A daemon is a calling, obsession, a source of lasting and sometimes manic energy … when you are looking for a vocation, you are looking for a daemon … You are trying to find that tension or problem that arouses great waves of moral, spiritual and relational energy.*
David Brooks

It’s all a conversation
Between night and day
Between mist and clarity
Darkness and light**
Lemn Sissay

There it is:
The problem that stirs all your energies^ –
Now you see it, you cannot
unsee.

Yes, it frustrates you
like crazy, and you fail
more times than makes sense,
But you are more alive than ever.

It’s not perfect, but
this imperfection animates you,
So you are engaged and creative
between this and that.

*David Brooks’ The Second Mountain;
**Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in;
^What is this for you? If you’ve never written it down, try doing this. What is wanting to emerge or unfold?.

A relationship in which you unquestionably have the upper hand at all times is no relationship at all.*
Oliver Burkeman

Don’t chase success. Instead chase new and interesting ways of solving other people’s problems.**
gapingvoid

Dominance and success at any cost
always comes at a cost for someone.

On the other hand, being a servant of goodness and
rightness makes everyone richer.

The virtue of a person is measured not by his outstanding efforts but by his everyday behaviour.^

*Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals;
**gapingvoid’s blog: Take something ordinary and elevate it;
^Blaise Pascal, from Ryan Holiday’s Right Thing, Right Now.

How you work with your brain – give it nourishment, ideas, therapy, along with spiritual, mental, and emotional practices and input – radically influences what your brain can and will do.*
Jean Houston

This is a human search. Being there when someone is looking for you. The first step is being the sort of resource that people care enough about to look for. And the second is being findable.**
Seth Godin

Today is another opportunity
to become the person someone else needs to
find, so
we prepare for this –
Not only in the skills that we possess but also
the person we are – and
then we stand out in the open so
that we may be found by the many
or the one.

*Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Spines out.

Writing in your journal is more powerful than simple meditation for the same reason that writing down your goals is more powerful than leaving them in your head.*
Ben Hardy

Do not become fixated on your premise. We rarely know where we’re going.**
Robert McKee

One thing that writing does for
our thoughts and feelings is
to bring the journey into focus –
And things can change on the way,
Especially us.

*Ben Hardy’s Willpower Doesn’t Work;
**Robert McKee‘s newsletter: Discovering Your Meaning.

There’s only one age: alive.*
Agnes Varda

… there’s plenty of life in you yet –
Indeed, if you believe it,
the greatest adventures are ahead of you.

And if you are at the other end of
this age equation, know that you have plenty of wisdom already,
And we need to see through your eyes.

*Austin Kleon’s blog: A Quote a Day.

The truth that many people never understand is that the more you try to avoid suffering, the more you suffer, because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you, in proportion to your fear of being hurt.*
Thomas Merton

He acknowledged me when I most needed it. I was empowered in the midst of personal erosion, and my life has been very different for it. I swore to myself then that whenever I came across someone “going under” or in the throes of disacknowledgement, I would try to reach and acknowledge that person as I had been acknowledged.**
Jean Houston

It is likely that what we hope for lies
on the other side of suffering –
The thing we most want to avoid becomes
the means for growth and momentum.

The ancients knew this and
wrote it into their myths,
Now recognised in the hero’s journey as
the ordeal or abyss or death and rebirth.

Every human suffers, but
those who have passed and transformed through suffering^
become our listeners and guides, and
we can be counted among them.

*Oliver Burkeman’s The Antidote;
**Jean Houston’s The Possible Human;
^Here are two responses you may want to try: 1. write about the suffering in the second or third person – sense the distance this begins to create; 2. imagine where you sense you carry the suffering inside you, noticing its shape, colour, texture, and listen for what it is trying to say – perhaps write these things down using the first response.

Act with zest on day at a time, and never mind the rest.*
Horace

This organic emergence of rituals is seemingly a product of the brain’s remarkable ability to monitor whether we are achieving our desired goals … .**
Ethan Kross

To bring all of our energy into a day is
a wonderful thing: to invest our
heart and soul and mind and strength
in something meaningful and life-giving
for ourselves and others is wisdom’s way.

To aid this, we create our rituals so that
we don’t get lost; and knowing that we organically produce these,
To distract ourselves or keep moving,
Means that we can harness this power to create our
smarter rituals enabling us to be zesty people.

Why not take a moment to think through,
Or better, write down, your own rituals,
looking for places to shape them for more zestiness?

*Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals;
**Ethan Kross’ Chatter.

Everyone should find the centre of his life in his work and be able to grow out from this point as far as possible.*
Rainer Maria Rilke

Glinda may also be seen as Dorothy herself – the girl’s entelechy – writ large on the stage of consciousness.**
Jean Houston

You are made to live from
the inside out –
Joseph Campbell spoke about how we must
follow our bliss,
What resonates deeply within us and
brings us to fulfilment;
This already resides within us –
though it may be covered by the flotsam
and jetsam of life, which we need to
let go of.

*Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters on Life;
**Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us.

It’s easy to forget what we’ve accomplished. And when we do, we lose sight of the powerful fact that if we’ve done it before, we can do it again.*
Dorie Clark

Mind sculpting refers to the deliberate practice of shaping one’s thoughts, beliefs, and mental habits to align with personal goals and values.**
AleXander McManus

You may simply want to keep doing
the things you are good at, or, possibly,
You could organise the things that
set your heart alight,
To be able to manifest these
more innovatively, complexly, colourfully, meaningfully, generously.

Here are three starting points:
Humility, to embrace the truth of who you are,
Gratitude, to acknowledge all that you have,
Faithfulness, to explore a multiplicity of ways for
bringing who you are and what you have
into the lives of others.^

*Dorie Clark’s The Long Game;
**AleXander McManus’ FutureU;
^Again, if I can help, let me know: geoffreybaines@gmail.com – my apologies if you’ve been trying to use geoffrey@thinsilence.org as the link appears broken.

Invented beings enlighten us, help us make precious sense of ourselves and those around us.*
Robert McKee

A book is a chance to have a conversation. The conversation is the product, the book is just the catalyst.**
Seth Godin

Books are a very recent vehicle for
something humans have engaged in for
tens of thousands of years,
Stories helping us to understand ourselves and
our place within the world –
The best stories, and
books for that matter, are not telling us things,
They are inviting us to engage in dialogue,
Within which we experience, as well as
contribute to, growth and transition.

*Robert McKee’s Character;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Five lessons from week one of This is Strategy.