We are the ones who must answer, must give answers to the constant ‘life questions.’ Living itself means nothing other than being questioned; our whole act of being is nothing more than responding to – being responsible towards – life.*
Viktor Frankl

Now all that is needed is more. More time. More cycles, more bravery. Much more of you. More idiosyncrisity, more genre, more seeing, more generosity. More learning. It’s not working. (Yet.)**
Seth Godin

Life asks,
Who are you?,
What will you bring? –
Every day a new opportunity
to respond deeper
than the day before.

*Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life;
**Seth Godin’s The Practice.

Two things: everything depends on the individual human being, regardless of how small a number of like-minded people there are, and everything depends on each person, through action and not mere words, creatively making the meaning of life a reality in his or her own being.*
Viktor Frankl

Longing is momentum is disguise: it’s active, not passive; touched with the creative, the tender, and the divine.**
Susan Cain

Do not wait for others,
Look within;
That which has been stirring within you
is already breathing, it only wants to
play.

*Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life;
**Maria Popova’s The Marginalian blog: The Power of the Bittersweet.

Powerful moments of awe, can help reconnect us to our values, remind is of what truly matters, and out our lives into a great cosmic perspective.*
Jonah Paquette

It doesn’t sound all that attractive, to be encumbered, and yet these things that constrain us (nature, family, convictions) are not things we can easily dispose of, either, and in fact, accepting the limitations they bring can lay the foundation for freedoms unavailable without them.**
Lewis Hyde

Yes, you and I,
We are limited beings,
But that’s the wonder of
this life of clay –
We can add some awe and
see what happens.

*Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck;
**Lewis Hyde’s Common As Air.

Curation is the ultimate way of transforming noise into meaning.*
Rohit Bhargava

I grow in these moments like corn in the night: this is not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realise what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of words … if the birds and flowers should try me by their standard, I would not be found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself.**
Henry David Thoreau

I cannot include everything,
You will involve things I do not –
Together, a larger picture of all things –
Then, for this single life,
I must select what is most
precious and meaningful to me –
Even as you choose what is
invaluable to you –
Arranging these into a story
I might enhance daily, whilst you
increase yours.

Towards this,
Time to reflect and ponder –
Perhaps in silence, perhaps in
journal –
Is never wasted time.

*Rohit Bhargava’s Non Obvious 2019;
**Nicholas Bone’s adaptation of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.

awe truly is all around us, if only we take the time to look*
Jonah Paquette

As well as opening doors, the children made dens: the doors allowing access and adventure, the dens permitting retreat and shelter.**
Robert Macfarlane

As we grow older,
May we not neglect the doors to
wander, to
wonder, to
adventure:
Where does your mind go
when it wanders?
My friend Jason
points out that this might be
where your heart is.^

*Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck;
**Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks; of children playing in woods;
^Seth Godin’s blog: Where does your mind go when it wanders?

With each close friend, relative, or lover, a character evolves a version of himself that he could not bring out all on his own.*
Robert McKee

No one sees reality. It’s worth repeating: No one actually sees the world as it is.**
Seth Godin

We only become who we are capable
of becoming
through others,
Especially those who are
different to us –
All the people we read or
listen to or
converse with around the things that
concern and matter to us,
And especially those
interactions around things
we hadn’t even thought about and that
matter to them.

Openness is key to creativity –
Something we know we’ll need plenty of if we are to
save our world,
Or be saved by the world –
And the good news is that for the most part
openness is free;
The bad news is that it is becoming more scarce
as we compartmentalise society and
digitalise our lives –
I love tech, but have to acknowledge
we are losing contact with
nature and humanity and
the whole news, as well as reading
longer texts and handwriting as
a reflective tool and enjoying
silence …

Creativity is the practice of keeping an open mind –
and the thing about maintaining a practice is,
well,
you need to keep practising.^

*Robert McKee’s Character;
**Seth Godin’s blog: The world as it is;
^gapingvoid’s blog: Chase down your dreams.

Need: an empty inner space, a potential that craves realisation. At the inciting incident, the writer recognises an incompleteness in her protagonist … She therefore needs to complete her humanity.*
Robert McKee

won’t you celebrate with me
what i have shaped into
kind of life? i had no model …
i made it up
here on this bridge between
starshine and clay**
Lucille Clifton

As well as desire, there is also
need – the journey finding us
wanting;
Our urge is to shrink back,
Protecting what we have, but,
We can embrace our want, and
if we do, then
there can be what can only be called
transfiguration.

*Robert McKee’s Character;
**Maria Popova’s Figuring.

The ego is you as you think of yourself. You in relation to all the commitments of your life, as you’ve understood them. The self is the whole range of possibilities that you’ve never even thought of. And you’re stuck with your past when your stuck with your ego.*
Joseph Campbell

We need to have more specialists in spirit who will lead people into self discovery. … We are being called into metamorphosis into a far higher order, and yet we often act only from a tiny portion of ourselves.**
Mr Tayer

The ego misses the possible,
Either because it believes it’s above
the possibility, or it isn’t
good enough;
The humble self that is
Mr Tayer, full of
awe and wonder, knows that
we have no idea what we
are truly capable of, and
opens to discovery.

Check out yesterday’s blog for
a place to begin exploring.

*Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey;
**Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life.

All he wants to do is draw. He is, thank goodness, unstoppable.*
Jenny Uglow

Desire: a character’s persistent purpose, her unreached goal. Throughout a story’s telling, as the protagonist struggles to put her life back in balance, she pursues her object of desire as far as her emotional and mental powers can reach.**
Robert McKee

All I want to do is dreamwhisper and
doodle –
That about sums it up;
How about you?

I may be able to help you answer this question
with some dreamwhispering, maybe even
some doodling.

I shared recently that I have some places available for early 2024 –
I only work with a few people at a time, on
a one-to-one basis,
And I am now developing this as part of a simple gift economy –
Something I have been pondering for a while now^ –
And it doesn’t matter where you are in the world.

You will identify, or be affirmed in, all of the most important
elements for creating your unfolding story that is about
your truest self and the contribution you want to bring
to others.

Instead of working on the new year’s resolutions,
You could uncover an amazing story:
Just drop me a line to find out more:
geoffreybaines@gmail.com.

*Jenny Uglow’s The Quentin Blake Book, speaking of Blake;
**Robert McKee’s Character;
^If this is for you then I can share more about how this works when you contact me.

Life-as-Fate: If your character looks backward, rarely forward, she may feel trapped in a fate not her own. … Life-as-Destiny: If your character looks forward, rarely backward, she lives life on her own terms, freely choosing her own path.*
Robert McKee

Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success.**
Ernest Shackleton

Allegedly, Ernest Shackleton printed
this ad in a newspaper, and had more than
five thousand applicants;
Perhaps a desire on their part to
move out of the soul-numbing into
the life-tingling,
To move themselves out of fate and
into destiny:
To prove they were alive.

This desire to pursue destiny is strong
within each of us, and one place
to begin – not thousands of miles away –
Is within,
Entered through quietness and attention:
In that special silence,
you get a strong sense of something
that wants to happen that you would be
unaware of otherwise.^

When Darth Vader delivered the line on destiny
to his son, he had got it wrong,
He was talking about fate, but Luke chose
destiny.

*Robert McKee’s Character;
**Maria Popova’s Figuring;
^Joseph Jaworski, from Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer, Jospeh Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers’ Presence.