If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.* Carl Sagan
It’s unlikely anything we build is going to built from scratch. But with time and focus, we can find leverage to alter systems we care about.* Seth Godin
“If I only had more resources, I could make something amazing,” “I want to make/do something no one else has thought of” – Possibility requires that we get imaginative with what we have got, With what others have left for us, and it’s likely that someone else had the same idea as you but didn’t bother to begin – but you can.
You write a line that requires the future to reveal its meaning.* Nick Cave
If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.** Lilla Watson
Repeating yesterday is always an option – and so is provoking the future to reveal itself as something different, hopeful, better, and beginning to build it; Through our powers, energies, and values, We each know how to do this, Connect to these and we become future-makers, but better still is bringing our perspectives together, the more diverse the merrier^ – Even to connect in this way is to begin creating.
This is what we need more of. Determined, caring, creative people building things that take a while.^^
Another way to try to discern your destiny – your myth – would be to follow [Carl] Jung‘s example: observe your dreams, observe your conscious choice, keep a journal, and see which images surface and resurface. Look at stories and symbols and see which ones resonate.* Joseph Campbell
To know her well, you would need to know her identity – you would need to know what it is about her life that provides her with meaning, unity, and purpose … It is story. To know my wife well, you have to know her life story.** Dan McAdams
In the United States in 1948,^ followed by the UK in 1955, This Is Your Life began to map the lives of guest celebrities from different walks of life for their audiences; The franchises have long since gone, but we haven’t missed the opportunity to hear our own story.
It’s unlikely that the original participants heard anything to surprise them, but our own stories can do exactly this when we focus on their meaning, unity, and purpose; In my work with people concerning these dimensions of their lives, I may be an audience of one, thrilled by all that emerges, but the real audience is made up of those these dreamwhisperers^^ will come to serve: the good life story is one of the most important gifts we can ever offer each other.**
*Joseph Campbell’s Pathways to Bliss; **Dan McAdams’ The Stories We Live By; ^Firstly on radio; ^^My name for those I work with on their dreams, listening to the whispers of their lives.
The first thing I learned is that what a seed looks like depends on what it does to survive.* Austin Kleon
Our self-understanding has a thoroughly narrative character. The self we know is a self on the way, a self in the midst of its passage.** James Carse
Perhaps we are seeds, Our shells protecting us, their nature surprising us: Life is hard, We’re not as special as we think, Our life is not about us, We are not in control, We are going to die^ – Embrace these and we are strong.
Within lies the imagination, the possibility: Life is hard, but we have each other to overcome, We are not so special, but there is something each can do that no one else can, Our life is not about us, but what we do is a gift of service expressing joy, We’re not in control of much, but we can fully determine how we live in this moment, We are going to die, but before this, we have so many ways to live.
every individual story holds the power to change the world and inspire people* Rohit Bhargava and Jennifer Brown
Now I just assume that I’m below average. It serves me well. I listen more. I ask a lot of questions. I’ve stopped thinking others are stupid. I assume most people are smarter than me. To assume you’re below average is to admit you’re still learning.** Derek Sivers
To claim that we are average, or, To give it more edge, Below average, feels like an admission of failure, but it can be the beginnings of a better story, The kind of story that makes a happy dent in the world, At least one person’s world.
Without a name made in our mouths, an animal or place struggles to find purchase in our minds and in our hearts.** Tim Dee
Not only do we require a vast ocean of words to understand the world around us, but we also need a multiplicity of words to describe ourselves, to create our worlds of who we are and what we can do – and they’re not far away, they’re within us waiting to be uncovered – Though some are still to be discovered.^
*Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise; **Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks; ^These words don’t only have to describe us, but also be the words that fascinate us and drive us; I have to keep twenty six lists of words (a-z) that are important to me, with all the quotes that describe them). It’s a simple system, but it’s working for now..
What you’re advocating can’t be just relevant to your audience’s life; it must be relevant to their story.* Lisa Cron
Better is the end of a thing than its beginning; the patient in spirit are better than the proud in spirit.** The Teacher
We’re still adding to our stories, Story is how we work imaginatively with reality, How we create freedom within limitation; We don’t want a story that repeats each day, Neither do we want for one that gets stuck in its beginning or middle – Beyond explanation, We desire exploration.
we must never forget that all human freedom is contingent upon destiny to the extent that it can unfold only within destiny and by working upon it* Viktor Frankl
If I no longer have to fight against the sheer fact of encountering problems, because that’s a battle I’ll never win, I get to dive more fully, perhaps even with relish, into the problems I actually have.** Oliver Burkeman
The problem with life … Is that life is a problem – Remember the five elemental truths?:^ Life is hard You’re not as special as you think Your life is not about you You are not in control You are going to die; Don’t be despondent, these truths are foundational for a most splendid life, They are the necessary limitations or constraints leading us towards a more imaginative and creative life, if we learn how to play with them; This is where the three responses of humility, gratitude, and faithfulness turn up as playmasters: To be most fully who we are, and not who we are not, To notice what we have, rather than what we lack – and to share, To play with these daily in small ways, on our own and together, Noticing where these lead so we might follow.
Each of the projects described in this book has at its centre something drawn by hand.* Quentin Blake
By hand is shorthand for anything that involves the simplest or least technology possible as the means for bringing poise and rhythm to lives that are increasingly off-kiltered by the complex, the artificial, the sunlightless, the motionless, the connectionless, the nameless: The more convoluted our worlds, the more we also need to write and/or draw with pens, pencils and paper, Walk or cycle or run or swim in nature, Soak in sunshine … and the rain, Feel plants and their geography, Enjoy the company of others, Become more handy.
palimpsest (n) 1. a manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing; 2. something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.
The most important story you will ever tell is the story you tell yourself about yourself.* Alex McManus
The thing about a palimpsest is that it’s never finished, it is ever incomplete – We can always add more, which means, Whatever yesterday or 2020 or 1959 appended in way of experiences decisions hopes failures achievements relationships fulfilments regrets bitterness sweetness … Today is a new day.**
*Alex McManus’ reel; **This is where I seek to help people with dreamwhispering; get in touch to find out more.
THIN|SILENCE 
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