About nobility, I cannot be sure that the decline not to say the disappearance of nobility is anything more a maladjustment between the imagination and reality. We have been a little insane about the truth. We have had an obsession with… It is not only that imagination adheres to reality, but also that reality adheres to imagination and that interdependence is essential.*
Wallace Stevens

most of life is spent in the deception phase**
Dorie Clark

We are in trouble when we separate truth
and imagination, when we separate reality
and playfulness – one without the other
leads us into error.

May life deepen here:
Bring imagination and play to
who you are and
what you have.

*Wallace Stevens’ The Necessary Angel;
**Dorie Clark’s The Long Game.

Surprise causes finite play to end; it is the reason for infinite play to continue.*
James Carse

*James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

You can be in a heads-up mode, looking for new opportunities, or you can be in a heads-down mode, just executing and focusing.*
Jared Kleinart

Like a child going out to play, creativity leaves reason at home and saddles up free association for long galloping rides.**
Robert McKee

Being focused and getting on with things is
useful until it isn’t, when it no longer works,
What then? –
It’s your job to have some fun and find something that will.

If the phone won’t ring, make the call
If the mountain won’t move, shift it
If the birds won’t sing, sing to them all
And if the sun won’t rise, lift it^

*Dorie Clark’s The Long Game;
**Robert McKee’s Character;
*Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in.

This is the essence of the artistic process. When we’re in liminal space between now and what is about to come, we’re fully alive.*
Seth Godin

When one goes to the forest, one seeks mokșa, or release. Now, this word is often translated as “freedom.” That is not what it means. It means release from ego itself.**
Joseph Campbell

It is possible to move directly from where you are
to where you want to be, but look closer and you will see
there exists a space between here and there, and to
enter and explore is to uncover more possibilities –
Not only the things you can do, but also
the person you can be;
These liminal spaces are all around you:
To enter and explore, or to pass and keep going is always
a choice.

You have two essential tasks in life: to be a good person and to pursue the occupation that you love. Everything else is a waste of energy and a squandering of your potential.^

*Seth Godin’s blog: The next one;
**Joseph Campbell’s Pathways to Bliss;
^Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

When you lead without compensation, sacrifice without guarantees, when you take risks because you believe, then you are demonstrating your faith in the tribe and its mission.*
Seth Godin

*Seth Godin’s Tribes.

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

*gapingvoid’s blog: Take something ordinary and elevate it.

The most important thing is to
find the people who need and who will
value what you have to give.

While finite games are externally defined, infinite games are internally defined.  The time of an infinite game is not world-time, but the time created within the play itself.  Since each play of an infinite game eliminates boundaries it opens to players as new horizon of time.*
James Carse

*James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

What we have above what we can use is not properly ours, tho’ we possess it.*
Benjamin Franklin

Nature bids us do well by all. … Wherever there is a human being, we have an opportunity for kindness.**
Seneca

Hands up if you’ve read James Joyce‘s Ulysses? –
(My hand stayed down);
Who’s heard this line:
“What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own”? –
Which comes from Ulysses;
Dare we take a look at what we have and announce
What’s mine is yours? –
Time, talents, kindness, concern, love:
Beware, adventures at hand.

*Lewis Hyde’s Common As Air;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

The same story can be told in many ways, and the way we tell it changes who we are and what we become.*
Seth Godin

Stories that tell what you almost did aren’t good stories. Because almost doing the thing isn’t very close to having actually done it. They’re worlds apart. We like the stories where you did the thing.**
Gabe Anderson

You don’t have long, so if you want to rewrite your story
the good news is you already have plenty of material to work with:
Talents and abilities, energies and passions,
Values and dreams – lay everything out, then
imagine, feel, but, most importantly,
Give expression.^

*Seth Godin’s blog: Your autobiography;
**Gabe Anderson’s blog: Almost Stories;
^And if I can help, get in touch..