WORDS OF WISDOM, Part 2: Pronoia, Raku, Seijaku

August 27, 2025

Pronoia: Etymology: From the ancient Greek: For + (nous) mind.

Pay attention to especially the last sentence of the above. The modern use of pronoia appears to be in direct contrast to its opposite, paranoia.

But, there’s a catch. For if paranoia is the (false?) belief that others are out to get you, then pronoia is the (false?) belief that others are here to support you?

At least that’s what this website says:

https://www.worldwidewords.org/tp-pro5.html

Interesting.

I prefer to think that both paranoia and pronoia are general, overarching attitudes that we carry with us as we move about the world. We can fear or we can love. Those really are the basic choices, folks.

Fear others, distrust others, and you attract negativity into your life, thus “proving” that people can’t be trusted!

Love others, assume others can be trusted, and they naturally go out of their own way to support you, thus “proving” that people can be trusted!

In other words, whatever you project, that is what you attract! If I harbor unconscious, unprocessed negativity, then it gets projected and slams back at me via others.

So the point is, work on your own unprocessed stuff, folks! For when you do, the whole world opens.

The word pronoia was the one that stuck out for me when I found this graphic list on twitter/X.

Paranoia has very much been part of my vocabulary, for many decades. But pronoia? NO. Not until now. I welcome it.

 

Raku: Etymology: From the Japanese — “ease,” “effortless happiness,” “comfort.

Here’s an interesting video referencing this type of pottery.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/808571869737006

I think to myself, would that we had a word equivalent to “raku” in the English language. Or, I should say, in the contemporary American English language. Would that we would make it a daily practice of slowing down, taking it easy, putting our screens aside to simply serve each other tea in small, beautiful, handmade bowls.

 

Seijaku: Etymology: stillness, in the midst of activity.

 

I’m reminded of when I was a child: I would retreat (from busy family) out into the back yard, and lie down on my back, to gaze in wonder into the still blue infinite sky.  So very grateful that the sky was blue! As a World War II baby, who woke up via Hiroshima, my “paranoia,” my fear that the world could end in the very next second, was soothed, calmed, in the presence of blue. For decades, all I wore was blue. Everything had to be blue. My eyes are bright blue.

Then there’s this:

https://enchantedcshel.medium.com/seijaku-word-of-the-day-71864f453bf8

I can’t tell you how much tai chi and chi kung, two of my daily practices, have helped calm my fiery, frenetic nervous system. Practicing both for about 25 years now; and without them, I’d likely be either a basket case, or just plain dead.

Nearing 83, I credit especially these Tai Chi practices, plus walking four miles per day (without screen or ear buds), intermittent fasting (18/6) and sleeping enough, for my consciously aging process. Unlike most people my age, I’m not crippled in any way, and I don’t have any chronic disease; and that’s right, no medications whatsoever.

 

 

SEVEN WORDS OF WISDOM, part 1: “Yutori,” “Meliorism”

August 26, 2025

I’ve decided to spend some time, this lovely, sun-dappled morning, during which I have already taken my four mile walk plus watered the back yard and gardens, to begin to contemplate the meaning of the following seven words, and whether or not I have actually begun to practice learning how to embody them during my nearly 83 years on this planet.

I’ll look at the first two words today, and divide up the others for both Wednesday and Thursday posts.

Yutori: etymology:  from the Japanese word yutoru, “to loosen, to relax.”

Well, well. I must say: this is the first summer that I have actually lived alone in my house for what is it now, 23 years? Always, I have had at least one housemate, usually two. I began this practice because I was concerned about my energy imprint, not wanting to be selfish: I figured if I invited others in to my three-bedroom home, I would cut my own energy use by nearly two/thirds. This thinking arose because at the time I had been taken in by, and terrified of, the “peak oil” agenda that basically places its trust in scarcity,  rather than abundance.

Where I want to put my own focus now IS in cultivating presence, another word for spaciousness. And I must say, living alone makes that practice easier. (Perhaps too easy?)

 

Meliorism: etymology: from the Latin “melior” (meaning better), plus “ism.”

“George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) is credited with its formulation and use. She used it to define her own philosophical stance between pure optimism and pessimism, believing that the world’s suffering is healable through collaborative human effort.” A very pragmatic approach.

I’m very much reminded here, of American pragmatist philosophers, whom I have always appreciated.

One might say that the on-the-ground experiment that I have been “practicing” for nearly 20 years, greenacresvillage.org, is a living example of pragmatism:

Over and over again, on a daily basis: Notice when something seems “off,” or “cramped,” or “stuck,” etc.  What does the situation call for? Do that. Notice the result, which always includes the unexpected!

“Meliorism” is a practice that I am constantly learning, re-membering (putting myself, and my situation, back together again). Every time I get impatient, which, as a double fire sign (with warlike Mars also in Sagittarius, opposite explosive Uranus), is way too often, I have to internally intone a startling piece of wisdom that flew into my right brain many years ago:

“The moment you are impatient

you recognize the force of time

that places in your way

the obstacles of space,

and starts a new chain of causation.”