A poignant “wisdom upper” supplemented by many informative (up-growing) and entertaining (up-waking) links to buried treasures! If we wise up, the lockup will wind down, and true America will show up.

Making out a wishlist vs. carrying out a checklist — year after year — How have your New Year resolutions worked out so far? Tired of disappointment, again? How about making a checklist of “do-ables” that are sure to get done year after year? Using ordinary means, you can achieve extraordinary results and leave no room for excuse or failure. Few people have exceptional…

An Ultra Brief Biography of Your Super Grand Genealogy — It has taken the vastness of the Universe with surgical precision and billions of years with split-second timing to make YOU out of stardust, then another couple million years to fine-tune YOU and your DNA into the one and only YOU today. Now is YOUR turn to make YOUR version…

Happy are those with some looney OX in them every year — Year after year, I remain such an OX. Slow, straight, and stupid, a kid can have me outfOXed. Stubborn and short-sighted, I keep pickling myself like a lOX. Strong but skill-less, I’m just as useless with a toolbOX. A devout coward and a wimpy pacifist, the most I do is…

Extraordinary learning from something ordinary — Water is a recurring reference in Lao-Tze’s singular booklet of profound wisdom. If you are in the flow, you are in accord with The Way of all reality (The Tao), and you can accomplish all you need as if you were doing nothing (wu-wei).

Ordinary routines to feel extraordinarily good — On arrival in Oregon as a freshman international student, I barely spoke the language, did not know a soul, and had little money. A notice at the Student Union said my run-down dorm was closed for another week for repairs. At that moment, the sweetest angel face appeared with a…

Ordinary Light for Extraordinary Living —

An ordinary reminder of the extraordinary excellence already in you — A viral pandemic is raging all around us and getting worse. Imagine you are on a ventilator in an ICU, fighting for your life against COVID-19. Or imagine you have been financially wiped out. Now imagine your normal health has been restored. Or imagine you have been given unlimited new…

Greatness in what we cannot see right in front of us — An eagle soars. A person below hollers, “Hey, how’s the air up there? Must be nice, huh?” The eagle wonders, “What is air?” Just hold your breath for a minute and you will experience the vital importance of this invisible thing everywhere. The science of air is amazing. …