On trusting the process..............

 

 . . . I’m about to run into trouble, because I don’t have everything I need (the right arguments, good enough material, whatever) for the bit that’s coming next. This bothers me less than it used to, though, because again and again, the missing insight, anecdote, or angle arrives just in time. I’ll open a book at random, or hear something on a podcast, or a friend will make a comment, or I’ll notice something on a walk, and it’ll be exactly what I need for everything to fall into place. It never seems to arrive until the moment it’s required, though, so that’s more way it’s being constantly hammered home to me that trusting yourself/reality/the process is the whole game here. 

-Oliver Burkeman, from this edition

embraced.................

 

The spark of inspiration about how to live a full life depends on the fact that it doesn't go on forever, so we must make the most of it.  And the mystery of faith is that divinity cannot be proven or disproven—as though it were a complicated problem—but must be embraced as a complex, mysterious proposition about the human condition, a supernatural love that transcends earthly evidence, the digital preservation of the soul, or even the ability to explain.

-Arthur C. Brooks, The Meaning of Your Life

On goals..........................

 

     There are two sources of goals: goals created out of inspiration and goals created out of desperation.

     When goals are created out of desperation, we feel an immense sense of scarcity and urgency.  They feel heavy, like a burden, and we may feel daunted by the colossal task we've just committed ourselves to.  Impostor syndrome and self-doubt begin to manifest, and we feel like we're always short on time.  We go about our lives frantically, desperately searching for ways to accomplish our goals faster, always looking externally to fill the void we feel internally.

     Worst of all, if we achieve the goal, soon after, all those feelings of lack begin to resurface again. . . .

     When we create goals out of inspiration, it's an entirely different story.  In this state, we are creating because we feel deeply moved, inspired, and expansive.  Our goals feel like a calling rather than an obligation.  We feel like a powerful force of life is coming from within us, wanting to be expressed through us and into the physical world.  This is why painters paint, dancers dance, writers write, and singers sing, even if they never get paid or make a living from it.  We feel pulled instead of forced to create something.  We gravitate towards it.  We feel compelled to do it.  When we feel like this, we create from a place of abundance instead of lack.

-Joseph Nguyen, Don't Believe Everything You Think

opportunity........................

 

While we tend to think of inspiration as bolt-from-the-blue, God-given brilliance, this instant form of ideation tends to be much rarer than the other kinds—plenary, moral, mechanical, and dynamical—that the medieval intellectuals listed.  But most often, an opportunity begins as a failure.  That's why most of us miss it.

-Jay Heinrichs, Aristotle's Guide to Self-Persuasion

Pretty good teammates..................

 

Inspiration is great.  Discipline is better.  

-Joe Rogan

Epiphanies.....................

 

      Epiphanies are hidden in the most ordinary moments: the casting of a shadow, the smell of a match igniting, an unusual phrase overheard or misheard.  A dedication to the practice of showing up on a regular basis is the main requirement.

-Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

People just don't.........................

 ..................talk that way anymore:

Books are the best of things, well used; abused, among the worst. What is the right use? What is the one end, which all means go to effect? They are for nothing but to inspire. I had better never see a book, than to be warped by its attraction clean out of my own orbit, and made a satellite instead of a system. The one thing in the world, of value, is the active soul. This every man is entitled to; this every man contains within him, although, in almost all men, obstructed, and as yet unborn. The soul active sees absolute truth; and utters truth, or creates. In this action, it is genius; not the privilege of here and there a favorite, but the sound estate of every man. In its essence, it is progressive. The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. This is good, say they, - let us hold by this. They pin me down. They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates.  Whatever talents may be, if the man create not, the pure efflux of the Deity is not his; - cinders and smoke there may be, but not yet flame. There are creative manners, there are creative actions, and creative words; manners, actions, words, that is, indicative of no custom or authority, but springing spontaneous from the mind's own sense of good and fair.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, as excerpted from The American Scholar

inspired...........................

 

Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

image via

Inversion...........................

       Inspiration came to Sanger unexpectedly in the winter of 1971—in the form of inversion.   He had spend decades learning to break molecules apart to solve their sequence.  But what if he turned his own strategy upside down and tried to build DNA, rather than break it down?  To solve a gene sequence, Sanger reasoned, one must think like a gene.

-Siddhartha Mukherjee,  The Gene:  An Intimate History

Live it into reality..........................

For thousands of years, to be outside the dominant cultural story spelled death.  To be outside the band of hunter-gatherers meant you had been shunned by the village.  Deep inside, we want to belong.  This remains true today, but maybe for the first time in human history, modern society—the dominant culture—has become the thing that isolates us.  If you could track your way out of the burdens of modern life and create and existence that is much more an expression of who you are, then your own life could become a living mythology.  One that could inspire others.
     Inside of me I hear the wild self whisper, Live it into reality.

