Being present demands all of us.  It’s not nothing.  It may be the hardest thing in the world.*
Ryan Holiday

*Ryan Holiday’s Stillness is the Key.

The “adjacent positive” is theoretical biologist Stuart Kauffman’s wonderful term for all the myriad paths unlocked by every novel discovery, the multitude of universes hidden in something as simple as an idea.*
Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler

*Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler’s Bold.

The three postgrad students were hoping to find
the mindful journaling session,
But it wasn’t happening where the
freshers app said,
So we created our own session,
And this phrase,
Hope fights for me,
Was what it came to me
out of the mindful doodling we included.
Hope isn’t waiting for something to happen,
Or not;
It’s actively working towards
an anticipated future possibility.

The future is dynamic, active, interconnected.  For some reason many of us would rather know the future than create it.*
Erwin McManus

*Erwin McManus’ Uprising.

WE HAVE AN ADVANTAGE: we care more.*
Seth Godin

*Seth Godin’s blog: The unfair advantage.

In life one cannot awaken often enough the sense of a beginning within oneself. There is so little external change needed for that since we actually transform the world from within our hearts. If the heart longs for nothing but to be new and unlimited, the world is instantly the same as on the day of its creation and infinite.**
Rainer Maria Rilke

It’s simple logic: if you don’t walk your true path, you don’t find your true people.^
Martha Beck

I love recommending books
(And I have some books to give away
as a thank you to those who have signed up to
Thin|Silence –
More information below).
The trouble is that I don’t read one book at a time,
And the things I’m appreciating
and taking away from the reading
are the cumulative affect of quite few authors
who are helping me keep on my path.
Indeed the path seems to be
punctuated
by the next book or books.
Yesterday,
I read Austin Kleon’s description of his own
reading methodology:

Looking back, one of the things that occurs to me is how my deep influences are not necessarily a matter of a single book, but of a cluster of books – some batch of books that were read in sequence or simultaneously that spoke to each other in a particular way that made a maximum impact.^^

In my own practice,
I identify a main read –
At the moment it’s Dorie Clark’s The Long Game –
And aim to get through twenty pages each day,
Capturing significant quotes in my journaling.
Around this, I hope to turn a page in several other books,
And am often surprised by overlapping or
juxtaposing thoughts.
I add some reading of blogs –
My “blog tribe” is growing
and at the moment I have more than
300
blogs to slowly make my way through.
A different mix of books and blogs produces different thoughts
that I need because
they help me to change my heart and
keep me on my
path.

(I’ve had to make space for my latest books
so I am giving away around
20 books.
The titles will appear in my blog posts over the next week,
Including how to request one
or a cluster.)

*Jesus asking a question of a religious lawyer: Luke 10:25-28;
**Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters on Life;
^Martha Becks’s The Way of Integrity;
^^Austin Kleon’s blog: A cluster map of books.

I cannot find any patience for those people who believe that you start writing when you sit down at your desk and pick up your pen and finish writing when you put down your pen again; a writer is always writing, seeing everything through a thin mist of words, fitting swift little descriptions to everything he sees, always noticing.  Just as I believe that a painter cannot sit down to his morning coffee without noticing what colour it is, so a writer cannot see an odd little gesture without putting a verbal description to it, and ought never to let a moment go by undescribed.*
Shirley Jackson

those who produced and traded in colours were known as colourmen, and procured rare pigments from across the globe**
Kassia St Clair

On reading Kassia St Clair’s words a year ago
I journaled,
I think I would like to be a colourman
bringing out the colours in people’s lives.
It’s not only writers and painters
who are
“always on,”
Their particular “light” highlighting everything they encounter
in their essential way,
Take a closer look at yourself –
Inside as well as outside^ –
And you will most likely
spot your dominant light.
There I go again,
The colourman,
Wanting to help you notice your
palette.

*Austin Kleon’s blog: Homework every night for the rest of your life;
**Kassia St Clair’s The Secret Lives of Colour;
^The colour of an object is the colour from the light spectrum it will not absorb and so is the colour it is not.

We call this, “landing the idea.”  Once your idea is out of your head and onto a piece of paper (we prefer paper to pixels on a screen), you can have a proper look at it and get to work on it.
Martin Amor and Alex Pellew

An idea is a form of presence –
Something that could happen with
commitment and investment. 
For this,
Ideas need space –
To be able to move from the mind
to the heart
and onwards into action.
I know this full well because,
This morning,
I was seduced by emails and
setting up meetings,
Bread and circus being replaced by
dopamine and serotonin these days.
As Hugh Macleod has noticed,

Good ideas have lonely childhoods.^

And Captains Kirk, Picard and Archer may well be right,
Though with a little twist from Baines:
Space to explore in,
Rather than exploring space,
Could well be a redefining frontier for us.

*The Star Trek introduction;
**Martin Amor and Alex Pellew’s The Idea In You;
^gapingvoid’s blog: Good ideas have lonely childhoods 2017.

you open an old can of pork and beans and found a genie inside who said – Boy, it is great to be out of that can!! Thank you! In return I would like to release you from your can.*
Lynda Barry

A new colour on a box doesn’t revolutionise anything, and it won’t last. But it’s easy, and it might marginally improve outcomes right now.**
Dorie Clark

I’ve heard the phrase “half a decade” used several times
over the last couple of days,
identifying a significant period of time.
After all,
It’s 50% of a decade,
And ten years does gets to have its own special name!
A decade is also identified as being
Equivalent to 10,000 hours of
deliberate practice,
So,
If my maths are right,
There could be 5,000 hours of deliberate practice wrapped up in five years.
That makes for a lot of change,
Though change is never easy,
And tends to be time-consuming,
So adding a different colour
to the can or to the box we find ourselves in
is way more easy,
Even attractive,
Until we realise that it leaves us
right where we are.
Seth Godin writes,

The same life story can be told i many ways, and the way we tell it changes who we are and who we become.^

Inside each of your lives
there are many adjacent possibilities
to explore.

Following our curiosity
into interest
and then into passion,
And pursuing this for the next five years –
Because life is a long game –
Is not guaranteed to lead to fame or fortune,
Or even a living,
But may well leave us feeling utterly alive.

*Lynda Barry’s What It Is;
**Dorie Clark’s The Long Game;
^Seth Godin’s blog: Your autobiography.

the very traits that steer us toward certain life situations are the very same traits that those situations encourage, reinforce, and amplify*
Angela Duckworth

God … will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.**
The Apostle Peter

Although Angela Duckworth doesn’t use the term,
She is describing what I refer to as an enriching environment.
My enriching environments will be different to yours
and yours to mine,
But we will know them because of how they
encourage, reinforce and amplify
the best in us,
Whilst also making it possible to
encourage, reinforce and amplify the environments,
Especially for the sake of others:

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

Duckworth’s insight is anticipated in the words of the apostle Peter,
Which I came across this morning.
You don’t have to believe in a god to see
the value of having places in which you can be
restored and supported and strengthened,
Leading to the kind of establishment that is not about
fixedness,
But is about health and growth.

*Angela Duckworth’s Grit;
**1 Peter 5:10-11;
^gapingvoid’s blog: Take something ordinary and elevate it.