That it is important to the future existence of the human race that we understand the importance of the individual and the reality that we are all different, all individuals all changing and all contributing to the “whole” as individuals, not as groups or products of “mass identity,” “anti-individual,” “stereotyped groups of human with the same goals, ideas and needs.”*
Keith Haring

Being a midwife is a cooperative enterprise. When some of us are tempted to call the journey off, others are there to remind them that we are al in the process of giving birth and that birth is hard, focused work.**
Mary Ruth Broz and Barbara Flynn

In the 1970s, when Keith Haring was making his journal entry, individualism for the masses was in its infancy. I’m sure his heart would have gladdened at seeing the breakthroughs in self-determination and diversity – for race, gender and women – I wonder if he’d lament the present endangerment of the “whole.”

The individual and the “whole” need to hold each other in creative tension in the face of the twin dangers of hyper-individualism and hyper-collectivism.

The latter may be just what John O’Donohue was imagining when he wrote:

The soul is never at home in the social world that we inhabit. It is too large for our contained, managed lives.^

There is something wonderful in all of us wanting to be born, but often subsumed to the normal and expected.

Mary Ruth Broz and Barbara Flynn, write not only for women but for all of us who would be midwives to one another of what is wanting to be born.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell spoke of our need two myths or stories for our lives: a personal myth and a social myth, or, as I hold these in two questions, Who is my True Self? and What is my Contribution?

*From Keith Haring’s Keith Haring Journals;
**From Mary Ruth Broz and Barbara Flynn’s Midwives of an Unnamed Future;
^From John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty.

The self is always under construction. The multiplicity of selves is what allows change.*
Peter Turchi

Find your own unique voice by studying the voices of the past (both distant and recent), and then moving beyond that into your own world. It will take time – there’s no way of forcing it; but I’m convinced it is the only road to greatness.**
Steven Isserlis

The illusion makes it possible for me to appear as somebody I am not, or for something to appear to be there that is not:

Whatever the details, that character is every magician’s first illusion.*

It promises to be the shortcut of shortcuts, except there is no way of speeding things up being me and what I hope to offer.

The journey, on the other hand, by its very nature takes longer. A unique voice requires us to look within and it needs its own language, but a language cannot develop overnight:

Beauty calls us beyond ourselves and it encourages us to engage the dream that dwells in the soul.^

This journey into our soul is the longest one of all.

Writing about a growing self-awareness movement, my friend Sam wonders whether we’re ready for it being the painful and difficult thing it is:

I’m not convinced there’s an awful lot of actual self-awareness taking place! True self-awareness cannot be captured in an Instagram quote. It’s not an opportunity to convey strength and growth via phoney vulnerability. … But how many of us are committed to that lifelong expedition of true self-discovery about ourselves.^^

So I will continue on my slow journey in the same direction so that in the slowness new things will come, a language will develop, and a voice will be found.

*From Peter Turchi’s A Muse and A Maze;
**From Steven Isserlis’ Robert Schumann’s Advice to Young Musicians;
^From John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty;
^^From Sam Bradford’s blog: The superficial self-awareness movement.

When someone shares a new idea, or makes a pitch, or describes a dream, what would happen if you were enthusiastic? … In this moment, your confidence and enthusiasm exist to make the idea better. No harm in that. For either of you*
Seth Godin

Master storytellers understand we need true satires and tragedies, dramas and comedies that shine a clean light into the dingy corners of the human psyche and society.**
Robert McKee

The dawn arrives each day to play a “yes and” game, inviting us to bring our light, too.

Here is the wonder of a new day: no matter how tragic or comedic or dramatic, every life has some light to bring.

Although this may not be how it feels to us, it may be that some rearrangement of all the things that fill our lives will make it possible for our light to shine out:

It’s not the sequence of the base-pairs, the genes, we ought to be mapping out, but the sequence of the stories that of to make up a life. … And who knows? Arrange them differently and you might get another life altogether.^

This catches my attention because of my dreamwhispering work which seeks to honour the wonder of living a different story with everything our lives contain.

The doodle and today’s title are prompted by Morecambe and Wise’s wonderful Christmas sketch with André Previn (aka Andrew Preview): enjoy.

*From Seth Godin’s blog: Cooperative enthusiasm;
**From Robert McKee’s newsletter: Why Every Story Needs Poetry;
^The character Axel in Jan Kjærstad’s The Seducer, quoted in Peter Turchi’s A Muse and A Maze.

I am a question-asker and a truth seeker. I do not have much in the way of status in my life, nor security. I have been on a quest, as it were, from the beginning.*
M. C. Richards

When people say to me that they are not creative, I assume that they just haven’t learnt what is involved.**
Ken Robinson

It’s not not that I didn’t want to be away for almost a week, filling these days with very different content to the usual, but I have missed certain things from my ordinary and everyday,

Here’s the question that formed:

When you have to alter your routine and the contents of your day, what do you miss most of all, and why?

*From M. C. Richards’ Centering;
**From Ken Robinson’s Out of Our Minds.

The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.*
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

May you enter your flow.

*From Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi‘s Flow.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.*
Joseph Campbell

*Joseph Campbell, from Anna Katharina Schaffner’s The Art of Self-Improvement.

The artist rarely says, “I’d like to do less.” Instead she wonders how to contribute more, because the very act of creativity is the point of the work.*
Seth Godin

Where you are the bottle of ink and the doodles are the things you must do.

*From Seth Godin’s blog: But what could you learn instead?

The royal road to self-improvement is … a form of perseverance that, far from being put off by failure, accepts it as essential.*
Anna Katharina Schaffner

*From Anna Katharina Schaffner’s The Art of Self-Improvement.

Intentional change is emotionally rigorous – it doesn’t exactly feel good and can even be shockingly painful. If you’re unwilling to put yourself through emotional experience, shift your perspective, and make purposeful changes to your behaviour and environment, then don’t expect huge changes (at least in the short run).*
Ben Hardy

*From Ben Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent.

For humility is … the only effective antidote to narcissism, and all its associated evils. It is, in essence, a readiness to admit to shortcomings coupled with a willingness to learn, be that from people, animals, plants, or even machines – whoever masters something we do not. The opportunities are infinite.*
Anna Katharina Schaffner

In this game, we only get one choice Once we are born we are players. The only choice we get is if we want to play with a finite mindset or an infinite mindset.**
Simon Sinek

We have the one choice at the beginning of each day.

If we decide to play infinitely, this will mean being open to and respecting others.

Humility is the way that not only allows me to see me, but also to see you.

*From Anna Katharina Schaffner’s The Art of Self-Improvement;
**From Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game.