Shift your mindset from hearing to listening, seeing passively to seeing intentionally, practise sharpening your five senses, and you will begin to feel a sense of fulfilment from contemplating things that may appear to be boring.*
Ryunosuke Koike

First, pay close, foolish, even absurd attention to things. Then allow their structure, form, and nature to set the limits for the experiences you derive from them. By refusing to ask what could be different, and instead allowing what is present to guide us, we create new space.**
Ian Bogost

Boredom is the enemy,
or so we think.
So we distract ourselves with our devices, and miss
the gift –
How boredom is an invitation to adventure,
To living fully in our senses and paying attention,
Noticing what we have missed,
The result of which is
endless exploration and connection.

*Ryunosuke Koike’s The Practice of Not Thinking;
**Ian Bogost’s Play With Anything.

Love is perhaps the most difficult task given us, the most extreme, the final proof and text, for which all other work is only preparation.*
Rainer Maria Rilke

John Lewis asked a “what if” question as a tool for social alchemy: what if the beloved community were already a reality, the true reality, and he simply had to embody it until everyone could see it.*
Krista Tippett

Love has everything to do with it.
Theory U envisages a journey from
I-in-me,
The self existing in the cocoon
in a small defensive world, to
I-in-it, in which we become open to new information, then
I-in-us, and we learn about each other, to
I-in-now, when we open to what is wanting to emerge,
The better society we know is wanting to exist:
The revolutionary force in this century
is the awakening of a deep generative human capacity –
the I-in-now.**
Karen Armstrong writes about how, millennia ago,
Humans began creating better stories:
The first great flowering of mythology…
came into being at a time when homo sapiens became home mecans,
“man the killer,”
and found it very difficult to accept
the conditions of his existence in a violent world.^
We speak of tolerance and respect, but
perhaps what we need a better story of love,
The most difficult task of all.

*Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise;
**Otto Scharmer’s Theory U;
^Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth.

The hunger will give you everything.  And it will take from you everything.  It will cost you your life and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.  But knowing this, of course, is what sets you free.*
Hugh Macleod

Problems don’t really care whether we acknowledge them or not. They still exist. What matters is how we choose to direct our energy, because our tomorrow is the direct result of the way we spend our resources today.**
Seth Godin

… but this one is;
We have to make sure we focus our energies
on the problem we are here to
make a difference
with:
Where our deepest joy meets
the world’s greatest need.^

*Hugh Macleod’s Evil Plans;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Choosing your problems;
^Acts of community service notwithstanding.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.*
Henry David Thoreau

If you keep telling people who they are, who their best selves are, if you keep reminding them of their true identity, there’s a good chance they’ll figure out what to do.
Rob Bell

It’s a staggering thought:
The mighty sequoia is contained within a tiny seed, just
waiting to germinate;
No less staggering is what lies within
you,
Waiting.

*Austin Kleon’s blog: What does a seed look like?;
**Rob Bell’s What is the Bible?

Without a name made in our mouths, an animal or place struggles to find purchase in our minds or our hearts.*
Tim Dee

Bring light to all that is overcast.**
Plotinus

Words help us understand
and enable us to share;
The words of others have been light for us,
So that we might not only see, but also
know, and we can
be light to others:
Words make worlds.^

*Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks;
**John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty;
^Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise.

I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.*
Oliver Wendell Holmes

Our life experience will equal what we pay attention to.**
William James

Some people lead simple lives,
not daring to enter its complexity;
Others enter into complexity and, becoming lost,
Become trapped or overwhelmed;
But some enter and, focusing on what gives them
energy and joy, emerge into a
life-in-all-its-fullness,
Their guide for entering complexity
and emerging
many more times,
Each time the richer.

*Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise;
**Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing.

Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.*
Mary Oliver

What we imagine to be aesthetic preferences are really survival instincts honed over millennia, instincts that helped us find promising place to forage and rest.**
Annie Murphy Paul

It is likely that whilst you read this,
You are surrounded by the harsh, straight lines or
perfect circles
of human inventions.
Beyond our walls, another world calls to us;
Listen to it in birdsong,
Here and here.
Contact with the natural world releases
oxytocins in us, reducing anxiety, yet
we must also recognise that we have adapted too well
to unnatural surroundings, even
leaving some people over-anxious when in nature; as
Viktor Frankl has pointed out:
he retains a freedom,
the human freedom to adapt to his fate,
his environment,
in one way or another^.
We can do this life, but
it’s better with some deep nature in it.

*Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing;
**Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind;
^Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life.

Each of the projects described in this book has at its centre something drawn by hand.*
Quentin Blake

A positive thing that can come from anxiety is that it can be a sign that some things in your life, and in you, are out of alignment and need addressing.**
Kate Sutton

Quentin Blake’s words form the opening sentence
in the third book I’ve picked up from the illustrator
so far this year –
If you’ve ever read one of Roald Dahl’s tales then
you’ll know Blake’s work.
“Something drawn by hand”
feels like a very healthy thing to do,
Proffering a joining of our inside and outside worlds
when the rush and noise of 21st century life
refuses us rest and reflection.
I’d also picked up a copy of
Kate Sutton’s Drawing on Anxiety, a journal
in which Sutton encourages drawing in a mindful way:
Drawing calls for us to be more present,
it allows the flow state, and to fully focus on the
task at hand, which can be ever so soothing.**
Here are some some of her examples: draw
the things you find yourself doing when
unhappy and anxious, and
the things that make you feel calm, draw
the things you hold tightly on to, and
the things you would do if you weren’t afraid.
Draw nature taking on a city, the
things that help you sleep better, the
things that help you in the morning, draw
your inner critic, and
some things your body has told you.
This assumes that
everyone can draw –
And we can –
It’s just that many of us gave up at
a very early age; Lynda Barry asks:
How old do you have to be
to make a bad drawing?^
How old were you?
We wrongly think that some can draw whilst
most cannot, but
drawing is more about seeing than drawing,
Being present, paying attention, being led into
a larger world.
Don’t draw complicated,
Draw simple (I call it doodling) –
I love Blake’s images because they are uncomplicated, yet
full of life.
Here’re are a couple of things to be playful with:
Take a number of objects out of your cutlery drawer and
draw them as simply as possible;
Search for “images of Quentin Blake” on your browser,
Choose some images you really like and simply copy them.
Now to find some words:
Before writing and drawing were separated
they were conjoined.^
I enjoy illustrating life with doodles and words –
Even taking unhelpful thoughts and feelings, and
doing something different with them, something more, so
here’s a third thing to try:
Re-member an unhelpful thought –
This’ll never work,
You’re rubbish at this,
What a mess you’ve made,
You don’t belong here;
The internal critic is trying to protect us, but
in a really unhelpful way,
So we’re going to provide some help by
inserting a word
(or replacing negative words like “never” and “don’t”) from
the following list:^^
(Self) Awarely
Bravely
Confidently
Determinedly
Energetically
Fearlessly
Gratefully
Helpfully
Imaginatively
Joyfully
Kindly
Limitlessly
Motivationally
Nobly
Perseveringly
Quirkily
Respectfully
Strongly
Thoughtfully
Uniquely
Vibrantly
Worthily
eXeptionally
Youthfully
Zealously.
When we play with our sample thoughts, they become:
This’ll work vibrantly,
You’re fearlessly rubbish at this,
What a thoughtful mess you’ve made,
You bravely belong here.
Create a picture to go with your sentence – perhaps
something a la Blake, and maybe
add a little colour, too.
Notice what happens as you do this, as
you playfully and imaginatively
illustrate your life.

*Quentin Blake’s Beyond the Page;
**Kate Sutton’s Drawing on Anxiety;
^Lynda Barry’s Making Comics;
^^Borrowed from Mourad Diouri’s I am ….