If there were no problems, it wouldn’t be much fun.* Alan Lightman

The world is full of particular opportunities and experiences that can change our lives…Acceptance of reality is the only choice that can result in making meaning and finding our way to being fully alive.** Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

Is this a real problem?

Is it my/our problem?

Do I/we accept the problem?

What is it teaching me/us?

Am I/we the problem/part of the problem?

What kind of opportunity is this?

What do I/we bring to the problem?

It’s never just a problem.

*Alan Lightman’s A Sense Of The Mysterious; Bill Burnett and Dave Evans’ How To Live A Meaningful Life.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE – THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Doodles can be called mindless drawing. It’s one of the last places drawing still exists in a person who gave up on art long ago. A place where one line can still follow another without plan.* Lynda Barry

*Lynda Barry’s What It Is.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE – THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.*

I feel like there are powerful structures in our world that benefit from keeping us fearful, despairing, hopeless and busy. We are more easily manipulated and controlled that way. We might not be able to change those powerful structures, but we can push back against them by actively cultivating hope, joy, rest and slowness in our own lives.**
Rebecca Horn

*Genesis 2:2-3;
**Resistance is a small, playful collaboration with my friend Rebecca, who showed me her screenprinting project
exploring four forms of resistance– I loved it so much I offered to doodle each word for her. Today’s resistance is rest.

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The realm of invention and imagination…is also where we attain the realisation that we are made of God stuff, that we are not separate from the Creator.* Jean Houston

Well, I think that the only way I can fully give myself to an idea of God is to have room to question. To me, the gift of God is that He provides us with the space to doubt. For me, at least, doubt becomes the energy of belief.** Nick Cave

(Apologies, but I still haven’t been able to figure out the formatting problem, even with the help of a WordPress “Happiness Engineer” – basically “Shift” and “Enter” together aren’t dropping the cursor to the next line)

If you question and doubt what is–

If you imagine what could be–

And if you set out to bring this into being–

You are more like god than you know–

*Jean Houston’s The Wizard Of Us; **Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan’s Faith, Hope And Carnage.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE – THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

What do we mean by the real world? Because isn’t that ours to create? Don’t we get a say in what the real world even is? Who says we can’t make something new?* Rob Bell

You don’t have to be particularly brave. You just have to be a tiny, tiny bit more interested in something than you are frightened of it.** Elizabeth Gilbert

(My apologies for formatting today – something has gone wrong with my blog editor, and I’m trying to sort it out.)

Some may not want you to know this-

When you imagine something, and then do it, you alter reality.

It’s going to work best when it’s something you are interested in.

Obsession is even better,

*Rob Bell’s Everything Is Spiritual; **Quoted in Suleika Jaoud’s The Book Of Alchemy.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE – THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

In every crowd there are Diminishers and there are Illuminators. Diminishers make people feel small and unseen…Illuminators, on the other hand, have a persistent curiosity about other people. They have been trained or have trained themselves in the craft of understanding others.*
David Brooks

Such an abundance–
So many different people
with a contribution to make–
Some begin earlier,
Others join in later–
Everyone important–
Scarcity isn’t someone lacking
but a life untried.

What do you bring?

*David Brooks’ How To Know A Person.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
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A useful north star: Work that matters for people who care.*
Seth Godin

You would think finding work that matters to us
which focuses on and encourages what others care about most of all
would make an ideal marriage
but it turns out there’s another important factor–
Are they ready?

*Seth Godin’s blog: Chasing the snipe.

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What is invisible in your field of vision because of what you are focusing on?*
AleXander McManus

We hold, however, that man does not want to be happy. Rather, he wants a reason for being happy.**
Viktor Frankl

Are we those prepared to ask,
“What else is going on here?”

This wonderful, mysterious life
always opening new meanings and possibilities–

Charging us with energy,
Pushing us from within–

This exhausting but glorious aliveness,
Bringing us to meaningfulness that touches others–

Everything true to itself has its own secret language and an internal intentionality with a secret, surprising flow, even to the person who puts it all in motion.^

*AleXander McManus, in an online conversation;
**Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor And The Soul;
^David Whyte’s Consolations.

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

“You can pick anyone, and I’m anyone” is not a useful marketing slogan.*
Seth Godin

As humans, we’re at our most valuable when what we do can’t be faked or automated. This is what being an artist means.**
gapingvoid

*Seth Godin’s blog: Value creation;
**gapingvoid’s blog: The Next Picasso?

SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO

Almost everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, scared, and yet designed for joy.*
Anne Lamott

Resistance is a small, playful collaboration with my friend
Rebecca, who showed me her screenprinting project
exploring four forms of resistance–**
I loved it, offering to doodle each word–
Today’s resistance is joy;
I’ll be sharing some words
from Rebecca when I post the fourth doodle.

*Anne Lamott’s Almost Everything.

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THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO