"Insights for a Way of Life"

1. Master the art of relationality, investing in people rather than things.

2. Live life with eyes opened through the revelatory nature of sound.

3. Cultivate the wisdom that comes from a variety of experience.

4. In all plains of human existence, follow the one that lures you away from the unanimity of the heard. Question the herd always.

5. Become a magnet for the inspiration and passion of wayward kindred souls.

6. At all costs resist the dogmas of fools, for that which makes one foolish makes another twice as much so.

7. In the midst of circumstance forget not that life is but a road winding between triumph and tragedy. Take heart then, for tragedy gives life to triumph and triumph life to tragedy.

8. Practice abolishing the illusion of your own superiority. This is the beginning of compassion.

9. Consciously cultivate an aura of inclusiveness that surrounds you daily interaction.

10. When you walk, set your gaze not to the ground, but straight ahead as to greet the ones before you (human or non-human)--willfully bringing them into your experience with a spirit of novelty, welcome and mutual creature-hood

11. Keep your IQ close, but your EQ closer: for the EQ should govern and direct the IQ. If you IQ overpowers your EQ, you become a high-minded humanoid, but if your EQ stands above your IQ, you remain human.

12. Make a conscious effort to learn the names of all those you encounter. People are not objects, but subjects. Subjects have identity and identity is grounded in a name.

13. Meet at least one new person every day. Make your goal three a day for a year and see what happens: for a world without community is a high watermark of silliness. A world without friends is a wilderness for the lonely.

14. Before nightfall dawns and sleep draws near, ask yourself if you smiled or frowned more throughout the day.

15. Suffering is not a question of "if," nor even "when," but "how." The "how" question is one of orientation to, and sensitivity toward, what is opened by the suffering. Suffering brings either death or depth. The choice remains ones own.

Attention to such things is a way of life.