Generous listening is powered by curiosity, a virtue we can invite and nurture in ourselves to render it instinctive. It involves a kind of responsibility – a willingness to be surprised, to let go of assumptions and take in ambiguity. The listener want to understand the humanity behind the words of the other, and patiently summons one’s own best self and one’s own best words and questions.*
Krista Tippett

I wish I could show you,
when you are lonely or in darkness,
The Astonishing Light
Of your own Being!**
Hafez

This is quite a journey,
From our discovery that
curiosity is an expression of valour that
any may develop until
it becomes instinctive, a growing of
openness towards, rather than against,
Surprise!, we let go of assumptions, agendas, and
self-interest,
Asking generous questions that invite
generous answers which are
intrinsic to the astonishing light each must
share;
Deep, generous listening is
generative –
We let go of ourselves in order that the
new may come to birth.

*Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise;
**From Hazef’s My Brilliant Image, William Seighart’s The Poetry Pharmacy.

Gratitude works.  Gratitude scales.  Gratitude creates a positive cycle of more gratitude.  When in doubt, default to gratitude.*
Seth Godin

*Seth Godin’s blog: If every day were Thanksgiving.

You can’t just be you. You have to double yourself. You have to read books on subjects you know nothing about. You have to travel to places you never thought of travelling. You have to meet every kind of person and endlessly stretch what you know.*
Mary Wells

Everything worth doing is difficult.**

You know that
I am capable of more, and I know that
you are, too;
There are so many ways in which
we can double ourselves in today’s world
(I am thinking of things like selflessness, generosity, and wisdom) –
Mary Wells’ list is only a start, and there’s a list of
many things natural and peculiar to you that you could pursue –
The only thing stopping you
Is that they are hard –
It’s the same with my list –
But we also know, the opposite of a double life
is not a single life,
It is a half life:
Three things differentiate living from the soul versus
living from ego only.
They are:
the ability to sense and learn new ways,
the tenacity to ride a rough road,
and the patience to learn deep love over time.^

*gapingvoid’s blog: Always Open Self;
**gapingvoid’s blog: Follow the Yellowbrick Road to Greatness;
^Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves.

I am a visible original
A pinnacle of miracle
Critical untypical and
All but inexplicable*
Lemn Sissay

You can discover overlooked value by measuring things that are difficult to measure.**
Seth Godin

How do you measure a miracle, the
untypical, or the
inexplicable?

Begin by identifying your
talents, then follow up with your energies – the things
you are passionate about, topping these off with
your values – the beliefs that
cannot be torn from you;
Discovery can then be followed by invention
As we choose what next:
Our lives are a process of
constant discovery and invention.
Each of us lives
a unique human life.^

*Lemn Sissay’s let the light pour in;
**Seth Godin’s blog: The easy measurement;
^Bill Sharpe’s Three Horizons.

I devote a significant amount of my time thinking about and agonising about something that may well not exist. So, in a way, it may actually be the doubt, the uncertainty and the mystery that animates the whole thing … there is a kind of gentle scepticism that makes belief stronger rather than weaker. In fact, it can be the forge on which more robust belief can be hammered out.*
Nick Cave

Dan Ariely explores the decline of trust and the rise of misbelief
in his latest book,
Whereas the philosophical principles of Occam’s Razor states that
when it comes to there being a number of explanations for something,
The one with the fewest elements or assumptions is
usually correct.

However, now it seems that the opposite of this informs us –
Just search “Kate’s photo” and see what happens,
Never mind 9/11, JFK, Princess Diana, Covid, the 2020 U.S. presidential election, or
your favourite conspiracy theory.

I value doubt and scepticism as they can lead to
important questions that, ultimately, can bring us to a
better understanding and place, but Ariely highlights four groups or elements
that it’s helpful to know are at play when it comes to doubting, there’s:
An emotional response – emotions precede beliefs, but emotions can mislead us,
A cognitive response – but we can be irrational if confirmation bias kicks in,
Our personality’s disposition – meaning we can be more or less prone to misbelief, and,
The social forces – the dangers of surrounding ourselves with people who think the same.**

All this said,
Please have doubts and raise questions.

*Nick Cave and Séan O’Hagan’s Faith, Hope and Carnage;
**Dan Ariely’s Misbelief, written partly as his response to discovering he’d been implicated in a conspiracy theory.

To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.*
James Carse

We have unlearned the patience and attention of lingering at the thresholds where the unknown awaits us.**
John O’Donohue

Lingering, attention, and
patience are necessary for surprise;
Consider their opposites, all possible ways
to train against surprise:
Hurry, distraction, disinclination –
These should do it.

However, as people who linger and
pay attention and
are patient, we are
able to let go and let come –
I-in-Now people, able to bring
curiosity and
interest and
learning and
playfulness and
imagination and
creativity and
making to our discoveries;
We may even become a
surprise to others.

*James Carse’s Finite and Infinite Games;
**John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty.

Every single moment contains thousands of possibilities – and I can only choose one of them to actualise it … everything I realise through them, or “bring into the world,” … I save into reality and thus protect from transience.*
Viktor Frankl

By being what only I can be, I give humanity what only I can give. It is my uniqueness that allows me to contribute something unique to the universal heritage of humankind.**
Jonathan Sacks

Pluck the moment –
Everything can change in a moment,
For you, or through you
for an other;
Noticing the possibilities in a moment isn’t
some magical power –
Although it can seem so –
Rather, it is an ability we can all develop
through practise.

Here are Jonathan Sacks words again,
Slightly altered:
By being what only you can be,
you give humanity what only you can give.
It is your uniqueness that allows you
to contribute something unique to the universal heritage
of humankind.

*Viktor Frankl’s Yes to Life;
**Krista Tippett’s Becoming Wise.

If you’re simply following [shortcuts] you probably won’t get anywhere interesting. It’s the detours that pay off.*
Seth Godin

On the other path [before Hercules] stood a sterner goddess in a pure white robe. She made a quieter call. She promised no rewards except those that came as a result of hard work. It would be a long journey, she said. There would be sacrifice. There would be scary moments. But it was a journey fit for a god. It would make him the person his ancestors meant him to be.**
Ryan Holiday

After arising and before the work begins,
I take a detour,
I have for many years now,
Into a journal and reading and doodling and
discovery and wonder and,
I hope,
A little personal development
along the way.

And some detours can last a lifetime:
And, some detours can turn into a lifetime.

Seth Godin’s blog: Actual shortcuts often appear to be detours;
Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny.

We are a limited amount of time. That is how completely our limited time defines us.*
Oliver Burkeman

Man and society are resurrected every moment in the act of hope and faith in the here and now; every act of love, of awareness, of compassion is resurrection; every act of sloth, of greed, of selfishness is death.**
Erich Fromm

Moments of faith and love are
the best of all for
bringing time back to life –
That is, for
bringing us back to life;
Through serving others,
We are learning to live to the
fullness of our being and our becoming –
Perhaps even resurrected to some higher state:
It is a constant effort and hard work –
and inexplicably life-affirming –
to honour who you are, what you believe,
and why you are here.^

*Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks;
**Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope;
^Elle Luna’s The Crossroads of Should and Must.

More often than not, we find ourselves in situations where we don’t know. That’s a given … Acknowledging it is a sign of confidence and awareness.*
Seth Godin

First, pay close, foolish, even absurd attention to things. Then allow their structure, form, and nature to set the limits for the experiences you derive from them. By refusing to ask what could be different, and instead allowing what is present to guide us, we create new space.**
Ian Bogost

To not know is to know more,
Both about oneself and about the situation;
Now we can find out more,
And we may grow in the process –
Instead of trying to fit this thing, this person, this circumstance
into our present understanding,
We allow the unknown to be our teacher, creating
new spaces and possibilities.

The accusation is that this will take too long, and
we continue to hurry three steps forward and hobble two steps back,
Or worse,
But not knowing is a skill to develop, and
the more we use our ability, the
faster it will be, and
the more alive and human we shall be:
Only because
we do not know everything and
because we cannot control the future is it possible
to live and be human.^

It doesn’t matter whether we consider ourselves “secular” or “religious”: in some way we’re all reaching for the heavens.^^

*Seth Godin’s blog: “I don’t know”;
**Ian Bogost’s Play Anything;
^Iona Heath, from Bill Sharpe’s Three Horizons;
^^Susan Cain’s Bittersweet.