming" because while we may always be growing physically, emotionally and spiritually there are steps on thre way to stop and credit oneself long enough to rest up for the next leg of the journey. I think goal setting people need these steps and I think it's okay to stop now and then upon acheiving something to reflect and to gives thanks to the Big Guy... And then go about finding others areas of the self that need actualizing...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: hesperis
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 07:04 PM

For some people, Mazlow's "being needs" which are supposed to only come into effect once other more basic needs are met... are as basic a need as the others.

People contemplating suicide can have any number of unmet needs, but the things that pull them back from the brink often fall into the top of Mazlow's pyramid example. The reason most often cited is something innocuous and simple. "I saw a spiderweb in the sun after a rain, and I knew I had to keep living."

It is beauty that drives the human spirit to BE... even in the face of other supposedly more important needs not being met at all.

There are several flaws in Mazlow's hierarchical theory, perhaps a circular or zoned model would better address the human condition.

Time Management From the Inside Out asks you to divide your life into "zones" rather than hierarchical "planes" and to do at least one thing from each zone regularly, instead of ignoring some zones at the expense of others.

The majority of people are happiest when needs of all the various zones are met. Perhaps, that is the active part of BEING? To make sure that you are as full and rounded a human BEING as possible? It is definitely easier to passively BE yourself when your needs are actually met, because you're automatically BEING a more happy, fulfilled person.

To be rounded, does not mean that you have to be fluent in 15 different languages and play the cello and do math and... it just means that you need to round out your experiences. Meet the needs of physical-material (shelter, food, clothing, exercise), time with family and friends, romance (which for a single person can mean a romantic dinner for yourself), and the self (which can be anything at all that makes you glad to be alive, such as work or play... or perhaps those belong in a different zone for you). Different people have different maps to get to these "psycho-physio-logical" territories... but the territories are still there.

And the needs can be met either simply or in more expensive and complicated ways.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 07:35 PM

Hes:

That was one beautiful post.

Amos

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 07:59 PM

Being rounded to me means being grounded... understanding who you are, what your limitations and strengths are, what your blessings are, how you fit the scheme of things, appreciating the past as well as the moment, and welcoming change.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 08:09 PM

Well, yes, hes... If one does interpret Mazlow's hiearcy at representing the *entire* journey you are quite correct in that death and self actualization are two intersecting vectors..

However if one looks at what it takes to achieve goals in life then it is possible to repeat this process over and over... That's what I take from Mazlow...

And that provides us with a capability of "being" and "becoming" similtaniously...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Cobble
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 08:42 PM

I AM
I am all that I am.
One with the Universal mind,
One with the source of all life,
One with all life forms,
And they are one with me.
I AM LOVE,
IAM LIGHT,
I AM PEACE.

I AM.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 09:17 PM

I Yam What I Yam, and that's all that I Yam.

Popeye

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 09:39 PM

Understanding who you are.

That's an interesting one in a thread that is largely about change. My understanding of who I am is in a constant state of flux. In fact, I find that I have the best understanding of myself when I allow that understanding to happen as a kind of flow.

A few years ago, while doing some meditating, I got a sense of some words and a concept. I tend to think of words and concepts that come to me in that way and at times like that as being the same thing as that "still small voice" that many spiritual perspectives mention as being important. The words were these:

Let life lead you by the hand

...and that is what I have been doing ever since. It's been a good lesson for me to allow myself to do that. Instead of projecting onto my future what I think belongs there and clinging to that, I've been allowing the things that really do belong there to flow into my life and to fill it. Many blessings have come into my life since I started to live it in that way.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 10:00 PM

I understand what you're saying, CarolC: For me, that means letting the Lord guide me. That doesn't mean that I don't think about the future, or never plan for anything. It means that I ask for guidance, because I seem to be burdened with limited vision. (Not talking eyesight, here.)

I understand who I am, realizing that I am in a constant, subtle process of becoming someone different.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jeri
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 10:26 PM

I think 'becoming' isn't a destination - it IS the road. I've been thinking a lot about this. I think animals have it right in just dealing with 'now'.

