Nothing kidnaps our capacity for presence more cruelly than longing. And yet longing is also the most powerful creative force we know: Out of our longing for meaning came all of art; out of our longing for truth all of science; out of our longing for love the very fact of life.*
Maria Popova

The problem with getting what you want is that now you have a hole, because you don’t want that thing anymore, you have it … There’s a more resilient path: To commit to wanting what you have.**
Seth Godin

To be present to something in life is
the most important thing of all,
Too many focus on the hole in their life rather than
celebrating the fullness –
What they have and what they can do with it;
Carlos Castenades, in passing on the shaman wisdom of
Don Juan, suggests we ask a question:
Does this path have a heart?
If it does, the path is good;
if it doesn’t, it is of no use.
Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart,
the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey;
as long as you follow it, you are one with it.
The other will make you curse your life.
One makes you strong; the other weakens you.^

It is important to find a path with a heart,
The telling confirmation of what you have rather than
What you do not have;
It doesn’t matter what it is save for this one thing –
It must have a heart:
Nothing has inherent meaning.
It is what it is and
that’s it.
We choose to project meaning onto things.
It feels good to make stories.^^

We are meaning-making creatures, responding to a universe which
asks the questions of us: What will you do with your life?, and so,
To turn our meaning into something we can live out over a lifetime, we
turn it into a story:
We do not go to a storyteller to learn
what we already know.
We go with a prayer:
Please let me gain insights into life
I’ve never had before; let the characters
be originals I’ve never met before.*^

And we are storytellers all.

*Maria Popova’s The Marginalian blog: The Thing Itself: C.S. Lewis on What We Long for in Our Existential Longing;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Wanting and getting;
^Carlos Castaneda’s The Teachings of Don Juan;
^^Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah Or No;
*^Robert McKee’s Character.

One study found that people who were directed to doodle while carrying out a boring listening task remembered 29 percent more information than people who did not doodle, likely because the latter group had let their attention slip away entirely.*
Annie Murphy Paul

I like to share this information wherever it feels
appropriate and helpful.

Everyone can doodle, so this is a
superpower we can all develop.

As well as doodling to listen, I also aim to create
a doodle that represents what I’ve been hearing.

Here are a few other benefits to add to
listening and creating that I enjoy:

Doodling derives from dawdling, so
it helps me slow down.

I can then be present and
absorbed in what I’m hearing and doing.

It provokes imagination whilst it
exploring representation.

It legitimises adaptation and
anticipates transformation.

And it’s a load of
fun.

*Annie Murphy Paul’s The Extended Mind.

Don’t start a business until people are asking you to.*
Derek Sivers

By escape into the mass, man loses his most intrinsic quality: responsibility.**
Viktor Frankl

In the “mass” there are those who tell and those who are told,
And to those who are telling, all those who are told look the same;
In a community, there are those who are asking and those who are giving,
And those who are giving have many different gifts, so
the important thing is to respond to the right ask.

Those who are told say, It’s your responsibility, but
you already know what those who are giving say – after which
there is only who? and when?

Awe awakens the better angels of our nature.^

*Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah or No;
**Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
^Dacher Keltner’s Awe.

I’ve always believed in the power of poetry to explain people to themselves.*
William Seighart

Budded from the matrix of psyche, we bloom out of imaginal worlds from which we arise coded in myth and symbol.**
Jean Houston

Poems are not wasteful with their words,
Their locution is expansive and sharp,
Fullness and calling,
Honest and hopeful;
Our lives are like poems –
When the extraneous is removed, we see
both who we are and yet can be.

*William Seighart’s The Poetry Pharmacy;
**Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life.

How much time have you spent on the edge of your ability today?*
James Clear

In real life we don’t have the next episode and we certainly don’t know the season finale. We’re living it.**
Gabe Anderson

If I knew the outcome then
I wouldn’t be edging it, and I know I need
to be edging it more to
be alive.^

*James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: How to learn faster, what you put into the world, and the value of numerous attempts;
**Gabe Anderson’s blog: The Next Episode;
^I’m thinking of life-in-all-its-fullness, as opposed to filling my days.

