Life on its own, without art to shape it, leaves you in confusion and chaos, but well-told stories have the power to harmonise what you know with what you feel. Story is a vehicle that carries us on our search for reality, our best effort to make sense out of the anarchy of existence.*
Robert McKee

I want to facilitate, in some small way, a mutual journey toward meaning; to decrease the dimensions of our emptiness and draw us closer to love and to beauty … This common project – to improve matters – is available to all of us, at every moment, and in a multitude of ways, and exists in the smallest kindness, the most rudimentary act of tolerance, or in the simplest generosity.**
Nick Cave

We are all artists with some
good contribution to bring into the world, to make things better,
Often in some small, but critical way, but then the
resistance appears, sometimes
lasting for years;
This is when our alter ego comes to our assistance.

Think of it as simply being the name we give to
all our values, energies, and talents –
This may sound like we’re playing at it, and we’re right,
But not in the way we think because
play helps to set free the heroic and artistic self trapped within
our fears and doubts:
And here’s a reminder that
playfulness doesn’t stop at eight years of age;
it’s a pathway to handling life with
more grace.^

*Robert McKee’s newsletter: The Power of Story;
**Nick Cave’s The Red Hand File’s blog: #200;
^Todd Herman’s The Alter Ego Effect.

“Interest” comes from the Latin “interesse,” that is “to be in-between.” If I am interested, I must transcend my ego, to be open to the world, and jump to it: interest is based on activeness.*
Erich Fromm

The journey through the rolling countryside of north Norfolk always feels to me like crossing over into another land, another state of mind.**
Roger Deakin

Perhaps you’ve noticed –
Though understandable if you haven’t – how,
When you are interested in something,
You forget yourself, moving beyond
the ego of who you are or want to be, finding yourself in a place of
wonderment and inquiry,
Active towards something or someone;
Here is a larger world we all have an opening to that we may
grow larger still –
When we notice the actions of interest,
We are able to replicate them:
Be curious and ask questions,
Observe the smaller details that others miss,
Demonstrate fickleness – so as not to become static and fixated,
Be slowly thoughtful to enable multiple viewpoints,
Bring an elegant flourish of imagination and creativity.^

Discipline … is both predictive and deterministic. It makes it more likely you’ll be successful and it ensures, success or failure, you are great. The converse is also true: a lack of discipline puts you in danger, it also colours who and what you are.^^

*Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope;
**Roger Deakin’s Waterlog;
^These are five habits that I’ve borrowed from Rohit Bhargava’s Non Obvious 2019 – there are others that are similar;
^^Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny.

Beginning again and again is the actual practice, not a problem to overcome so that one day we can come to the “real” meditation.*
Sharon Salzburg

This will turn out to be the greatest gift we can offer another person: letting them see, every so often, beneath all the trappings and pretence to the truth of us.**
Anne Lamott

I have been writing myself into the day since 1998;
I’ve worked on and adapted the practice over the years, but basically,
I seek to meet both my truth and my possibility at the
beginning of the day – with the help of others
who come to me in a pile of books and online contributions.

It all began when I was in a mess and heard
someone tell their story about how they started to
write themself into the day – a little later the same day
I sat down and wrote my first journal entry, and
I have kept writing ever since, and, more recently,
have followed this with some thin silence blogging that
I hope will be of help to someone else to
keep beginning again.

*Dan Harris’ 10% Happier;
**Anne Lamott’s Dusk Night Dawn.

I once read a report that when asked, people guessed they had eighty percent control of their days – schedules, delays, changes, meetings, traffic, reception, et cetera, but that in reality, it was only three to seven percent.*
Anne Lamott

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all.**
Rumi

It’s the fourth elemental truth:
You are not in control,
But I wish I was –
Yet to notice what is going on inside of me
is half of the battle with my ego – who really wants to be
left unnoticed and get on with things –
Yet freedom begins when I take a moment to notice,
As Erich Fromm puts it:
leaving the prison of one’s ego and
achieving the freedom of openness to the world;^
The ego is a finite player, but
the Self is an infinite player.

