Let’s begin by arranging the following clusters of values in order of priority as you consider your personal preference.Is it more important in your opinion to know the truth, love and be loved, or have things under control? Most likely you value all of these, but which cluster is highest on your list? Obviously you shouldn’t choose theContinue reading “Deeper Into Your Personality Code”
Tag Archives: meaning
Paths Into Reality
Although I spend a good amount of time defending the role of religion as the “system of utilities” that translates our spiritual intuitions into the structures of meaning in everyday life, I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that intuition precedes the structures which translate it, and that meaning is secondary to theContinue reading “Paths Into Reality”
Your Personality Code
The triangle symbolizes security and power. Its broad base gives it stability, while the ascending peak anchors its energy to a central axis that keeps it from tipping or being easily moved. This might be a favored shape in your own personality code – referring to the preferred way you orient yourself in reality and engageContinue reading “Your Personality Code”
Human Doing and Human Being
Morality (from the Latin mos, custom): Folkways of central importance accepted without question and embodying the fundamental moral views of a group. Ethics (from the Greek ethos, custom): The body of moral principles or values governing or distinctive of a particular culture or group. My description of the ethical function of religion has prompted aContinue reading “Human Doing and Human Being”
What’s Going On
Each of us is responsible for creating and maintaining a personal system of meaning called a world. It isn’t entirely our invention, as much of it, including the foundational elements known as assumptions, were installed by our culture (family and society) even before we acquired language. These pre-verbal dimensions of our world – which I also referContinue reading “What’s Going On”
A Once and Future Religion
What if I don’t believe in a metaphysical deity who is running The Show? What if I don’t take the Bible literally? What if I regard heaven and hell as mythological constructs rather than actual places? What if the soul for me is not a separate and immortal center of who I am? What ifContinue reading “A Once and Future Religion”
The Harmony of Intelligence
I recently offered up the idea of our “quadratic intelligence,” of four distinct types of intelligence in us that open up and come online in developmental stages, each one engaging us with a dimension of reality. I pointed out how Western psychology and education theory have only recently come to realize that our earlier notion of anContinue reading “The Harmony of Intelligence”
Life Without Hope
Over the years I have come across authors who decry hope as an unnecessary setup for human unhappiness. They fault it for pulling the focus of concern away from present reality and projecting it into a fantasy of the future that never quite arrives as expected. Perhaps because so much creative energy has been investedContinue reading “Life Without Hope”
Telling Stories, Coming True
As a constructivist I regard meaning as something human beings create (construct) rather than search for and find in reality. While this has often come across as a radical and dangerous opinion, the idea that meaning might not be fixed and absolute is evident in our daily experience. The very same event or occasion canContinue reading “Telling Stories, Coming True”
How Do You Lean Into Reality?
Who among us can resist the invitation to identify ourselves on some grid or scale or chart of personality characteristics? As long as we don’t have to feel as if we are being stuffed inside a box or stabbed to a pin-board, classified and labeled as only this, the exercise can be endlessly fascinating. There’sContinue reading “How Do You Lean Into Reality?”
Tracts of Revolution 