It’s not by accident that the positive wildness of our planet disappears as the understanding of our own inner wild nature fades.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

The earth is not outside us – it is within us: the clay from where the tree of the body grows.**
John O’Donohue

I stop to look across this open field of grass,
So different to me that I conclude it can never be me, nor I it,
Yet the wild poet Walt Whitman declares that,
Upon his passing, he may indeed be found beneath our feet:
I bequeath myself to the dirt
to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again
look for me under your bootsoles.^

If there is such a thing as magic
this must be it: I am
this earth and it is me –
Something that aids my wellness,
Opens me to wonder,
And allows me to reconnect with my wildness – benefits our world
and universe want to impress upon you and I:
Alan Lightman turned off the engine of his small boat,
lay on his back looking up at the stars:
The boat disappeared.
My body disappeared.
Awareness of my body and ego disappeared.
And I found myself falling into infinity …
I felt connected not only to the stars
but to all of nature, and to the
entire cosmos. I felt part
of something much larger than myself.^^

*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
**John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty;
^Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass;
^^Alan Lightman’s The Transcendent Brain.

Whatever you value most in your life can always be traced back to some jumble of chance occurrences you couldn’t possibly have planned for, and that you certainly can’t alter retrospectively.*
Oliver Burkeman

If we stick to the letter of the law, we don’t have to think. Because there’s risk involved in thinking. There’s nowhere to hide if it goes wrong. But real creativity often comes with risk. So don’t just blindly follow the words themselves.**
Dave Trott

*Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks;
**Dave Trott’s One + One = Three.

A more fruitful approach to the challenge of living more fully in the moments start from noticing that you are, in fact, are already living in the moment anyway, whether you live it or not.*
Oliver Burkeman

This is the pleasure of limits, the fun of play. Not doing what we want, but doing what we can with what is given.**
Ian Bogost

Right now,
I may turn my attention to the moment I am in:
This space, this light, these words, this pen and journal, these feelings;
And though a moment may seem small and insignificant,
Though it cannot contain all things, as it unfolds, it holds
the possibility of leading me to everything.

*Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks;
**Ian Bogost’s Play Anything.

Whatever the reason, we generate the meaning we need in the moment. The act of reinterpretation is fundamentally an act of agency; it gives is a sense of control and confidence at exactly the moment we feel out of control and lacking confidence.*
Bruce Feiler

Keep asking questions. Colour outside the lines. Draw your own maps. Create your own legends.**
Ekere Maria Hadessa Talliet

Whatever’s happening right now,
I’ve got to remember it’s a story, and,
If I stop and pinch myself
to get my attention,
I can tell it differently –
Sometimes even with a flourish.

*Bruce Feiler’s Life is in the Transitions;
**Maria Popova and Claudia Bedrock’s A Velocity of Being.

There’s always something just below the surface, the elements that most people simply don’t notice. But we can if we choose.*
Seth Godin

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.**
Seneca

Futurist Ramez Naam writes about the
technological, pharmaceutical, and surgical enhancements that
we are exploring in order to be More Than Human,
But there is far more to who we are yet to be discovered
before we resort to these augmentations,
The problem is that it takes something that
we’ve always struggled with –
Effort;
We often say “We can’t” when we really mean
“We won’t,”
Yet for those who feel stuck where they are and
understand discipline to be an ability they can develop
there are everyday superpowers to be uncovered:
The ability …
… to work hard
… to say no
… to practice good habits and set boundaries
… to train and prepare
… to avoid temptations and provocations
… to keep your emotions in check
… to endure painful difficulties.*

*Seth Godin’s blog: The things you can’t see;
**Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny.

There’s a word in Spanish. … Instead of saying ‘to wake up,’ you say recordarse, that is, to record yourself, to remember yourself. … Every morning I get that feeling because I am more or less nonexistent.  Then when I wake up, I always feel I’m being let down.  Because, well, here I am.  Here’s the same old stupid game going on.  I have to be somebody.  I have to be exactly that somebody.*
Jorge Luis Borges

Lewis Hyde’s A Primer for Forgetting.

Perfection is a manufactured idea. Nothing we see around us is perfect. Indeed, it takes a human mind to conceive of perfection, just as it take a human mind to label something beautiful.*
Alan Lightman

Does this choice diminish me or enlarge me?**
James Hollis

There’s no perfect choice;
There’s a good choice, and the
choice that opens more options, there’s even
an accidental choice that you’re forever thankful for;
Sometimes there’s the obvious choice, though
sometimes you go with the non-obvious or the gut-choice
just because you want something different –
James Hollis’ question will
help us with every one of them.

*Alan Lightman’s The Transcendent Brain;
**Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks.

I think there is more going on than we can see or understand, and we need to find a way to lean into the mystery of things – the impossibility of things – and recognise the evident value of doing that, and summon the courage it requires to not always shrink back into he known mind.*
Nick Cave

The very moments that make us go “wow!” are the very same moments that can change our lives.**
Oliver Burkeman

Stay a while longer,
Stretch your unbelieving,
See what is happening,
Reflect on it some,
Be open to the possibility,
Allow the unknown to enfold you,
You’re learning to dance with mystery,
Transfigured by life.

*Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan’s Faith, Hope and Carnage;
**Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks.

participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world*
Joseph Campbell

Something in us wants to be distracted, whether by our digital devices or by anything else – to not spend our lives on what we thought we cared about most. The calls are coming from inside the house.**
Oliver Burkeman

Reply to that text,
Complete the job in the garden as it’s stopped raining,
Find that item that you need (probably under the stairs),
Here’s a good moment to touch up the paintwork,
Got to put some petrol in the car,
Make the shopping list …
A moment ago, you were excited by something,
A difference you really wanted to make,
To bring a little more brightness into the world –
Into someone’s world –
You had felt the power that came from imagining how
this aligns with your talents and passions and values,
But now you’re distracted, and you realise that
something inside of you is relieved, because joy doesn’t come without
time, effort, and sacrifice.

The bittersweet is also about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death – bitter and sweet – are forever paired.*

*Susan Cain’s Bittersweet;
**Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks.

Equidistant from the atoms and stars, we are expanding our exploring.*
Carl Sagan

All of us have to learn how to invent our lives, make them up, imagine them. We need to be taught these skills, we need guides to show us how. Without them, our lives get made up for us by other people.**
Ursula K. Le Guin

First of all,
Our forming happens to us, and then
our forming is meant to happen through us;
If we are not mindful of this, then in subtle ways,
For the rest of our lives, the forming will
happen to us.

The conditions for imagining and shaping our lives have
never been more propitious, including the very real
possibility of inventing ourselves again
today.

*Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time;
**Ursula K. Le Guin’s Words Are My Matter.