why blogs don’t work

Sensei came to my blog today. He read a recent post that included the following words:

Found in these few words are the essential principles of the Art of Giving: Respect, Appreciation, Gratitude and Value. Move sequentially, from one to the other. Find value, and learn to find it in anything. Then, respect that value, even if the respect is only a smidge. Once respected, be grateful, somehow, for the value and then appreciate it, finding a way to increase its value, no matter how small. Then, do that again. And again. Forever. This is the art of the Divine Giver.

Here is part of his lesson to me:

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“You are doing very good with these principles, but if you can open you mind for a few minutes, you are at a point where you can hear me say something, and you have an opportunity to make a very good adjustment.”

“The order that you have placed them in, while it works, is not actually creating a duplex [fully functioning] circuit. You have a circuit, but it is going to ground. What you should be striving for, if this is what you want to do, is building a duplex circuit, something that not only creates flow, but keeps returning each time it runs with a greater value toward source.”

My mind quickly flashed back many years to when I first began studying the Art of Giving. I was soundly rooted in selfishness, and yet, like many people, had no concept of that. I felt like I was a good guy - and I was a good guy, but also someone who didn’t have a clear concept of selfishness. Studying and practicing the Art of Giving had not only changed me, but had eventually turned me into a believer.

He went on with the lesson. He pointed out I had reversed the order of gratitude and appreciation when I said, “Once respected, be grateful, somehow, for the value and then appreciate it.”

I’ll post more about that later, but he also said something that speaks to all of us here. “This subtle change I am showing you is what’s causing blogs to not really work right. I have been studying and observing this. What happens is, someone puts up a post, a comment is made in response, and then perhaps a thank you and a comment back - and then, that’s it. It’s over.”

“Yes, that is exactly right,” I said; and, I thought, one of the reasons I had dropped out of blogging.

What’s the point of blogging? He was right, the circuit just stops. Nothing ever really ‘builds’. Oh sure, we can see there is value and benefit… no doubt. But what are we actually out to create and build?

“There is a way to correct this,” he said, and continued with the lesson, clearly demonstrating how proper firing of the circuit called the Art of Giving could completely change blogging.

While these things take study, it isn’t always rocket science, but you do have to study. How to do that? Look for a source; it’s all about Giving and about returning value to the Source.