Drawing is much more than GOOD OR BAD. IT IS A language FROM another part of you…Cartooning isn’t just a way of drawing, it is a way of seeing.*
Lynda Barry

 the act of writing by hand changes the human brain in ways typing physically cannot**
Justin Deschamps

I understand that when I write
or draw by hand
my brain lights up
everywhere all at once, but
typing sentences
or selecting an image
from Substack^
turns almost all the lights out–
I thought you might like to know
and have a play.

*Lynda Barry’s Making Comics;
**Justin Deschamps Substack post;
^Other image and photo stocks are available.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Conversations are interactions that share insight and wisdom. Meetings are real-time memos that waste everyone’s time and leave no commonly accepted record behind.*
Seth Godin

I want to receive you as an active creator. I want to understand how you construct your points of view. I want to ask you how you see things.**
David Brooks

I followed my daily activities
with lists of what energised
and de-energised me–

Guess which list
captured conversations and which
the meetings–

Good conversations explore
the infinite of within and without,
Not so the meetings.

Love is living the experience of another person in all his uniqueness and singularity.^

*Seth Godin’s This Is Strategy;
**David Brooks’ How To Know A Person;
^Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor And The Soul.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

We each have within use unlimited possibilities; purpose is therefore never a singular discovery. Life is a continuous opportunity.*
Anne-Laure Le Cunff

he alone can do good who knows what things are like and what their situation is**
Josef Pieper

I must ask the questions,
I must know what you see,
I must listen with you,
I must be open
to what wants to be–

A person is a point of view…People don’t see the world with their eyes; they see it with their entire life.^

*Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s Tiny Experiments;
**Quoted in Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
^David Brooks’ How To Know A Person.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.*
Oliver Sacks

Remember that to change your mind and to follow someone else’s correction are consistent with a free will. For the action is yours alone … .**
Marcus Aurelius

And the most
amazing thing
about consciousness is
I get to change my mind–
Being open to more
is awe-some.

*Oliver Sacks’ Gratitude;
**Quoted in Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

The alchemical qualities of journaling showed us how to turn isolation into creative solitude, confinement into connection, and confusion into clarity and calm.*
Suleika Jaouad

Define a good life as more than shallow pleasure.
A good life is contribution.
A good life s resisting temptation.
A good life is being the best you can be.
A good life is diligently following your book.**
Derek Sivers

Without my journal practice
it would be too easy to choose
easy–
I need challenging words
from others to play
upon my daily pages
to work their magic
in me–

*Suleika Jaouad’s The Book Of Alchemy;
**Derek Sivers’ How To Live.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Gratitude works.  Gratitude scales.  Gratitude creates a positive cycle of more gratitude.  When in doubt, default to gratitude.*
Seth Godin

Every so often,
I’ll be sharing
a portion of the images**
from my colouring book
Slow Journeys in
the Same Direction–
You’re welcome
to print these
for colouring in–
Not quite a labyrinth
but they’ll slow you down.

*Seth Godin’s blog: If every day were thanksgiving;
**Each Slow Journeys page is two pages wide.

SOME MORE SLOW JOURNEYS
SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE

It is my belief that attention to and devotion to the nature of soul represents the quintessential strength.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Perhaps the gap between what is and what ought to be is shrinking. Perhaps the canyon between myth and history, dream and memory, past and future – was never uncrossable.**
AleXander McManus

Nothing lies outwith
a soul–
Thinkings
feelings
doings
a universe
the accelerating more
of all that is and
all that might be–

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves;
**AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Human time is a storied affair.*
Dan McAdams

But to find the meaning of your life requires thinking and living differently from how you have been trained by school, work, media, entertainment, and culture.**
Arthur Brooks

Who sat down with us
to share “the facts of
myth,” what did we learn
in the curriculum, or have
training for as part of
our continuing personal
development?–
And yet it is where
we discover our deepest
joy and meaning.

*Dan McAdams’ The Stories We Live By;
**Arthur Brooks’ The Meaning Of Your Life.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

The matter of individual maturation is a custom endeavour. There can be no rote, “do this, then this.”*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The real talent is being obsessed with the thing. What are you willing to focus on wholeheartedly that you are happy to ignore nearly everything else?**
James Clear

First you find yourself
and then you lose yourself–

First you learn the rules
and then you make your own–

First you focus
and then you flow^–

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves;
**James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: The secret to creativity, how our challenges shape us, and the value of bad workouts.
^Here is my hinterland to the short “poetic”: I have come to know myself as an individual – this has involved a journey from dependence to independence and then to interdependence (shaping my ego and then my Self); also, my creativity began with what already existed, from those who’d explored before me, so I learnt several fields – and then I set out to change them, by adapting and improvising, and coming up with something different; I have become totally absorbed in what I have found and am making, entering into what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi identified and defined as flow.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

I think every time I draw I learn something new and at the same time draw upon everything I’ve already stored before.*
Keith Haring

If the world of imagination were a vast continent, then we have only wandered along the shore – we still have no ideas of the marvels that await us upriver…It is through imagination of human minds that purpose, meaning and relevance enter the universe.**
John Higgs

It’s not a bad trade:
Effort to learn more–
Time to imagine more–
Creating more meaning
and purpose,
Repeat–

*Keith Haring’s Keith Haring Journals;
**John Higgs’ William Blake Vs The World.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO