It’s easy to be pessimistic about the world and its woes. It takes courage to be optimistic.
Rob Brezsny believes the whole world is conspiring to shower us with blessings. After all, think about all the things that went RIGHT for you since you got up this morning! (That’s his book there on the table at the Crazy Wisdom bookstore I visited with friends Friday in Ann Arbor. Played hookie, oh joy.)
Here are some quotes from Rob Brezsny:
“Here’s what I say: We will ignore the cult of doom and gloom and embrace the cause of zoom and boom. We will laugh at the stupidity of evil and hate, and summon the brilliance of praise and create. . . Life is crazily in love with us—wildly and innocently in love with us. The universe always gives us exactly what we need, exactly when we need it.”
“I’m allergic to dogma. I thrive on riddles. Any idea I believe, I reserve the right to disbelieve as well.”
“’The secret of life,” said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, ‘is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is—it must be something you cannot possibly do.’”
“Refuse to dehumanize anyone, even those who dehumanize you.”
“Artistic geniuses who in days past might have been van Goghs or Rembrandts now create gorgeous propaganda for the advertising industry.”
“Working with your dreams can help you stop colluding with the global genocide of the imagination.”
“In the New World, it won’t be your material wealth that will win you the most bragging points. Nor will it be the important people you know or the deals you’ve swung or the knowledge you’ve amassed or your mate’s attractiveness. What will bring you most prestige and praise in the civilization to come will be your success in transmuting lead into gold—how thoroughly you have integrated your shadow and tapped into its resources.”
You get the idea.
Dare I move forward with Brezsny, join the divine wow and greet the world with a kiss?