Our past is part of who we are, but it doesn't count for much unless we were really living in the times we remember. It can be easy to get stuck there though, when it seems like our time to be happy is all used up, and we can't let go and get on with it.

The future...I'm not a big fan of setting goals, but maybe that's just me. I've worked in situations where people talked about 5-year plans and seemed to think you should feel guilty if you didn't have one. I never did, and I never wanted one. The place I think I want to be in 5 years will likely change many times. The only thing that won't change is that I want to be happy.

Concentrating too much on tomorrow can be a way of getting off the hook for today. I've seen people delay and defer things until their chances all disappeared. I want to behave the way I think I should. I want to do what I love and love what I do, and I want there to be something I'm passionate about. I want to understand who I am, I want to pay attention here and now, and notice what's going on. I want to BE. I think 'becoming' takes care of itself.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 10:28 PM

That doesn't mean that I don't think about the future, or never plan for anything.

Plans are useful, but they can become an albatross if one isn't able or willing to let go of them when letting go of them is what is needed. I'm not able to see what lies around the next bend, so I have to trust that if my plans sometimes don't continue to what I had hoped would be their completion, maybe there's a very good reason that I am just not able to see as of yet. So far, I have always been able to discern the reason in retrospect (something I also consider to be a blessing).

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Amos
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 10:29 PM

I, too, have always enjoyed surrendering my imediate and analytical powers to an intuitive sense of the universe as it coalesces from possibility into paths of actuality.

For me, the highest spiritual moments have always come when I extended my sense of "I" to include the farthest reachable perimeter of that intuitive, guiding power, recognizing it as the I that is brother to -- and in a way one with -- the Universe.

It is the perspective Jesus might have held when he said that the Kingdom was within, or that 'greater things than I have done ye shall do' -- a sense of allowing unlimited consciousness as the legacy and birthright of each individual, squaring infinity to the power of infinity and placing the product squarely in the hands of every well-loved soul in existence.

A1


A

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: dianavan
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 11:13 PM

Being aware of the road to becoming is different than setting goals but very similar.

After reading all of your posts, I wonder if the road to becoming is a concept that is developed with education. You can definitely be aware of your past and present self and also be aware of becoming.

I am not sure if you can be aware of becoming without first being aware of your past and present self.

The road is a process in itself. How you respond to the obstactles in the road, may be the most important variable.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: hilda fish
Date: 02 Jan 05 - 07:05 AM

Maybe 'becoming' is quite external, fluid. One thing we can be sure of is change. It keeps on happening and it rolls over us, around us, and through us and marks little marks all over us that change in big and in little ways, our relationship to everything. Sometimes we don't even notice the little 'marks' that are made and sometimes we do, but each second, each minute etc. etc. that we live we change. So.........perhaps 'becoming' is not static, not something that we consciously control, not a road or a journey, but something that is constant and ongoing - changing. For example, in many ways we have 'become' within the concept that we are talking about, as a result of our awareness, first of all, of the dreadful and devastating tsunami, but then through each death toll estimation, through each image that is flashed before us, through each conversation, different in some way. Our relationship with the world we live in, our understanding or compassion for our fellow humans maybe has changed? In small ways for example, if we walk with soft feet over the ground it hurts so from then on we wear shoes. Our relationship to the earth we walk on would have changed as a result. What I am suggesting is that 'becoming' has a fluidity - we are perhaps always in the process of 'becoming' and that is the end in itself, the process of..........?

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jan 05 - 10:53 AM

Hilda is perfectly right. At one level, becoming is certain to occur just as a cumulation of interactions through time. Maybe in a sense time itself adheses. But anyway, in the endless flux of change, becoming in a low sense is inevitable. Even growth will occur without much effort to someone trying to learn survival skills.

The mastery of Being is one key to making becoming a function of will. Without that certainty of who-ness, free of force and free of reaction, all the whatness in the world is a rattletrap affair.

A

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 02 Jan 05 - 12:58 PM

I'm with Jerry on the "Letting the Lord guide me" but it takes so much personal committment and letting go of ones own will. I also make plans for my life, hoping they are in Gods will but if I am wrong in my thinking, a barrier will present itself and I have to re-direct myself. If however I am in His will, doors just seem to open for me. I pray about most things and usually get an answer...even if it's not quite what I want to hear in my sense of spirit.
We all have choices, through the freewill we have been given...how good a job we make of those choices is down to us.....I still mess up frequently but know that where I fail, through my failure God will prevail and succeed. I want to become what He wants me to be and am trying hard...It's the way I choose. Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Peace
Date: 02 Jan 05 - 01:02 PM

Hilda Fish,

Beautiful writing and thinking. Welcome to the Mudcat. I am in the process of becoming your friend. Have a great day and a wonderful New Year.

Bruce Murdoch

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 02 Jan 05 - 01:38 PM

The thing about becoming is that you never get there.

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: KT
Date: 02 Jan 05 - 02:00 PM

Or, you get there every day, only to realize you have to go again.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 05 - 02:14 PM

And at the same time, you never were not there. Even in terms of how people define God... the eternal "I Am" (present tense). You are complete, whole, valid, and fully actualised right now and at every single point in your journey. And at each point as you continue to move through your journey, you will still be all of those things, but you will also be different.

If you look at existance from the perspective of seeing the whole all at once, you can see the perfection of each moment and how it fits perfectly into the whole in relation to all of the other moments. None of them have any greater or lesser validity than any of the others, because all were/are equally needed in order to help bring about what happens next.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: JennyO
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 10:10 AM

You said it well, hilda fish. I look back at what my life was like, say 15 years ago, and it is like looking at somebody else's life. Yet I never noticed myself changing at any point during that time. I remember as a child saying that all I wanted was to be happy. I had no idea how this was going to happen. 15 years ago I was not happy. I was at the end of a violent abusive marriage to a person whom I had married because I thought being with him would make me happy. Turned out I was wrong.

If you had asked me 15 years ago if I knew what I was planning to do to achieve this elusive happiness, I would not have known. At that stage I was just surviving - getting up in the morning, putting one foot in front of the other, working, eating, looking after my children and sleeping.

Somewhere along the way, through unhappy times and financial hardships, broken bones, broken relationships, mixed in with moments of joy and new friendships, and a lot of work on myself, I gradually learned to love myself, to give myself credit for my staying power, and to grow spiritually. I value all my experiences, because they have made me the person I am now. I tend to see myself now as an old battle-scarred warrior, toughened and tempered by these experiences, and miraculously becoming the happy person I always wanted to be.

I'm happier now than I have been at any other time in my life. Its strange, because I still don't have much money or anything to show for my life in a material sense, but that is not important to me. What is important, is that my life is my own, I take pleasure in just being here in this beautiful world, I love watching the vegetables growing in my garden, sitting having a cuppa with a friend, singing a chorus song with voices all around carrying the harmony - a million little things every day. In other words, I seem to have learned to be fully present and to just "be". It is such a gift!

How I got to this point I am not sure, but it sure is working. How I might be different in another 10 years time I have no idea either, but I am happy to accept that where I am at any stage of my journey is right for me now. So I am being and becoming both at the same time. As for trying to plan for the future, these two quotes come to mind...

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" - John Lennon

"..hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied" - Slartibartfast

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Tannywheeler
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 03:39 PM

Hi, guys. Knew a seminary student once who gave me an interesting bit of info. He had learned in Hebrew class that the word we translate into English as Yahweh or Jehovah (same Hebrew letters) is a form of the verb "To Be"; it is never used except as the Name of God; when the parts are translated it is a phrase -- "always in a state of becoming". When Moses, thinking the Jews won't listen to him (he's raised as an Egyptian prince, not a Jew), asks GOD how he gets their cooperation, God says "Tell them I AM sent you"(KJV). This is one of those places where that form is used. The true name of God is too powerful -- it invokes God's actual presence which could mean a serious case of death, if you weren't clean and straight -- so euphemisms, descriptive terms, were used to indicate to Whom someone, or some literary passage, was referring.

"Always in a state of becoming" be with us all in the New Year.   Tw

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Once Famous
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 04:16 PM

I don't know if I buy any of this stuff.

I have a friend who is a successful psychologist.

Something he told me ten years ago keeps ringing true:

"people don't change. they just become more of themselves."

