Thinking that you are good can make you bad.*
Edward Slingerland
Learning is how to live.**
Derek Sivers
To shift
rather than stick,
That is the question–
Whether to explore
the inexhaustible
human capacity to learn–
Or stay
in the same old
same old–
One becoming
younger, the other
turning older–
*Edward Slingerland’s Trying Not To Try;
**Derek Sivers’ How To Live.
You can find the craft in whatever you do.*
Rob Bell
You won’t get fired for following a best practice. But you won’t build something that matters with them either.**
gapingvoid
There are instances and
situations where
I want you to follow the guidelines –
Think, piloting the plane–
There are many more places where
I would love for you to bring
your crafter’s heart,
And bring more–
Possibilities I cannot see, born of
deep talent and purpose and meaning,
Expressed through imagination
and skill and service–
You feel and notice
more than most–
Because this isn’t some genetic club,
It’s your choice.
We are not observers of a world already built. We are participants in a world still becoming – shaped by intention, tension, and the trembling power of presence.^
*Rob Bell’s How To Be Here;
**gapingvoid’s blog: Beware Of Best Practices;
^Alex McManus’ Blue Moments.
We have to be braver than we think we can be, because God is constantly calling us to be more than we are.*
Madeleine L’Engle
We don’t get wise just by adding and adding. We also need to substract.**
Derek Sivers
I suspect
the wiser me
shall only appear
through learning
and unlearning and
relearning,
Over and over–
about myself
and all
that borders me–
I can only be braver
as me
and you can only be braver
as you–
Wisdom of heart
and soul and mind
and body.
*Quoted in AleXander McManus’ FutureU;
**Derek Siver’s Hell Yeah Or No.
The human soul is like a microcosm of the macrocosm, an inner inverse that corresponds to the infinity of the outward universe.*
Philip Newell
Our current social systems have not yet been set up to prepare us to live a life of true purpose. Today’s culture exists not to nurture our highest aspirations, but to perpetuate the status quo. We need to move out of the small stories we have held about ourselves and the human race.**
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Could it be that
human possibility
lies in the growing of the soul?
Not something
to be found on
the school curriculum–
Nor registering
with courses on continuing
personal development–
Yet celebrated by
the best of religion, spirituality, and
philosophy–
May we have
high aspirations for ourselves
and those around us–
May we step out
of the smaller stories and
unfurl with the universe–
*Philip Newell’s The Great Search;
**Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves.
Living for others is how to live.*
Derek Sivers
I now think good character is a by-product of giving yourself away.**
David Brooks
In what other ways
may you do what you do
for the benefit of others?
Have you ever thought it funny
how exploring this brings
meaning and purpose?
And your heart,
Is it not fulfilled, even
happy?
The great powers are testing to see if humans have yet learned to recognise the greatness of soul in all its varying forms.^
*Derek Sivers’ How To Live;
**David Brooks’ The Second Mountain;
^Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With The Wolves.
The moment we gave names to the deepest forces – good and evil, love and hate, life and death – we stepped into a different world. They are not simply labels. They are powers. And to speak them aloud is to awaken them. But naming is never neutral. Once we name them, they name us.*
AleXander McManus
Love is like a plough that opens up hard ground and allows things to grow.**
David Brooks
Ever tried to imagine
what it must be like
to think like a dog or cat?
It is impossible
because we cannot remove the heavy
clay of human consciousness–
Here is our complexity–
Love and hate, good
and evil, life and death–
We may try not to hate,
not to do wrong, not
only to exist–
How quickly self-control empties–
Better to love, to do good,
To live fully while we have breath–
Choosing to be
more human–
Transcending, transforming–
*AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments;
**David Brooks’ The Road To Character.
If we knew what people regret the most, we can reverse the image to reveal what they value the most.*
Daniel Pink
Remember, then, if you deem what is by nature slavish to be free, and what is not your own to be yours, you will be shackled and miserable, blaming both gods and other people.**
Epictetus
If only I had …
I wish that I hadn’t …
I must admit,
I do not like regret–
So what will happen
if I put my regret to work?–
If I do not ignore it
or wallow in it?–
If I allow myself to be awakened
to what regret is showing me–
Perhaps I will find attending to regret
is a compassionate thing?
*Daniel Pink’s The Power of Regret;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.
Discovering the right medium is often a tidal moment in the creative life of an individual…creativity can be inhibited by the wrong medium.*
Ken Robinson
Those men and women are fortunate who are born at a time when a great struggle for human freedom is in progress.**
Emmeline Pankhurst
At any moment
things can become worse–
Even when the world
is getting better, suddenly–
Forth and back–
There is no easy progression–
No Shangri-La, no Star Federation,
Only our daily inhabiting.
For such a time as this
there will always be our playful work–
Perhaps we will bring
our deepest joy to meet some need–
*Ken Robinson’s Out Of Our Minds;
**Ryan Holiday’s Right Thing, Right Now.
A traveller comes to a river and sees a local woman on the opposite bank. He yells across, “How do I get to the other side of the river?” She yells back, “You are on the other side of the river.*
Derek Sivers
For if there is one paradigm in which we are deeply immersed, it is our own lives.**
Matthew Syed
It’s troublesome, but
I am finding that
curiosity and listening
to the experiences of others
are always helpful ways
to proceed from
this smallness
into our larger world.
*Derek Sivers’ Useful Not True;
**Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who know how?)
With swift, slow. sweet, sour; dazzle, dim;
He fathers forth whose beauty is beyond change:
Praise him.**
Gerard Manley Hopkins
I’m stippled–
You’re dappled–
Thank god for everyone’s
singular beauty.
*Gerard Manley Hopkin’s Pied Beauty;
**James Reeves’ Selected Poems of G. M. Hopkins.
THIN|SILENCE 
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