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I’ve come to believe in the power of writing down your vision. I don’t believe in writing down a vision for your life creates any sort of magic in the universe, but I do believe it sets a general compass for your subconscious.*
Donald Miller

Trying to reach everyone is the same as trying to reach no one, and it has just about the same effect. That’s because there is no “everyone.” There are just individual people, who band together based on their common interests and beliefs, with the goal of survival, whether physical, social, or both.**
Lisa Cron

Thank you for making it to this
four thousandth edition of thin|silence;
It’s kept me on track with what I love and
am fascinated by.

My hope has been that it would quietly
find its way to those it may resource and
help, making it a little more possible to
explore each day creatively, generously, and
enjoyably – as it does me.

*Donald Miller’s Hero On a Mission;
**Lisa Cron’s Story or Die.

If you draw, the world becomes more beautiful, far more beautiful,  Trees that used to be scrub suddenly reveal their form.  Animals that were ugly make you see their beauty.  If you then go for a walk, you’ll be amazed how different everything can look.  Less and less is ugly if everyday you recognise beautiful forms in ugliness and learn to love them.*
Erich Ohser

It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment — not discouragement — you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege!**
Joseph Campbell

We bring change to our story when
we are prepared to notice, and
love is a great helper in our observations,
Slowness, too.

*Austin Kleon’s blog: If you draw the world becomes more beautiful;
**James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: On loving your fate, how to handle pressure, and the value of being proactive yet positive.

Some doodles from this day across the years

Your soul is much larger than you! You are just along for the ride. When you learn to live there, you will learn to live with everyone and everything else too.*
Richard Rohr

Suddenly it seemed like the most vivid part of reality was this: Souls waking up in the morning.  Souls riding the train to work.  Souls yearning for goodness.  Souls wounded by earlier traumas.  Souls in each and every person, illuminating them from inside, and occasionally enraptured within them, souls alive or numb in them; and with that came a feeling that I was connected by radio waves to all of them – some underlying soul of which we were all a piece.**
David Brooks

We are souls in progress:
All those moments of connection and
wonder – perhaps our
biggest human experience is when we conjunct with
someone or something without prejudice –
Are our attempts to grow into our souls.

*Richard Rohr’s Immortal Diamond;
**David Brooks’ The Second Mountain.

To deepen our understanding of human nature, we must not only accept the idea of the self, but of a cast of selves: the core self (observer); the agent self (observed) plus all the personal and social personae an agent self assumes; all the past selves the core self remembers; and finally, at the deepest level, the hidden self.
Robert McKee

No one thinks as little of you as you do. And no one thinks as often of you as you do. That’s an interesting combination. And can be a slippery slope if you’re not paying attention to what you’re thinking about you.**
Gabe Anderson

There’s a lot for you to think about when
you are thinking about you, but
there’s a difference between being either
too hard on yourself or over-indulgent, and
being truthful …
Accurate –
Something that takes more
than a lifetime with the endless
possibility of development –
We can never say “This is me, full stop”;
It seems that the apostle Paul believed
there to be other me-s to discover and grow: a
compassionate me
kind me
humble me
patient me
forbearing me
forgiving me
loving me –
All available to take for a spin.^


*Robert McKee’s Character;
**Gabe Anderson’s blog: You Thinking About You;
^Colossians 3:12-14

To know yourself, you must recognise your rock-bottom inner self, compare your dreams to reality and desires to morality, and from that base explore the social, personal, private and hidden selves that complete your multifaceted humanity.*
Robert McKee

we produce against the feeling of lack**
Byung-Chul Han

But what do we lack? –
Not things but self,
Without which no amount of activity and
stuff will compensate,
Not to be people who have but
to be people who must, the product of
the deep self.

The most useful work we create causes a change to happen. And the more profound the change, the less predictable it is.^

*Robert McKee’s Character;
**Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals;
^Seth Godin’s blog: Comfortable with the fuzziness.

Some doodles from this day through the years.

Thin|Silence comes as a colouring book and as a fancy tea towel (with gift card in the same design). If you’re interested in giving either of these as a Christmas present then you can order a copy of Slow Journeys in the Same Direction here (£5, plus postage and packing), and drop me a line for the tea towel and card (£10, plus postage): geoffrey@thinsilence.org

Old men should be explorers
Here and there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity …*
T. S. Eliot

Insecurity, for an artist, can ultimately be a gift, albeit an excruciating one.**
Sally Mann

A sparky life, over and against a stodgy life,^ requires
the dynamic as well as the static,^^ although
the likelihood is, as I grow older,
I will seek the stodge and avoid the spark;
Whilst the invitation to keep moving remains –
And as long as we draw breath, it remains –
The wonderful gift of being knocked out of our
knowing and into wondering is still ours, albeit
an unkiltering experience.

Being curious is better than being smart.*^

*Peter Turchi’s A Muse and A Maze;
**Mason Currey’s Subtle Maneuvers blog: Insecurity is a gift!;
^Roald Dahl’s Danny the Champion of the World;
^^The dynamic ought to produce the static, the static, in turn must stimulate the dynamic. When life becomes all dynamism or all stasis, we are in trouble. Seth Godin’s new book This is Strategy explores these as strategy and system;
*^James Clear’s Atomic Habits.

For your talent to fight above its weight, it needs to bulk up on knowledge.*
Robert McKee

in indigenous ways of knowing, we understand a thing only when we understand it with four aspects of our being: mind, body, emotion, and spirit**
Robin Wall Kimmerer

A talent is a lyric waiting for a tune,
When increased through the knowledge of heart and soma and
spirit, as well as mind, it becomes a mighty
composition,
An embodied song of joy for
the benefit of others.

*Robert McKee’s Character;
**Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass.