Walldren's World

I'll admit it - I didn't get around to doing a daily reflection on the Dhammapada as I had intended. Work and family life took priority, however I was able to step back and reflect a bit here at the end of the year. One very popular quote attributed to the Buddha is this: We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. Our perceptions shape the reality we live and breath in. If we perceive danger where there is none - then we perceive there is danger. If we cultivate anxiety and fear, then the fruits of those feelings are what we shall reap. That is not to say there are no threats or dangers outside the mind, but as Alan Watts pointed out - the mind is really our radar - scanning for threats. It wants to find threats to keep us safe - but often it tricks us and we should remember: we are more than our radars. For those that may read this, I wish you blessings and peace in the New Year - and may 2016 be a year of great

Outside of work, it's been a long time since I've written anything in a blog, journal, or diary. For the last two years, I have enjoyed listening to the lectures of Alan Watts as well as reading some of his writings and his insights into consciousness and existence have me thinking back to the semester I read the Dhammapada . For those not familiar, the Dhammapada is one of the most widely read Buddhist scriptures and contains sayings attributed to the Buddha. I have come to believe that a strong function of any scriptures is to get the reader or listener to reflect critically on their own experience and in so doing, they project their own meaning onto the text. So, that is what I propose to do in December - blog about how I reflect on the collection of 26 groupings in the Dhammapada as translated by Thomas Byrom. There are 26 groupings of sayings that cover a lot of ground that I will attempt to explore in the coming days.

This post originally appeared on my now defunct marketing blog "Waiting for the Conversion" in 2014 As a father of three, I am growing used to experiencing the unknown -- or at least experiencing the other side of things as the now adult in the relationship. As a result, the older I get the less certain things appear to be to me. Perspective is an amazing thing. Each experience adds new data, if not an entirely new dimension to my consciousness. It’s scary and exhilarating and frustrating all at once. To quote Aldous Huxley, “Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” Because a lot can happen to you but if you do not take the lessons and gain the insights, it benefits you little. I began working on the web in 1997 as a 17-year old summer intern at a company where my brother worked. I did research finding public e-mail lists and newsgroups and entered their pertinent information into a database that talked to a subscription

In 2004, I wrote my first and only novel to date. It was something that I did more or less to prove that I could do it. The plot idea occurred to me as a sophomore in high school and I even had most of the story germinate by the time I sat down to type it out. Many sleepless nights later, I emerged with a draft that was somewhere close to 60,000 words, which I then trimmed down to 'round about 50,000. Human Resources  is not a great novel. At best, it is an amusing piece of near-satire written by a much younger (read: less mature and experienced) version of myself. In some ways, I think the fact that I wrote it makes me reluctant to pick up the pen (or word processing software) again because I'd like the next thing that I write that others might read to be more clever, more articulate and reflective of the way I've come to see the world. The statistics of the first couple of months my novel has been available for free online tell me a few things: I should write t

Several months ago I began the practical application of my Master's degree in Liberal Studies through the creation of a Tumblr blog entitled, The Daily-ism . The blog seeks to provide an ism word a day with a definition gleaned from Google without commentary. To date, I have posted 86 entries and garnered 17 followers. What has been most interesting to me is seeing how people respond. The most popular posts so far have been: egalitarianism (20 notes) prescriptivism (7 notes) I've identified enough words for almost an entire year's worth of content if I post five times per week. One thing I like about the functionality of Tumblr is the ability to schedule posts out in advance. This means that I can essentially plan out a month's worth of content in an hour of spare time.  Not that I have a ton of spare time, but I've discovered that micro-blogging is much easier to accomplish while working full-time and being a father of three. A great resource for catal

It’s been a fun experience getting to learn the Wattpad platform and community over the past few months. Having observed some great talent serialize their works through online distribution, I am glad to have tried it out. That said, it’s been close to 10 years since I completed work on my debut novel and less than 9 since I self-published it in 2005. 10 years later and I still haven’t recouped the initial cost of publication. But I didn’t write Human Resources for the money. Like graduating college, I ultimately did it to prove a point to myself that I could be persistent enough to see it through. Since writing that book 10 years ago, I’ve had 10 years of experience reading new and interesting books. I have discovered authors that the person I was wouldn’t have read back then and have learned a great deal more about what great writing can look and sound like. And, I still have a ways to go. Maybe that’s why I hesitate to write anything new. There are also new challenges I