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...

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...

The days between Christmas and New Year’s bring up lots of feelings. The wheels are off, so to speak, as the work year winds down and I become introspective about my birthday. Here’s an exploration of some of the thoughts on my mind as of late. The Viral Nature of Neuroses and Virtues Richard Dawkins coined the term ‘meme’ in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene. As Wikipedia sums it up nicely, a meme is simply “a self-replicating unit of transmission”. I’ve often wondered “where does this feeling come from?” at different points in my life. Through this lens, emotions, ideas, and beliefs are like genes in that they are transmissible: passed down from person to person, family to family -- generation to generation. Someone or something put them in each of us and they inform the way we are able to cope with all kinds of situations in the world around us. Looking back on how I’ve viewed my life at different points in time, it’s interesting to observe how I’ve felt was colored by how peop...