The secret to diagnosing the problem with a broken scene lies in the subtext.*
(Robert McKee)

Each society and each individual usually explores only a tiny fraction of their horizon of possibility.**
(Yuval Noah Harari)

The issue may not be the problem being faced but how you are able to respond to it.

Reflect/do are not either/or but both/and. Whether you are a more reflection- or action-based person, reflection is always necessary to finding and facing the real issue and moving forward.

(*From Robert McKee‘s newsletter: The Secret to Fixing Broken Scenes.)
(**From Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens.)

I simply want to share my joy today.

It is forty years since Christine and I married and I am grateful.

I am grateful for our children Matthew, Charlotte and Luke.

I am grateful for the people they love: Karolina, Shayne and Aimee,

And I am grateful for our grandson Archie.

People are the bestest way to celebrate forty years.

Thank you to all of you who have added to our joy over these years; I want you to know, I am grateful for you.

(*Thank you to the Kaiser Chiefs for the text to the doodle.)

It takes courage to specialise and build a small great thing.*
(Bernadette Jiwa)

You are very capable and you are free to do the thing you want to do to make a difference in the world.

It doesn’t have to be big; the only people who can judge are the people you want to serve.

I just don’t want you to give up on your hope.

(*From The Story of Telling: A Small Great Thing.)

Society wants us to live a planned existence, following paths that have been travelled by others. Tried and true. The known, the expected, the controlled, the safe. The path of the wanderer is not this! The path of the wanderer is an experiment with the unknown. To idle. To daydream.*
(The Wander Society)

But complexity consists of integration as well as differentiation. The task of the next decades and centuries is to realise this underdeveloped component of the mind. Just as we have learned to separate ourselves from each other and the environment, we now need to learn how to reunite ourselves with other entities around is without losing our hard-won individuality.**
(Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

The maxim points
out the well-trodden way:

One must work,
nothing but work,
and one must have patience.^

We stare in our
independence but nothing comes;

Perhaps if we stop doing,
if we wander away
to speak to another or enjoy the earth,

We will find the thought we seek,
Our feet treading an interdependent path.

(*The Wander Society, quoted in Keri Smith’s The Wander Society.)
(**From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.)
(^Quoted in Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters on Life.)

The artist needs to know how to lose the plot – how to not care and how to not know – and how to actually enjoy that freedom and understand what a blessed revitalising state all of that mess can be.*
(Michael Leunig)

the goal is to end up […] “lost in the woods” with a creative challenge or a problem that needs solving**
(Warren Berger)

The straight line
will take me there
quickly
but perhaps not richly,

so I will take
a slower way
into a messy fullness.

(*From Michael Leunig’s post: Regressive Painting and the Holy Fool.)
(**From Warren Berger’s Glimmer.)

Most innovative projects […] tend to begin with someone venturing out into the world, looking around, and noticing a problem or need.*
(Warren Berger)

And what if
you have all you need;

Not needing to wait for someone
else to make that dent in the world?

(*From Warren Berger’s Glimmer.)

We must face the fact that we have a responsibility to own what’s possible. Opportunity abounds. And that’s both a scary and a comforting thought.*
(Bernadette Jiwa)

“To learn” therefore means at root – at route – “to follow a track.”**
(Robert Macfarlane)

Remain curious in following the path
that may become hidden to you;
beyond is where the possibilities lie.

Aim not to say,
you have no time for this,
for in that moment, the emerging may be lost.

(*From Bernadette Jiwa’s The Story of Telling blog: The Bounds of Possibility.)
(**From Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways: from the proto-Germanic liznojan.)

The meaning of life is meaning: whatever it is, wherever it comes from, a unified purpose is what gives meaning to life.*
(Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi)

1. Design your immediate surroundings (your ecosystem) in a manner that is self-sustaining and conducive to growth.
2. Develop a strong, supportive relationship with the community around you.
3. Keep learning.
4. Keep creating and reinventing.**
   (Warren Berger)

Changelessness in a physical or material universe is an illusion.

We will need to keep reorientating our lives towards meaningfulness and away from meaninglessness.

This happens best through design, the most successful individuals and groups of people not only being most adaptive to changing conditions but also designing the conditions in which they will grow most.

(*From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow.)
(**From Warren Berger’s Glimmer.)

In their intense meditation the hidden sound of things approaching reaches them and they listen reverently while in the street outside the people hear nothing at all.*
(Nassim Taleb)

Please,

Save me from
my wandering with no purpose,

Dissuade me from
my gazing into I don’t know where,

Put me off
times alone in wondering,

Prevent me from
falling into silence away from all that busily presses in,

Protect me from
noticing the richness that fills each moment and space –

Else I may discover
my curiosity and imagination,

Hear the hidden things
and see all that can be,

Woe betides if
I recover my energy, within,

Reinspire my work without
and be be fully present with whoever, doing whatever.

Please, I pray,
Keep me to this narrow way I bemoan each day.

(*From Nassim Taleb’s Fooled by Randomness, reflecting on those who are wise.)

I’m finding my way and choosing my path on this incredible journey. I have Big dreams. I see possibility. I have endless curiosity. I make discoveries. I have a feeling of wonder.*
(Susan Verde)

We are all haunted by something deep inside of us, and often, a lot of our best work is the result of yes trying to come to terms with this.**
(Hugh Macleod)

The seed asks, “Is this me?”

and then becomes a shoot.

The shoot asks, “Is this me?”

and then becomes a stalk

The stalk asks, “Is this me?”

and then becomes a head.

The head asks, “Is this me?”

and then becomes a kernel.

The kernel asks, “Is this me? …

(*From Susan Verde and Peter Reynolds’ I Am Human.)
(**From gapingvoid’s blog: Spiritual redemption.)