Staying Alive with Mad Max

John Katz writes a blog on www.bedlamfarm.com that I check in on periodically. He often writes about his dogs, donkeys, and farm life. Most of those posts are connected to some important insights about human living. I feel calm when I read them.

I appreciated the post I read this morning on staying alive. In short, he writes about seeing the current movie Mad Max, which surprised the person he was sharing the story with. It surprised me too. I wouldn’t have guessed him to be a Mad Max guy.

John offers great description, appreciatively of “a chase movie, not a movie with chase scenes.” His description names some of the broad arc that is in many ways being lived in contemporary life. Disconnect. Power struggles. Corruption. Scarcity of resources. What scarcity and fear do in people.

I’m likely to make a point of seeing the movie now also. I saw some of the earlier versions staring young Mel Gibson, despite now feeling like “it is typically not my kind of movie.”

Here’s the line that I like from his post, about staying alive by being open, and I would say, curious.  “I didn’t go to those kinds of movies much myself, but that was the reason I wanted to go. I said the first death in my mind is when people close themselves off to new experience and stick only with what is familiar.”

John’s post is very alive to me. Reminds me of a few reasons that I like to see things that are out of the norm.

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Gifts of Circle - Question Cardsasd
Gifts of Circle is 30 short essays divided into 4 sections: 1) Circle's Bigger Purpose, 2) Circle's Practice, 3) Circle's First Requirements, and 4) Circle's Possibility for Men. From the Introduction: "Circle is what I turn to in the most comprehensive stories I know -- the stories of human beings trying to be kind and aware together, trying to make a difference in varied causes for which we need to go well together. Circle is also what I turn to in the most immediate needs that live right in front of me and in front of most of us -- sharing dreams and difficulties, exploring conflicts and coherences. Circle is what I turn to. Circle is what turns us to each other."

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This set of Note Cards (8 cards + envelopes)  quotes a few favorite passages from poems in Most Mornings. I offer them as inspiration. And leave room for you to write personal notes.

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