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 04:49 PM

IMHO,,,,I believe that could be true if they are totally into themselves. If you are living an open and involved life, surely you learn much from others so your expression..or your friends expression would become....."people do change, they adapt to other people, the environment and circumstances"
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: JennyO
Date: 03 Jan 05 - 10:54 PM

"people don't change. they just become more of themselves."

Actually, Martin, I think that statement describes perfectly what happens. I know I did use the word "change" in my post, and I said that looking at my life 15 years ago was like looking at somebody else's life, but although it seems like change, the process is really one of self-actualization - of discovering who you really are, and of letting your life be an expression of that.

Even in the early days when I said I wanted to be happy, and I did not feel happy at the time, I knew that I had it in me - I just didn't know how to get there. I can see now that the answer lay in becoming more of myself. When I said "my life is my own" in my previous post, I think that is the key. As well as being able to enjoy the moment and being very comfortable with how things are now, I'm finding a lot of freedom in being able to be myself and not worry what other people think - that seemed to come with learning to love myself and accept myself as I am. My friends seem to be mostly happy with who I am too, which is nice.

There were a few people in my life who seem determined to misunderstand, find fault, or try to change me, and some of them in the past were so-called "friends" or "lovers". I realize better now that they were probably people unhappy with their own lives, who were bound to repeat those patterns with many others, not just me. It said more about them than me. I'm not saying I'll never be hurt by people like this again, but I'm learning and finding it much easier to let go of them than I once would have.

Here's another quote, by Fritz Perls, which sorta says it all:

"Nothing changes until it becomes what it is."

Jenny

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 04:23 AM

JennyO You say "I'm finding a lot of freedom in being able to be myself and not worry what other people think - that seemed to come with learning to love myself and accept myself as I am. My friends seem to be mostly happy with who I am too, which is nice".
Surely the happiness comes from not only knowing yourself but having abilities that you didn't have when you were younger. I think we all become more adaptable as we age...individual but adaptable to other people, the environment and circumstances as I said in the post before yours. We are all adaptable....which in my mind does not make you more of yourself. You mature more as the years pass (or should, as some don't seem to) and continue to do so until death inevitably takes you..but who assesses or judges that maturity..yourself or others? Even what I am writing here..now...will be assessed and if others don't agree...I might have to revise my opinion...that doesn't make me more of me...just a little more adaptable and conforming to what I learn from them.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 11:15 AM

Some people don't change, they just become more full of themselves.. (not referring to anyone in this thread, so don't take offence. We all know folks who fit that description, though.. :-)

Jerry

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jan 05 - 02:38 PM

Sartre explained all this in what turned out to be about 800 pages of virtually incomprehensible philosophical babble to all but a select few, called Being and Nothingness. Before I surrendered helplessly, realizing one hundred fifty or so pages into it that I had no earthly idea what he was talking about, I came away with one basic tenet, although given my severely handicapped understanding there's a high likelihood I got it all wrong.

It was this: All of us are always in the process of becoming. I think the example he gave, to illustrate the difference between being and becoming, was of a musician trying to master a difficult passage. Once the passage has been mastered, the musician instantly becomes infinitesimally better in ability beyond the ability required to execute the passage. Otherwise, the musician would become or be the passage instead of being or becoming the musician who mastered the passage, on his or her way to becoming the musician who masters an even more difficult passage. And At least, that's what I got out of it.

If anyone would care to explain the other 799 pages, I would be most grateful, as I tend to agree with the basic propositions of existentialism as a philosophical foundation for governing one's life.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: hesperis
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 12:35 AM

But when you are the musician, you become the music... if only for a short time.

Perhaps it is the moments in which we become both ourselves and something else - something larger than ourselves - that we truly are.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 03:29 AM

I am aware of the fact that I am and that I am becoming.

Having an awarenes of that fact is a learned concept and it is not a value that is shared by all cultures.

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: freda underhill
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 06:00 AM

To thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man..

Subject: RE: BS: The Road To Becoming
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jan 05 - 09:31 AM

...or maybe the music becomes you ....I guess it's all a matter of perspective, like relativity so stated: Did the chicken cross the road or did the road move under the chicken?