I always admire people who marvel at things that anyone could have noticed but didn’t.* Brian Eno
The experience of touching something timeless can shock a person out of the rhythm of ephemeral experience in daily life.** Bina Venkataraman
We all notice something more than others do, It’s how we provide our lives with purpose and direction and delight, but there are some who seem to have widened their “bandwidth” exponentially – They enrich my life and motivate me to notice more; A lot of this is about time and effort and curiosity,^ but if there is anything magical about becoming a better noticer, it is that everything is useful to our original purpose and direction and delight.
We won’t be the first to have noticed what catches our attention, and, Hopefully, because we have turned our gaze towards it, We won’t be the last.
Everybody’s idea seems obvious to them … maybe what’s obvious to me is amazing to someone else? … We’re clearly bad judges of our own creations. We should put them out there and let the world decide. Are you holding back something that seems too obvious to share?^^
It is our responsibility to set our future self up for as much opportunity, success, and joy as possible. This is how you become the person and create the life you want, rather than becoming someone with regret. Describe your future self.* Ben Hardy
The voice is an inner whisper not obvious or known to others outside. It receives little attention and is not usually highlighted among a person’s abilities. Yet so much depends on that small voice. The truth of its whisper marks the line between honour an egoism, kindness and chaos.** John O’Donohue
If we go for what Ben Hardy espouses – And this is what my work with people is about – Then we must make sure that we are also developing the inner voice John O’Donohue writes about; It happened that I read the two books together four years ago, which feels significant: as I read Hardy’s words again today, there, Too, was the small voice desiring we proceed with caution, always setting ourselves up for honour and kindness over ego and chaos.
When a man can control his life, his physical needs, his lower self, he elevates himself.* Muhammad Ali
These are the characteristics of the rational soul: self-awareness, self-examination, and self-determination. It reaps its own harvest … It succeeds in its own purpose.** Marcus Aurelius
The fourth elemental truth states: You are not in control,^ but there is more detail to this we need to explore: Whilst we can’t control things out there, we can control things in here – the most important place – meaning we can control our response to everything out there – This is Viktor Frankl‘s point; Marcus Aurelius wrote wise words to himself, but we get to benefit: we are each capable of developing awareness and examination and determination^^ of the self, leading to some interesting results – The more we control ourselves, beginning with the basics, the more we can affect our surroundings … Though in a more profound, more helpful, even more beautiful way.
When an artist says “Trust the Soup” she means let go of the need to control (which we can’t do anyway) and put your faith instead in the Source, the Mystery, the Quantum Soup.*^
*Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny; **Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic; ^Richard Rohr’s Adam’s Return; ^^More than being self-aware, we descend deeper by self-examining, and build our power to self-determine so that we can travel further in the outer world; *^Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work.
May you see in what you do the beauty of your soul.* John O’Donohue
The self is always under construction. The multiplicity of selves is what allows change.** Peter Turchi
All the people I have ever been are still here, collaborating and vying,^ helping today’s me not only figure out who I want to be and what I want to do, but also how to bring these towards some greater oneness and fullness.
*John O’Donohue’s Benedictus: For Work; **Peter Turchi’s A Muse and A Maze; ^There are some of my past “me”s that I don’t want to be again, and that’s how they help me.
Characterisation is achieved … through a process that opens up and releases mysteries of the human spirit. The object is not to “solve” a character – to expose some hidden secret – but instead to deepen and enlarge the riddle itself.* Tim O’Brien
There are aspects of ourselves that are hidden from ourselves as well as others. We are more complex and multifaceted than we think. From time to time something unknown rises to the surface from our unconscious – for example in a dream.** Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler
We never reach the end of the mystery of who someone is, whether ourselves or others; This is so for every person, best not to give up on anyone too soon, Especially yourself – I’m most interested in how we can change and change again and again, and how life keeps opening up to us when we do: Why would we want to stop now – Maybe it’s only just beginning?
*Peter Turchi’s A Muse and A Maze; **Mikael Krogerus and Roman Tschäppeler’s The Decision Book; this is a description of the fourth quadrant of the Johari Window: first quadrant – what we know about ourselves and share with others; second – what we know about ourselves, but do not disclose; three – what we do not know about ourselves, but others see clearly. As for the fourth quadrant, when we meet new people, try new things, go to new places, we discover more about ourselves; so, too, as we develop openness, learning, discipline, and experimentation.
This is the truth of who I am: weird, beautiful, hobbled, beloved.* Anne Lamott
Don’t let the hope of finding a better way prevent you from starting down the best path you know of right now. This day won’t come again.** James Clear
We are contradictions wrapped up in a lifetime: so we ought not to think that we are therefore disqualified from magnificence – and significance for someone somewhere – who knows what the best we have will open up to if we embrace it?;^ Everything doesn’t have to happen right now: Time is simply nature’s way of making sure that everything doesn’t happen all at once.^^
Now there is something in everybody that waits for the sound of the genuine in other people … I must wait and listen for the sound of the genuine in you. I must wait. For if I cannot hear it, then in my scheme of things, you are not even present. And everybody wants to feel that everybody else knows that she is there.* Howard Thurman
In a surprisingly short time this doctor succeeded in explaining to the man that freedom is not ‘freedom from’ but a ‘freedom to’ – a freedom to accept responsibility.** Viktor Frankl
If we are not taking up our responsibility, if we are not free to do this, then can we say that we are fully present, genuine, whether here or there – And if not, then where are we?
What must we do before we have to give back this borrowed life?; There is no easy, pain-free way, only choice and practise – Which is what life is all about in the end.
I will not die an unlived life, I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise…^
Light thinks it’s Beyoncé, shimmering with celestial meaning, but shadow knows that without it, we ain’t got nothing to show for ourselves – no paintings, poetry, or song.* Anne Lamott
It asks something of us, this emptiness, this hollowness. It is a call. It is a call to meaning, and a call to love.** Nick Cave
Shadow defines us, presenting need, asking questions, showing us the way; unanswered, it can overwhelm us, even destroy us, but, embraced, it can make us.
*Anne Lamott’s Dusk Night Dawn; **Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files blog: #200.
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