Year Four, Day 202: Depth

This is my positive thought for the week:

“Watch your thoughts,
they become your words;
watch your words,
they become your actions;
watch your actions,
they become your habits;
watch your habits,
they become your
character;
watch your character,
it becomes your destiny.”
~Lao Tzu

Today I am feeling more balanced.  I am feeling a pull to sink, but every time a negative thought enters my mind, I counter it with my positive thought for the week (above).  I have heard this quote before, but as I told my daughter, it is not enough to hear ideas once.  A profound idea needs to be heard, memorized, meditated on and then taken to a deeper level.

I am a fan of depth.

I need to add something to the above quote:

“Watch your thoughts, (you do not need to follow your thoughts)
they become your words;
watch your words,
they become your actions;
watch your actions,
they become your habits;
watch your habits,
they become your
character;
watch your character,
it becomes your destiny.”
~Lao Tzu

 It is important for me to remember that when I have a "pop-up" in my brain, whether it is a painful memory, judgmental/critical thought about someone (including myself), or an irrational fear, I do not need to dwell on it. I can think of it as an annoying commercial on the television. I can mute it, ignore it, or turn the channel.

I am still thinking about the last book I read, The Plague, by Albert Camus. I just read an interesting review on this book. The reviewer recommends everyone read or reread this book. I was just mulling over the plot of the book. Camus talks about a literal plague, but in our day, we have many different "plagues" that have infected our society.  

I can't help but think  of technology as a plague. The more high tech we become, the more isolated we are. We get our news in snippets.  And we rarely believe what we hear anymore. Our president is being impeached.  Our country is divided.  Reality has become obscured. Anxiety is high. Trust is low. With a president being impeached, and the right and left wings of our political parties at war, it is not wonder that the traffic is flowing smoothly as I look out the window. And the people here in the library are behaving themselves, sitting at their computers, checking out books...

I agree with Camus that materialism is also a plague.  Ed Vulliamy, who also claimed that The Plague was an allegory for Nazi Germany,  wrote this in his review in "The Guardian" 

"But why does La Peste {french for The Plague} speak so loudly to us now? Camus wrote early on, in an essay entitled Le Desert, about “repugnant materialism”. He was on a track of vital import to us now, in a world of materialism so repugnant it has become a plague. Everything mankind does in a turbo-capitalist age, with his ravaging of nature, “destroys the harmony of the day”.
Every bleat of the politicians echoes those in authority during Camus’ fictitious plague in Oran: “There are no rats in the building”, insists the janitor as they die around him. The newspapers rally the populace with news that the pestilence is under control when it is not."

" I think Camus intended such a literal – as well as allegorical - reading. It is generally agreed that the pestilence he describes signifies the Third Reich. Writing in 1947, as the world whooped victory and “Never Again”, Camus insisted that the next plague “would rouse up its rats again” for “the bane and enlightenment of men”. But Camus was also aware of the great cholera epidemic in Oran, Algeria – where the novel is set – in 1849, and of others in his native district of Mondovi in the Algerian interior.
 https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/jan/05/albert-camus-the-plague-fascist-death-ed-vulliamy

It's interesting that the news does not stress me out. On the contrary, staying informed of breaking news actually decreases my depression. I prefer to have a rush of adrenaline that could possibly empower me to save someone, rather than worrying myself to death about events that may not even happen.  I do not rejoice when others suffer, rather it gives me something to pray about.  

So perhaps that explains my relatively calm space today.  So much going on the news, I have little time to dwell on my own moods.

I will leave you on that note.  I have just picked up another Albert Camus book: The Stranger. I will give you my review when I finish it.

Until then, Happy Thursday my friends!

Love,

 Zita

 And here is today's hooping video: Day 152!