The discipline of creation, be it to paint, compose, write, is an effort towards wholeness … we are diminished, and we forget that we are more than we know … .*
Madeleine L’Engle

And if you stopped doing all these things you’re doing for the money and the attention, what would be left? What would you be if you didn’t do these things?**
Derek Sivers

It may not be the thing you are being paid for,
Nor what is getting you noticed –
These may simply be camouflaging what
you really need to do if we are to
lose the feeling that something is
missing.

You may know, yet be putting it off,
Waiting for the perfect conditions that will
never arrive – more likely it is the present imperfect conditions that are
necessitous to your art.

Our success has a lot to do with how we dance with conditions that aren’t quite perfect.^

*Madeleine L’Engle’s Walking on Water;
**Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah or No;
^Seth Godin’s blog: The perfect conditions.

You were born to make art. But you’ve been brainwashed into believing you can’t trust yourself enough to do so.*
Seth Godin

To be someone as an artist, means: to be able to speak to one’s self.**
Rainer Maria Rilke

Which of these two statements
explains how you think of yourself?

To be human is to be an artist.

Only some are able to be artists.

Which statement do you believe to be true?

*Seth Godin’s The Practice;
**Raier Maria Rilke’s Letters on Life.

Plot-driven stories put major turning points, especially the inciting incident, beyond the character’s control … Character-driven stories do the opposite. They put major events in the character’s hands.*
Robert McKee

Perhaps the best strategy for lottery tickets is not to buy one. Your odds go up when you do useful and remarkable work for people who care.**
Seth Godin

In reality, our stories are a mix of the
plot-driven and character-driven, yet
what they hold in common is the possibility of
bringing and developing our best self.

Marcus Aurelius shares some habits he found to be helpful:
1. Accept only what is true.
2. Work for the common good.
3. Match our needs and wants with what is in our control.
4. Embrace what nature has in story for us.^

The apostle Paul adds to these with some
personal virtues that aided him in imprisonment:
Humility, gentleness, patience,
Forbearance, and love.^^

*Robert McKee’s Character;
**Seth Godin’s blog: How to buy a lottery ticket;
^Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
^^Ephesians 4:1-3.

Doodles from this day through the years.

From the disparity between the immensity of the possible and the smallness of the human being there springs the torment and the energy of the flâneur. Persecuted by frustration, he is sentenced to a sort of perpetual motion.*
Federico Castigliano

Why shouldn’t an anonymous career spent quietly helping a few people get to qualify as a meaningful way to spend one’s time? Why shouldn’t an absorbing conversation, an act of kindness, or an exhilarating hike get to count. Why adopt a definition [of achievement] that rules such things out?**
Oliver Burkeman

We may never achieve “great” things –
As others see them,
We may not accomplish everything we want,
We may never finish the “to do” list or empty the inbox –
And all of this is okay, the reality of our smallness
and finiteness.

Whilst the spirit of the flâneur and the flâneuse illustrates
the importance of wandering and
slowness, openness and
wonder, curiosity and
questioning, this doesn’t have to result in
persecution and frustration,
Rather, in embracing rather than fighting our
finitude, we may ease into the
meaningful and satisfying life that awaits us.

*Federico Castigliano’s Flâneur;
**Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations for Mortals.

Another day through the years of doodles

Movement gets us unstuck. It restores agency by giving us a feeling we’re acting on our situation.*
Bruce Feiler

although it may appear paradoxical, in order to acquire a profound view of things, you most first of all move randomly**
Federico Castigliano

Keep moving;
Against stuckness,
Stand up, turn around, or go for a walk,
Have a doodle pad by your writing,
Open a book for a page or three,
Have a conversation with someone.

To your “steps” add randomness,
Welcome nonlinearity,
And make the steps smaller and allow them
to be slower:
A long time is not the same
as never.^

Move with randomness, smallness, time, and
keep things simple:
‘How do you do it?’ said night
‘How do you wake up and shine?’
‘I keep it simple,’ said light
‘One day at a time’^^

*Bruce Feiler’s Life Is in the Transitions;
**Federico Castigliano’s Flâneur;
^Seth Godin’s blog: A long time is not the same as never;
^^Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in.

noun: hello; plural noun: hellos; noun: hallo; plural noun: hallos; noun: hullo; plural noun: hullos
used as a greeting or to express surprise

To meet with someone – whether
we know them or not – is
an occasion for surprise,
They are, as my friend Alex reminds me,
A mystery wrapped in a question,
Always,
So enjoy.

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 greatness of moral, spiritual and relational energy.*
David Brooks

The fairy godmother replied that true magic is to help each thing become its best and most free self.**
Rebecca Solnit

Herminia Ibarra suggests that when it
comes to who we want to become, we ought to:
Test and learn,
not plan and implement.^

Don’t rush into deciding
“This is it!” nor believe that you are
stuck in who you are where you are,
It’s okay, cut yourself some slack.

Then you may begin to notice
your truest energy, wrapped around
the gloriously inscrutable
problem inviting your attention and focus.

We may want it to be swish, but
the most real and meaningful things are more likely
full of lostness, incompetence, failure, and messiness
before the imperfect beautiful emerges.

We may think to put this off, but as
Oliver Burkeman suggests, there is a difference
between working towards sanity and “working from sanity”^^ –
The place and time is here and now.

*David Brooks’ The Second Mountain;
**Rebecca Solnit’s Cinderella Liberator;
^David Epstein’s Range;
^^Oliver Burkeman’s Meditation for Mortals.