Here is a story in five quotes.

Hugh Macleod points to how we want our lives to count, something life provides us with the opportunity to make happen:

‘We have to have something to live for, to look forward to.  We have to have more than existence: we have to have something inspiring.’*

Dan Ariely backs this up with his research which showed financial incentives can be less effective than our bosses noticing us and saying “Well done!”:

‘These results suggest that there is a lot more to work than merely the opportunity to earn money in exchange for about.’**

Sherry Turkle concludes her reflections on forty three year old Adam’s escape into gaming while his actual life unravels – the problem is, game playing doesn’t produce:

‘This is the sweet spot of simulation: the exhilaration of creativity without its pressures, the excitement of exploration without its risks.’^

John O’Donohue writes about what has always been there waiting to be discovered:

‘It is strange to be here.  The mystery never leaves you alone.  Behind your image, below your words, above your thoughts, the silence of another world waits.  A world lives within you.’^^

Which brings us back to something Hugh Macleod offers in conclusion to his remarks on how we have to have something to live for:

‘And then we have freedom — something that no one can ever take away.’*

Vuja de is the feeling that you are experiencing something completely new in a very familiar context.  We might then learn the art of vuja de: the ability to see what has always been there but has gone unnoticed.

The skills involved include asking different questions, knocking on different doors, and seeking different ways and paths to those we have tried in the past.  All of these are about effort.  Effort cannot be simulated.  But once we sense there’s something more, we have to have it.  Yes?

(*From gapingvoid’s blog: Oh, you can’t take that away from me.)
(**From John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara.)
(^From Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together.)