When someone shares a new idea, or makes a pitch, or describes a dream, what would happen if you were enthusiastic? … In this moment, your confidence and enthusiasm exist to make the idea better. No harm in that. For either of you.*
Seth Godin

HOLY S[*&%],
HOLY. S[*&%].
Keep Writing.
Drop Everything.
Write.
WRITE
WOMAN
WRITE**
Ken Cain

We’re each capable of bringing a little of
our light to others –
And we all need more light.
So more light-shedders in our lives, please,
Which means more light gatherers.

*Seth Godin’s blog: Cooperative enthusiasm;
*Susan Cain’s Bittersweet; Ken Cain’s encouragement to Susan to write after reading some of her memoir thoughts in sonnet form.

I am a question asker and a truth seeker. I do not have much in the way of status in my life, more security. I have been on a quest, as it were, from the beginning.*
M. C. Richards

When people say to me that they are not creative, I assume they just haven’t yet learnt what is involved.**
Ken Robinson

We would think it quite a thing if
we could generate our own light to live by,
Yet we may undervalue the wonder of light also being
curious inquiry, imagination and making stuff.

*M. C. Richards’ Centering;
**Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds.

Our knowledge, if we allow it to be transformed within us, turns into capacity for life-serving human deeds.*
M. C. Richards

The experience of ego, and of ego-identity, is based on the concept of having. I have “me” as I have all other things which this “me” owns.  Identity of “I” or self refers to the category of being and not of having.  I am “I” only to the extent to which I am alive, interested, related, active, and to which I have achieved an integration between my appearance – to others and/or to myself – and the core of my personality.**
Erich Fromm

Life is hard,^ but
it can also be
beautiful –
This is the bittersweetness of which
Susan Cain writes in her latest book:
And there it is again:
the oldest problem, the deepest dream –
the pain of separation,
the desire for reunion.^^
Whilst humans are able to point to many fine achievements,
The greatest of all may be how we make available
who we are and
what we have –
For each is more than enough – for healing
the brokenhearted, for gathering
the outcasts, and for binding
one another’s wounds.*^

*M. C. Richards’ Centering;
**Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope;
^The first of Richard Rohr‘s five elemental truths;
^^Susan Cain’s Bittersweet;
*^Psalm 147:2-3.

Life on its own, without art shaping it, leaves you in confusion and chaos, but well-told stories have the power to harmonise what you now with what you feel. Story is a vehicle that carries us on our search for reality, our best effort to make sense out of the anarchy of existence.*
Robert McKee

It is a call. It is a call to meaning, and a call to love. It requires of us that we reach beyond our own dejection and attend to the condition of the world. … I want to facilitate, in some small way, a mutual journey toward meaning; to decrease the dimensions of our emptiness and draw us closer to love and to beauty.**
Nick Cave

Nick Cave’s advice for those experiencing
an emptiness and hollowness is to
go out and save the world, which
he confesses may sound grandiose, but is about
a myriad of small kind actions.
In the end,
We may not save the world, but
we may save ourselves,
That is, to awaken to how our lives are
far from empty and hollow:
Interest is an all-pervading attitude
and form of relatedness to the world,
and one might define it in a very broad sense
as the interest of the living person
in all that is alive and grows.
Even when this sphere of interest is genuine,
there will be no difficulty in arousing
his interest in other fields,
simply because he is
an interested person.^

*Robert McKee‘s newsletter: The Power of Story;
**Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files blog: #200;
^Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope.

“Interest” comes from the Latin “interesse,” that is “to be in-between.” If I am interested, I must transcend my ego, be open to the world, and jump to it: interest is based on activeness.*
Erich Fromm

We all want to live an interesting life.
It just may be that we cannot live it where we are right now.
I don’t mean geographically, but
emotionally, mentally, spiritually.
The interesting life asks us to open more
than our minds to who and what is around us, more
than our hearts to what we find;
It calls us to open our will, and
step into our larger Self … because
there’s a lot more “interested” in us than we realise.

*Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope.

And he noticed that the more the he wrote, the better he felt. He opened to his wife, and to his work. His depression lifted.*
Susan Cain

James Pennebaker‘s personal experience of writing out
the difficult things in his life
turned into forty years of study;
Again and again he found that those who wrote out their troubles
benefitted more than the test groups who were asked to
write about mundane things.
Of course, we can write about the good things, too, including
our ideas and hopes:
It’s more likely that action will follow the words.

*Susan Cain’s Bittersweet.

and like all infinite games, the goal is not to win, it is to perpetuate the game*
Simon Sinek

The ego, static and unmoved, relates to the world in terms of having objects, while the self is related to the world in the process of participation.**
Erich Fromm

Having is about winning, and
winning requires that the game is ended, and
the trophy presented.
Being, though, is
an infinite game, continuing
all the way to the end,
The thing we must do
beyond and outside the lines.

*Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game;
**Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope.

For humility is … the only effective antidote to narcissism, and all its associated evils. It is, in essence, a readiness to admit its shortcomings coupled with a willingness to learn, be that from people, animals, plants, or even machines – whoever masters something we do not. The opportunities are infinite.*
Anna Katharina Schaffner

In this game, we only get one choice. Once we are born we are players. The only choice we get is if we want to play with a finite mindset or an infinite mindset.**
Simon Sinek

Although we only have the one choice,
We get to make it at the beginning of each new day.
It can therefore be helpful to have some way of
framing this:
Journaling,
Prayer,
Meditation … –
Everybody has five minutes.^
Being honest about
who we are and
what we have and
what we can do with these,
Which is how I think about
humility;
After all,
We’re preparing for an infinite game.

*Anna Katharina Schaffner’s The Art of Self Improvement;
**Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game;
^Dan Harris’ 10% Happier.

Other than death, there is no finish line or retirement for the creative person.*
Austin Kleon

We do, indeed, have much to learn from nonhuman teachers, which can suggest surprising and new way of tackling our challenges. … We need to address our in bill limitations by looking across the species barrier.**
Anna Katharina Schaffner

Learning is
and endlessly renewing commodity, a
constant life companion, the
greatest gift, a
never disappointing wonder, here
today and
again tomorrow.

*Austin Kleon’s blog: There is no finish line;
**Anna Katharina Schaffner’s The Art of Self Improvement.

courage (n.)

c. 1300, corage, “heart (as the seat of emotions),” hence “spirit, temperament, state or frame of mind,”from Old French corage “heart, innermost feelings; temper” (12c., Modern French courage), from Vulgar Latin *coraticum (source of Italian coraggio, Spanish coraje), from Latin cor “heart”.