*Anne Lamott’s Dusk Night Dawn;
** From Rumi’s The Guest House, William Seighart’s The Poetry Pharmacy;
^Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope.

It is happening right now, at this very moment.  Softly repeat the word present.*
David Rome

*David Rome’s Your Body Knows the Answer.

Other than death, there is no finish line or retirement for the creative person.*
Austin Kleon

Everyone knows that Superman and Clark Kent are the same. But which one is the alter ego?**
Todd Herman

And everyone is creative, although
it may not be the work that they we get paid for, meaning that
it’s important to identify our creativity –
our super-work where we find our imagination and innovation and making are
most energised and persevering through the failures that become half the fun.

I’m looking forward to reading high performance coach Todd Herman’s book
about the alter ego, and,
Whilst not wanting to give anything away, I think that
we can share the answer to his question:
Clark Kent is Superman’s alter ego;
Now that’s an interesting twist, meaning
Geoffrey Baines is my alter ego, and so,
Who am I really?

Wrap a story or narrative around this and you have
a purpose that you cannot retire from anytime soon –
It’s why I’ve created dreamwhispering.

*Austin Kleon’s blog: There is no finish line;
**Todd Herman’s The Alter Ego Effect.

A humble mindset has significant effects on the cognitive, interpersonal, and decision making skills. Humble people are better learners and problem solvers … Humility is also the only effective antidote to narcissism.*
Anna Katharina Schaffner

Becoming psychologically flexible is key to personal transformation, not overattaching to your current identity or perspectives. Becoming insatiably committed to a future purpose and embracing emotions rather than avoiding them is how radical change occurs.**
Ben Hardy

Here I am,
Banging on about humility again –
It really is an attribute that meets many needs:
Feeling bad about self – humility,
Worried what others think about you – humility,
Needing to see more around you – humility,
Wanting to learn more – humility
Be open to more ideas – humility,
See new possibilities – humility,
Experience more awe and wonder – humility,
Connect more with people – humility,
Be willing to experiment and try different things – humility,
Wanting to change self and direction – humility,
The power to keep going – humility …
Free and available to all to develop.

*Anna Katharina Schaffner’s The Art of Self Improvement;
**Ben Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent.

Listen to what your life calls you to do.*
Otto Scharmer

*Otto Scharmer’s Theory U.

We have a choice whether we wish to continue with evolution on this planet or not. I vote “yes.”*
Keith Haring

People evolve before organisations do.**

The possibility of a human being
evolving across their lifetime is a
staggering notion, and we have far more
agency towards this than we imagine;
I’m not thinking of what we might simply do that
looks different, but how
we lock the important changes into our DNA,
And I cannot think of better places to begin than
humility – which is to know and respect our Self and others
more deeply, then
gratitude – to notice and be grateful for all that
fills and touches our lives, and
faithfulness – to daily find new ways of expressing
who we are and what we have.

*Keith Haring’s Keith Haring Journals;
**Source lost but it could be gapingvoid’s blog or Seth Godin.

Often, without knowing it, we are waiting for a new idea to come along and cut us free from our entanglement.*
John O’Donohue

Prime is the time we establish ourselves in the world on individual, equal terms. Once we have contact again with an essence and a sense of accomplishment, then we can offer ourselves to others for conversation in a new way.**
David Whyte

We are not plants or some
higher form of animal intelligence,
Blame consciousness but life is more
complex for us;
We have to find different ways of dealing with
reality, and have often found this in
ideas and imagination, so,
When we feel
trapped
dead-ended
pointless
hopeless
restricted
dark-minded
repressed
oppressed
clueless
directionless,
Here are five of the best areas for exploration – these from medieval times:
Being as the deepest reality of all things,
The Oneness of all things in unity despite all difference,
The True found in reality and experience,
The Good as the soul of the world, and the
Beautiful as human inspiration and passion.*

In the morning, in my prime time, the things
I’m reading often offer up many of these in thoughts and
experiences and possibilities,
Disentangling me from most things that
hold me fast.

*John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty;
**David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea.