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

The journey through the rolling countryside of north Norfolk always feels to me like crossing over into another land, another state of mind.**
Roger Deakin

Perhaps you’ve noticed –
Though understandable if you haven’t – how,
When you are interested in something,
You forget yourself, moving beyond
the ego of who you are or want to be, finding yourself in a place of
wonderment and inquiry,
Active towards something or someone;
Here is a larger world we all have an opening to that we may
grow larger still –
When we notice the actions of interest,
We are able to replicate them:
Be curious and ask questions,
Observe the smaller details that others miss,
Demonstrate fickleness – so as not to become static and fixated,
Be slowly thoughtful to enable multiple viewpoints,
Bring an elegant flourish of imagination and creativity.^

Discipline … is both predictive and deterministic. It makes it more likely you’ll be successful and it ensures, success or failure, you are great. The converse is also true: a lack of discipline puts you in danger, it also colours who and what you are.^^

*Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope;
**Roger Deakin’s Waterlog;
^These are five habits that I’ve borrowed from Rohit Bhargava’s Non Obvious 2019 – there are others that are similar;
^^Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny.