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
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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
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Spontaneous and unstoppable. Roger had not just loved the wild, he had been wild. Not in the austere and chastening sense I had once understood the wild to be, but natural, like a tree or river.*
Robert Macfarlane

Uncertainty prompts us to idealise the future. We tell ourselves that everything will be OK just as long as I can reach the projection of the future.**
Christopher Kayes

As an expression of Earth
seeded here,
What is your wildness?

Ongoing momentum in
slender green becoming serpentine
imagination touching reality–

The perennial you
expressed in an
eternal now.

*Robert Macfarlane’s The Wild Places; speaking of his friend Roger Deakin;
**Quoted in Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote.

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Because if your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it’s not success at all.*
Anna Quindlen

Thingness, life, mind, soul.
All real, all with different degrees of form.**
Rob Bell

I had stepped into a role,
I was keeping to the script,
I wasn’t for risking,
I was delivering what people wanted–
The audience was pleased,
One person told me
I was very good at this,
I’m happy for them–
I know I can do it,
I just don’t want to.

*Quoted in Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s Tiny Experiments;
** Rob Bell’s Everything Is Spiritual.

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Discipline turns intentions into action.
Discipline means no procrastination.
Discipline means now.
Choose the pain of discipline, not the pain of regret.*
Derek Sivers

I tell you about my desk and what’s on it because when you’re creating your life, finding your 1…the details of your life are vital to your staying true to your path.**
Rob Bell

You can wait for the mood
to rock up so you can
get into it, or
you could begin right now–
Designing your creative spaces
is a discipline, filling them
with what you need is a discipline,
Placing yourself within these in
a timely fashion, expressing
your talents and abilities, working
on the smallest iteration, sharing
with others what you come up with–
These are all disciplines, and
look how far they have brought you
already.

*Derek Sivers’ How To Live;
**Rob Bell’s How To Be Here.

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In the most connected time in history we’re quickly losing touch with ourselves.*
Ryder Carroll

The ascent always goes through MaximumU. There’s no way around this.**
AleXander McManus

Called or
called away?
Technology can support
but often distracts–
Just watch the person
scrolling–
Yet myths as deeper
stories of
identity, purpose and
meaning provide
traction, and though
we do not know
just where they will
lead us, our hearts
will be beating–
What is your myth?

*Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method;
**AleXander McManus’ FutureU.

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But soul?
Do you agree with soul?
Not really.
More like you resonate with soul.
You listen to soul.
You look for the soul of something.
You’re aware of what something is doing to your soul.*
Rob Bell

We look around to see what we have for the journey and find at bottom that we possess only intuitions and imagination, We look for courage and yet find little of it.**
David Whyte

How large is my soul?
Not the kind of question
to come up in the everyday,
Though I suspect one that has
everything to do with
the ordinary – soul caring
for mind and heart
and body as they move
through this world
from what is to
what can be,
Nurtured
by these in turn, indirectly–
Maybe soulful
is bravery?

*Rob Bell’s Everything Is Spiritual;
**David Whyte’s Crossing The Unknown Sea.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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Life has much uneasiness; that is certain. Always remember that and it will never surprise you.*
James Boswell

To walk into the beautiful unknown is not to reject home, but to seek its truest form – something ahead, not behind. To walk toward it is to walk through fire. Not to be punished. But to be remade.**
AleXander McManus

That which I am uneasy about
may yet be the making of me–
Not in the blink of an eye
but slowly as I repeat my steps.^

*Quoted in Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals;
**AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments;
^I am thinking that we each have within us the means to move into uneasiness, and a slow, long look at ourselves will find this. Drop me a line if you would like to find out more: geoffreybaines@gmail.com.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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You don’t chase the parade anymore. You’re an old king from some vanished country. You’re harder to programme. You’re not rushing to become anything, and you’re not haunted by the things that you did. You’re haunted by how little of it really mattered in the way you thought it would.*
Bob Dylan

it is the old people who are the bones of the entire healing and spiritual structure everywhere on the face of the earth**
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

In myths
the old people
are where the wildness is
found, being steeped
in the mysteries
they show me
the way.

People today … increasingly struggle with meaning because they have been deskilled in the deepest mysteries of life – mysteries that are deeply human because they could never even register with any other species.^

*Quoted in Austin Kleon’s blog: The air is getting hotter;
**Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves;
^Arthur Brooks’ The Meaning Of Your Life.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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To pass through the River-glass is to leave
something behind.
A name.
Some call it repentance.
Others call it awakening.
Some simply say: Let go.*
AleXander McManus

The recipe for frustration is taking on something that requires a whole person, but only giving it half your time.**
James Clear

My pearl of great price!
Yet I am not worthy of it,
I am not ready for it–
There are things
I must leave behind and
Things I must become–

*AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments;
**James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: On protecting your mind, the recipe for frustration, and how to spark better conversation.

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