That as we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of Others, we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.*
Benjamin Franklin

We were living the process as we were creating it.*
Joseph Jaworski

It’s likely that any great Ideas
we have are
based on those of others,
And when we share our ideas and
move them into action, they become
bigger, better –
It’s a win/win.

Lift is created by the onwards rush of life
over the curved wing of the soul.^

*Lewis Hyde’s Common As Air;
**Joseph Jaworski’s Source;
^Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways.

The dream of convenience is premised on the nightmare of physical work.  But is physical work always a nightmare? […] Perhaps our humanity is sometimes expressed in inconvenient actions and time-consuming pursuits.*
Seth Godin

There are lots of people in the world who stand to benefit
from convenience;
Not only those who want to sell a product that
makes life easier,
But also those who want us to buy into
an idea that gains them followers and power –
Be it political, commercial, entertainment, sporting, or
that baffling category of fame in being a celebrity.

Literacy is not so convenient,
A human superpower long fought for,
So that the world might be a commonwealth
rather than hegemony;
Reflection is also inconvenient,
As are its siblings Silence and Solitude,
And yet,
Here is born goodness.

Here Are three inconvenient books
whose authors I feel are writing off similar things,
And which I came upon again in my
reading, reflecting and journaling this morning:
Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World,
Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves,
James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

My sacred space became
the rolling fire of imagination.**

*Seth Godin’s The Carbon Almanac;
**Nick Cave’s blog: The Red Hand Files #192.

The curious paradox is that when I accept myself as I am, then I can change.**
Carl Rogers

Inner and outer transformation go hand in hand, and we will not be able to tackle our most urgent crises … if we do not also change the very ways we think about ourselves and others.^
Anna Katharina Schaffner

When we find ourselves, we
find each other:
Who is my True Self?
What is my Contribution?

No once-and-for-all thing –
Thankfully –
It richly fills a lifetime:
To listen takes time, …
to learn to hear the world within and
the world without,
to attend to the quiet voice of life
and heart alike.^^

Here are ten ancient skills to develop over a lifetime,
As gathered by Anna Katharina Schaffner:
Know yourself,
Control your mind,
Let it go,
Be good,
Be humble,
Simplify,
Use imagination,
Persevere,
Mentalise,*^
Be present.

*’If you want to be happy, practice compassion; if you want others to be happy, practice compassion.’ – Dalai Lama; Dacher Keltner’s Born to Be Good;
**David Rome’s Your Body Knows the Answer;
^Anna Katharina Schaffner’s The Art of Self-Improvement;
^^Maria Popova’s The Marginaian blog: An Illustrated Ode to Attentiveness and the Art of Listening;
*^To place ourselves into the life of another.

My job is making windows where there were once walls.*
Michel Foucault

The songs of prayer lodge in our mouths.
Let us sing through the snow.
At the dinner table.
On the rooftop where we dance.
May these sounds heal our ears
and those distant ears that hear.**
Hawksley Workman

Back in 1696,
A windows tax was introduced in Britain as a fairer way
of raising taxes from the richer in society –
Bigger house, more windows;
The problem was that the urban poor were likely to
live in tenement buildings which were counted as one property
rather than many.

The rich got around the tax by bricking up
some of their windows –
Evidence of this is very visible today;
The tenement landlords also bricked up
some of their windows, or built with fewer windows –
You can see what this would me mean for the poor.

The world needs more people who can turn
walls into windows:
There are already too many who turn
windows into walls.

Please don’t give up on that magic
you make happen for others.

*Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World;
**The Northumbria Community‘s Morning Prayer: 27th day of the month.

Remembering this life’s journey beyond our present daily commute is one of life’s great disciplines, but keeping it as a constant companion is beyond most of our powers. Sooner or later we forget, we lose sight, we come to a place in our lives where the vision splendid begins to fade into the light of common day.*
David Whyte

This is a STATE OF MIND which is NOT ACCESSIBLE BY THINKING. It seems to require a participation WITH SOMETHING.**
Lynda Barry

How to remember what is of all things
most important to us,
This meaningful journey of ours?

Writing it down so we don’t forget it
is one way, the best way, though, is to
do it.

*David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea;
**Lynda Barry’s What It Is.

Whatever pain you can’t get rid of, whatever joy you can’t contain, make it your creative offering.*
Susan Cain

Can we see that this voyage is not what we need to be cured of, but that it is itself a natural way of healing our own appalling state of alienation called normality.**
R. D. Laing

Susan Cain adds an insightful addition to
Frederick Buechner’s guiding thought that
we find our purpose where our deepest joy meets
the world’s greatest need.

Cain’s added complexity is that this joy
may emerge from our own pain –
Our kintsugi-like gift;
Another good reason for turning towards, and
not away, from our
painful thoughts and feelings.

*Susan Cain’s Bittersweet;
**Joseph Campbell’s Myths to Live By.

Simplicity is complexity resolved.*
Constantin Brancusi

All that thinking about things,
All the feeling of it deeply,
It all becomes clearer
when you do it.

*Gapingvoid’s blog: Why Nobody Understands You.

Live as if your were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.*
Viktor Frankl

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.**
Steve Jobs

We have a wonderful opportunity to live
a marvellous life –
Perhaps not happy or wealthy or
easy or famous –
But meaningful.

Available
for a limited period
only –
Maybe eighty or so years.

If you’re around to read this,
The opportunity hasn’t passed, and
the best news a day brings
is we can have another play –
Resistance lies within.

Here is one way of starting over,
From Austin Kleon:
Worry less about making a mark.
Worry more about leaving things
better than you found them.^

Another is to begin
The dreamwhispering journey –
It’s the reason I shaped it.

*Donald Miller’s Hero On a Mission;
**Ben Hardy’s Be Your Future Self Now;
^Austin Kleon’s Keep Going.

What if life is like a story and you and I are in the theatre of our own minds, looking out the cameras of our eyes, and the story unfolding feels either meaningful or meaningless based on what we decide to make happen in it?*
Donald Miller

Only the person who has faith in herself is able to be faithful to others, because only she can be sure that she will be the same at a future time as she is today, and, therefore, that she will feel and act as she now expects to.**
Erich Fromm

Faith has to be turned into faithfulness for
meaning to be uncovered,
That is,
Ideas turning into action;
Faithfulness to ourselves, yes,
But most especially turned towards others
in service:
The ultimate aim of the quest,
if one is to return,
must be neither release nor
ecstasy for oneself,
but the wisdom and power to
serve others.^

The myth carries our meaning, and
the myth’s quest becomes the device to
explore those things we might otherwise consider
unimportant, frivolous, or even
absurd.

*Donald Miller’s Hero On a Mission;
**Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving; gender altered by me;
^Joseph Campbell’s Myths To Live By.

A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow men.*
Joseph Campbell

For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is a problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.**
Thomas Merton

Not a hero?,
Not a saint? –
That’s fine,
Just be you
doing the things you
must do.

*Joseph Campbell’s Myths To Live By;
**Ian Morgan Cron’s The Road Back To You.