Our negativity bias is part of why we often overlook moments of awe – our brain is so busy trying to help us survive that it overlooks potential sources of awe.*
Jonah Paquette

Inspiration far more often comes during the work than before it, because the largest part of the job of the artist is to listen to the work and to go where it tell him to go.**
Madeleine L’Engle

I wonder if the driver who swerved out and
overtook me at speed on Saturday morning
in their white Range Rover Evoque
happened to notice the dawn sky, big
and painted extravagantly
in oranges and salmons and turquoises and golds and reds and lilacs and purples?
Yet, I know I can miss
what’s all around me in way of possibilities and opportunities
because I am so focused on the task in hand
or the difficulties and problems,
Like getting old and
running out of time, but,
If I lift my head up,
And the game isn’t over yet.

*Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck;
**Madeliene L’Engle’s Walking on Water.

When in doubt, go outside.  Especially when it’s inconvenient.*
Seth Godin

*Seth Godin’s blog: Go outside;
**This is a one line doodle; why not create your own – one line from beginning to end, no lifting the pen off the paper.

Explorers were always lost because they had never been to places before.  They never expected to know where they were.*
Aaron Sachs*

*Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost.

Time does not pass for the infinite player. Each moment of time is a beginning of a period of time. It is the beginning of an event that gives the time within its specific quality.*
James Carse

Enough comes from the inside.**
Ryan Holiday

A conversation is not
fast talk;
We cannot have a conversation in a hurry,
We can throw words at each other quickly,
Or chat, or
have a word with someone,
But a conversation,
created by at least two people, requires
time if it is to be co-created by
equals, regardless of titles, age or seniority.
Beyond sharing information, ideas, facts and opinions,
Conversation is fed by at least two people
sharing the contents of their enoughness, being
increasingly open to surprise and to
the possibility of beginning something new together that had not been
in anyone’s mind before.

*James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games;
**Ryan Holiday’s Stillness is the Key.

Surprise is the great enabler of seeing.*
Alan Jacobs

We care most about the things we have struggled to understand.**
Leon Festinger

It is possible to educate ourselves
for surprise,
according to “infinite player” James Carse;
The opposite is to train ourselves
against surprise:
Surprise causes finite play to end;
it is the reason for infinite play to continue.^
The infinite player
plays to be transformed by surprise.
And not only to be transformed but also
to be transformative.
To be open to surprise,
To see and to understand, is
to become powerful, or strong
as Carse names it:
Power is finite in amount.
Strength cannot be measured,
because it is an opening and not a closing act. …
Power will always be restricted to a relatively small number of selected persons.
Anyone can be strong.^
Power desires to get more,
Strength longs to give more.

*Alan Jacob‘s newsletter: Architectural Thoughts;
**Richard Sennett’s Building and Dwelling:
^James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

Each of us is an amalgam of all we have loved and lost and learned, our personal successes and failures, our particular regrets, and our singular joys – and part of that uniqueness is that we think in different ways. Not all of our thinking is right or fully formed, far from it, but there it is, regardless – that flawed and terrifying uniqueness of thought.*
Nick Cave

what we practice, we become**
Krista Tippett

Just go back to the You you were
ten years ago.
Back then, you never imagined yourself
becoming who you are today, doing
what you are doing, thinking
how you are thinking, having
learned and imagined and begun
new things.
And today, you can’t imagine the You you’ll be
ten years from now,
But what an adventure you are going to have.

*Nick Cave’s blog: The Red Hand Files #197;
**Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise.

As a general proposition, people move through a space and dwell in a place.*
Richard Sennett

I don’t wait for inspiration, I’m to, in fact, quite sure what inspiration is, but I’m sure that if it’s going to turn up, my having started work is a precondition of its arrival.**
Quentin Blake

Dwelling primes moving,
moving informs dwelling.
So,
I wondered,
Where do you dwell?
How do you move?

*Richard Sennett’s Building and Dwelling;
**Quentin Blake’s Words and Pictures.

Good process leads to good outcomes.*
Seth Godin

What happens because of what happens next?**
Alex McManus

It should be processes –
As I think about it,
I have several that combine into
a larger one for the day.
The good thing about a process is that
we will not get lost
easily, but
when we do get lost then
we can find our way back.
I’ve been glad of this for a somewhat
disruptive beginning to the day.
It’s always worthwhile noticing and
honing our processes.

*Seth Godin’s The Practice;
**Alex McManus’ Makers of Fire.

In terms of character traits, … studies have found that awe is correlated to traits like gratefulness, a love of learning, creativity, and appreciation for beauty.**
Jonah Paquette

And now to the question of the meaning of our imperfections and of our particular imbalances: let us not forget that each individual person is imperfect, but each is imperfect in a different way, each ‘in his own way’. And imperfect as he is, he is uniquely imperfect. So, expressed in a positive way, he becomes somehow irreplaceable, unable to be represented by anyone else, unexchangeable.^
Viktor Frankl

I have to wonder what will result from
our unique imperfection meeting
our gratefulness and
awe.
Any ideas?

*Nina Simone’s soundtrack for today;
**Jonah Paquette’s Awestruck;
^Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life.

The slide towards average sands off all interesting edges, destroying energy, interest and possibility.*
Seth Godin

human motivation is actually based on a timescale that is long, sometimes even longer than our lifetime**
Dan Ariely

Options appear when we
embrace the inconvenient life –
More exercise, more
learning, more
experimenting, more
failures, more
time, more
journaling, more
reading, more
reflection, more
conversations, more
… –
Never less.

*Seth Godin’s The Practice;
**Dan Ariely’s Payoff.