[Good’s] existence is the unmistakable sign that we are spirit creatures, attracted by excellence and made for the good.*
Iris Murdoch

*Iris Murdoch’s The Sovereignty of Good.

All knowledge of another person is real knowledge only if it is based on my experiencing within myself that which he experiences.  If this is not the case and the person remains an object, I know a lot about him, but I do not know him.*
Erich Fromm

*Erich Fromm’s The Revolution of Hope.

Being of any reasonable sort appears to require limitation.  Perhaps this is because Being requires Becoming, as well as mere static existence – and to become is to become something more, or at least something different.  That is only possible for something different.*
Jordan Peterson

*Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life.

Confidence is built through acts of courage.*
Ben Hardy

*Ben Hardy’s Personality Isn’t Permanent.

Ritual’s role in all human cultures is to relieve and resolve anxiety, by turning people outward in shared, symbolic acts, modern society has weakened those ritual ties.  Secular rituals, particular rituals whose point is cooperation itself, have proved too feeble to provide that support.*
Richard Sennett

*Richard Sennett’s Together.

The missing ingredients in most conversations are curiosity and willingness to ask questions to which we do not already know the answer.*
Edgar Schein

*Edgar Schein’s Humble Inquiry.

I am bigger than this. And may I be helped to grow to my full size. … I am not concerned with what we like. I am concerned with our power to grasp, to comprehend, to penetrate, and to embrace.*
M. C. Richards

Thus, in the journey of transformation, we participate in these symbolic dramas and actively engage in archetypal existence. We form a powerful sense of identity with the archetypal character, and this mythic being becomes an aspect of ourselves writ large.**
Jean Houston

If we are not as big as we can be,
It’s likely that you and me
know what is stunting our growth,
What we must turn away from, give up, lay down,
Sacrifice.

Beneath the ordinary of our lives
lies the unexplored mythic,
Some greater story –
Perhaps from the past, the now,
Or calling us from an imagined future –
Directing us through
some transformation to
a bigger life.

*M. C. Richards’ Centering;
**Jean Houston’s A Mythic Life.

While interacting within scenes, or talking or thinking about each other in separate scenes, roles reveal and clarify each other by contrast and contradiction.*
Robert McKee

The painting is like a thread that runs through all the reasons for all the other things that makes one’s life.**
Georgia O’Keefe

That moment when someone annoys us
is likely to be accompanied by a want
for them to be more like us;
But it is equally an opportunity to
appreciate their differences,
And allow something deeper to happen.

*Robert McKee’s newsletter: Why Character Differences Are Crucial;
Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals.

As well as opening doors, the children made dens: the doors allowing access and adventure, the dens permitting retreat and shelter. Young children are, as all parents know, natural den makers.*
Robert Macfarlane

In the most connected time in history, we’re quickly losing touch with ourselves.**
Ryder Carroll

I need doors and dens,
Goings and comings,
Outs and ins,
Their rhythm bringing me alive:
Door den door den door den;
Sometimes,
Door door den door den den door den,
Or,
Den door door door den den door den den –
But not,
Door door door door door,
And never,
Den den den den den den.

I hope I remember.

*Robert Macfarlane’s Landmarks;
**Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method.

Work, after all, at its best, is one of the great human gateways to the eternal and timeless.*
David Whyte

Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up and get to work.**
Chuck Close

Inspiration follows perseverance.

It’s not only about turning up –
You’ll be glad to here,
But it is about
you
turning up –
Not trying to be someone else;
And though you may have strayed
from your self,
There’s still time
and possibility
to respond to the call of you:
When we arrive on earth,
we are provided with no map for our life journey.
Only gradually,
as our identity forms
and we get an inkling of who we are,
do possibilities begin to emerge
that call us.^

You are not only
naturally you, but
also the person you have chosen to be –
The hard work of becoming you
that you have persevered in.

As for writing, so for life:
And like “flow,” “natural” is one of the words behind 
writer’s block.
So let’s suppose there’s no such thing as writer’s block.
There’s loss of confidence
And forgetting to think
And failing to prepare
And not reading enough
And giving up on patient
And hastening to write
And learning your audience
And never really trying to understand how sentences
work.
Above all, there’s never learning to trust yourself
Or your capacity to learn or think or perceive.^^

When you turn up
again and again,
You will find enough:
If we go down to ourselves, we find that we possess
exactly what we desire.*^

*David Whyte’s Crossing the Unknown Sea;
**Mason Currey’s Daily Rituals;
^John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us;
^^Verlyn Klinkenborg’s Several short sentences about writing;
*^Simone Weil, from John O’Donohue’s Divine Beauty.