This is the essence of the artistic process. When we’re in liminal space between now and what is about to come, we’re fully alive.*
Seth Godin

When one goes to the forest, one seeks mokșa, or release. Now, this word is often translated as “freedom.” That is not what it means. It means release from ego itself.**
Joseph Campbell

It is possible to move directly from where you are
to where you want to be, but look closer and you will see
there exists a space between here and there, and to
enter and explore is to uncover more possibilities –
Not only the things you can do, but also
the person you can be;
These liminal spaces are all around you:
To enter and explore, or to pass and keep going is always
a choice.

You have two essential tasks in life: to be a good person and to pursue the occupation that you love. Everything else is a waste of energy and a squandering of your potential.^

*Seth Godin’s blog: The next one;
**Joseph Campbell’s Pathways to Bliss;
^Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

When you lead without compensation, sacrifice without guarantees, when you take risks because you believe, then you are demonstrating your faith in the tribe and its mission.*
Seth Godin

*Seth Godin’s Tribes.

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

*gapingvoid’s blog: Take something ordinary and elevate it.

The most important thing is to
find the people who need and who will
value what you have to give.

While finite games are externally defined, infinite games are internally defined.  The time of an infinite game is not world-time, but the time created within the play itself.  Since each play of an infinite game eliminates boundaries it opens to players as new horizon of time.*
James Carse

*James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games.

What we have above what we can use is not properly ours, tho’ we possess it.*
Benjamin Franklin

Nature bids us do well by all. … Wherever there is a human being, we have an opportunity for kindness.**
Seneca

Hands up if you’ve read James Joyce‘s Ulysses? –
(My hand stayed down);
Who’s heard this line:
“What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is my own”? –
Which comes from Ulysses;
Dare we take a look at what we have and announce
What’s mine is yours? –
Time, talents, kindness, concern, love:
Beware, adventures at hand.

*Lewis Hyde’s Common As Air;
**Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic.

The same story can be told in many ways, and the way we tell it changes who we are and what we become.*
Seth Godin

Stories that tell what you almost did aren’t good stories. Because almost doing the thing isn’t very close to having actually done it. They’re worlds apart. We like the stories where you did the thing.**
Gabe Anderson

You don’t have long, so if you want to rewrite your story
the good news is you already have plenty of material to work with:
Talents and abilities, energies and passions,
Values and dreams – lay everything out, then
imagine, feel, but, most importantly,
Give expression.^

*Seth Godin’s blog: Your autobiography;
**Gabe Anderson’s blog: Almost Stories;
^And if I can help, get in touch..

The hardest part of becoming known for something is sticking with it even when nobody cares.*
Gabe Anderson

All great [people] were great workers, untiring not only in invention but also in rejecting, sifting, reforming, arranging.**
Friedrich Nietzsche

If you don’t care about the thing you do, maybe
you need a new direction:
If you find nothing of surprise on your story’s horizon,
you need a new compass point.^

But if you do care, you have some options:
Get rid of the parts that aren’t so important
or aren’t working for you,
Bring the most important elements to the fore,
Improve wherever you can, and
rearrange them in a new way,
A new story.

even to live is an act of courage^^

*Gabe Anderson’s blog: Being Known For Something;
**James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: On finding games worth winning, the power of making a lot and choosing the best, and two types of kindness;
^Robert McKee‘s newsletter: Discovering Your Meaning;
^^Seneca, from Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny.

The ruby slippers are symbolic of your own capacities that you suspect you have but don’t know how to use.*
Jean Houston

“I’m not that smart.” Someone said that to me the other day and it was heartbreaking … The correct thing to say is, “I don’t care that much.” I don’t care enough to do the reading, to fail along the way, to show up, to make a promise, to learn as I go, to confront failure, to get better at the work.  All of that might be true. But you’re almost certainly smart enough.**
Seth Godin

Look down at your feet,
You’re wearing your red shoes –
Just like everyone else –
The thing you require is to
figure out how to use them –
Like Dorothy, to find your
yellow brick road and some
companions and take
a walk.

*Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us;
**Seth Godin’s blog: “I’m not that smart”;
^Quia non iter: because he did not travel.

Through kindness we slant, shockingly and miraculously, toward meaning. We discover, in that smallest gesture of good will laid at the feet of our mutual and monumental loss, “the point.”*
Nick Cave

And how will we choose to walk through the world and what will we leave behind …**
Seth Godin

We are most human when we express kindness
and help in sorrow and pain, when we think of others
rather than ourselves, laying down
our agenda, and serving another.

*Nick Cave’s Red Hand Files blog: #204;
**Seth Godin’s blog: We forgot to choose.