I tried to get mad at people. They lied. They betrayed me. They disappeared. Do you hear the pattern? “They this, they that” … But one day I tried thinking of everything as my fault … What power! Now you’re the person who made things happen, made a mistake, and can learn from it. Now you’re in control and there’s nothing to complain about.*
Derek Sivers

How would I live if I was exactly what’s needed to heal the world?**
Rachel Naomi Remen

The apostle Paul counsels,
Be angry but do not sin;
do not let the sun go down on your anger^ –
But how?

Wisdom takes anger on a journey through
opening the mind, the heart, and the will:
How did I contribute to this?
What does the other want to see happen?
What can I now make happen to improve things?^^

Anger is a sign that something is wrong, but
when we take it on a journey, we can
make it count, we can arrive
at a better place, even to identifying
the contribution we can make in the world.

Two thousand years ago, Paul was
telling people that if
they took anger for a walk it could even become
kindness, gentleness, and forgiveness –
Which is godlike.

I guess we didn’t expect to
get there from here.

*Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah or No;
**Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise;
^Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians 4:26;
^^There are plenty of questions for opening the mind, heart, and will; these are only for starters;
*^Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians 4:32.

Keep death and exile before you every day, along with everything that seems terrible – by doing so, you’ll never have a base thought nor will you have excessive desire.*
Epictetus

Imagine what it’s like to be the silver medalist. If you’d just been one second faster, you could have won the gold! Damn! So close! … Now imagine what it’s like to be the bronze medalist. If you’d just been one second slower, you wouldn’t have won anything! Awesome!**
Derek Sivers

A friend shared how his old job had recently been
split into three, and he had been hired for
one of these roles; I asked him if he got the part he
enjoyed the most – he did.

This got me to wanting to ask you
a question –
I’ll ask it in a few parts, and perhaps take a moment to
reflect and write out each response:

If your present job was reimagined as three new roles,
What would they be?

Which of these is
the role you’d want to be rehired into?

How would you walk with this, then
run, then fly?

Here’s your bronze medal^ –
You already have this job, so why not
begin to make happen what you have just imagined;
My guess is that it will change the other two parts of your work.

*Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
**Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah or No;
^Gabe Anderson considers this from another angle in his blog: Sideman Blues.

At some point the big reasons run out and then all you’re left with is your own quiet decisions … Big reasons run out. The power of your decisions does not.*
Gabe Anderson

Anything that can be prevented, taken away, or coerced is not a person’s own – but those things that can be blocked are their own.**
Epictetus

This is about the difference between musts and shoulds:
The reasons, or the shoulds, come from outside of you, but
those sending them your way aren’t bothered enough with you to
keep telling you everything you ought to be doing;
The decisions, or musts, are always coming from
inside of you, fed by your
talents, energies, and values, they’re
always there to guide you and keep you going
when the way becomes tough – just when
the reasons are likely to say as they flee,
“Estás solo mi amigo.”

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: No Reason At All;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

Awe is a feeling we have when we encounter the monumental or immeasurable. We experience a sudden shrinking of the self, yet a rapid expansion of the soul.*
Nick Cave

In silent companionship with the life of the Galapagos, I had come to the conclusion that our personal identity, which we think is based on our beliefs and opinions, is actually more of a function of our ability to pay attention to the world around us. If we had very little in the way of attention for the world, then we actually had very little in the way of real existence.**
David Whyte

I had just read these words when
it was time to pop my wife into work because
I needed the car to get to my
volunteering in a university one town over …
And there it was,
A gentle giant sky with
clouds painted in soft oranges and mauves, and, when
a break appeared between the buildings and trees,
A molten bank of clouds wearing pale yellow and cream,
Embracing the newly born sun.

*Nick Cave’s The Red Hand Files blog: #157;
**David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea.

Some doodles from this day across the years