You Get What You Give

I'm listening to the New Radicals album Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too  and I'm struck by how much my journey was already established back in 1998 when this album was a thing. What brought this album to light was a message from my good friend Pete with a link to a Guardian article about how Murder on the Dance Floor was the most listened to song  in January on Earth. Turns out Gregg Alexander - he of New Radicals - wrote it, recorded a demo of it and then worked on the classic You Only Get What You Give before Sophie Ellis-Baxtor picked it up and made it the hit it was before it now appears in Saltburn The article refers to You Only Get What You Give is 'an exuberant anthem about commodification urging that kids who have 'the dreamer's disease' have the power to change things'.

And now here I am pondering Marcus Aurelias' thoughts and the plight of the world because I'm listening to 'How to Think Like a Roman Emperor' about the life and thoughts of Aurelius. And as I listen I'm amazed about how much advice I take in (and now also give out) is rooted in Stoicism. I'm listening to the book and hearing things like 'sphere of responsibility' (which is a term i use all the time... have I heard it somewhere before using it.... maybe?) among others. This makes me contemplate how intertwined we are with ancient wisdom and how easily it is dismissed, or not even considered, in the word 'as is'. What trouble sme is not whether people choose to use plastic, or eat meat, or burn fossil fuel, it is that most are largely doing without even trying to understand the basics. I can accept - yeah I know and I don't care - thinking - if it's informed thinking (I don't like it but I can accept it). What I can't abide are people sleepwalking the world and themselves and their communities into catastrophe. Clean up your insides (physically and mentally) I tell myself, then clean up your immediate environment, then clean up the world. I think it has to be in that order. I've been reading some Carl Rogers recently and he says that in order to help others you must be congruent in yourself. Your inner person must match your outer person. This level of understanding of self is required in the helping professions. Now that's a journey I can buy into.

Aurelius suggests morning meditation, mindful living, and evening meditation. Here we go!