-Boyd Varty, The Lion Tracker's Guide to Life

The magic ring of myth...................

     Throughout the inhabited world, in all times and under every circumstance, myths of man have flourished;  and they have been the living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of the activities of the human body and  mind.   It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into the human cultural manifestation.  Religions, philosophies, arts, the social forms of primitive and historic man, prime discoveries in science and technology, the very dreams that blister sleep, boil up from the basic, magic ring of myth.

-Joseph Campbell,  The Hero With A Thousand Faces

Fifty years ago.......................

Sweet Inspirations..........................................Sweet Inspiration

Inexhaustible.............

     Throughout the inhabited world, in all times and under every circumstance, myths of man have flourished; and they have been the living inspiration of whatever else may have appeared out of the activities of the human body and mind.  It would not be too much to say that myth is the secret opening through which the inexhaustible energies of the cosmos pour into the human cultural manifestation.

-Joseph Campbell,  The Hero With A  Thousand Faces

The spirit........................

..............................................of Fred Rogers:

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that is mentionable can be more manageable. When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, and less scary. The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone.”

"There is no normal life that is free of pain. It's the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth."

“Love isn't a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” 

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” 

"As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something that no one else has--or ever will have--something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression."

“When I say it's you I like, I'm talking about that part of you that knows that life is far more than anything you can ever see or hear or touch. That deep part of you that allows you to stand for those things without which humankind cannot survive. Love that conquers hate, peace that rises triumphant over war, and justice that proves more powerful than greed.” 

“We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It's easy to say "It's not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem." Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”

“It's very dramatic when two people come together to work something out. It's easy to take a gun and annihilate your opposition, but what is really exciting to me is to see people with differing views come together and finally respect each other.”

Are you a "Waker"..........................?

     If the answer is  no, I'm sorry to hear that.  Wakers are my favorite people.
     A waker is someone who is very good at waking other people up from their metaphorical slumber, temporary or otherwise.
     Some people just have the gift.  Being around them or their work just makes you feel more alive, more inspired, more motivated, more awake.  The best wakers will make you do crazyass things, like quit your boring job and start your own business, write that song, move to Thailand, forgive that someone who once hurt you, or finally tell that girl that you love her.
     A waker reminds you on a constant basis just how alive you really are.  Just how much human potential you really have inside of you.  And their is something about their influence that makes you utterly unable to go back to "sleep" ever again, despite your best efforts.
     Wakers can be great artists - Jeff Buckley, Picasso, Harper Lee, Beethoven, Judy Garland, Charlie Parker, Leo Tolstoy, Louis Armstrong, Ralph Steadman, Dorothy Parker, etc. - but they don't have to be.
     Wakers can be great spiritual leaders - Jesus, Gandhi, Mohammed, Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Joseph Campbell, etc. - but they don't have to be.
     Wakers can be great public figures - Steve Jobs, Winston Churchill, Mike Royko, Oprah Winfrey, Carl Sagan, John Peel, Susan Sontag, Alistair Cook, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Murray, etc. - but they don't have to be.
     I know great wakers who are bartenders, bus drivers, waitresses, teachers, receptionists, plumbers.  Theirs is a gift, not a job title.
     If you are a waker, I'm happy for you.  There is no better way to spend one's life that being a waker;  I truly believe that.
    The human race needs you, like flowers need sunshine.  The human race would die out within three generations without you.  Thanks for being here.  Seriously.
     If you're not a waker, don't you thing you should be?  Serious questions.

-Hugh MacLeod,  Evil Plans:  Having Fun on the Road to World Domination

Twitch................................

19.  Try to see, before it is too late, that you have within you something higher and more godlike than mere instincts which move your emotions and twitch you like a puppet.  Which of these is it, then, that is clouding my understanding at the moment?  Fear, jealousy, lust, or some other?

Marcus Aurelius, from Book Twelve of Meditations

Every so often............................

................................................you just have to listen to this.

Jim Gomer Pyle Nabors...........................The Impossible Dream

Inspirational, perhaps....................

via

So smile already..................................

Dormant forces...............................

"When you are inspired by some great purpose, some extraordinary project, all your thoughts break their bonds:  Your mind transcends limitations, your consciousness expands in every direction, and you find yourself in a new, great and wonderful world.  Dormant forces, faculties and talents become alive, and you discover yourself to be a greater person by far than you ever dreamed yourself to be.” 
-attributed to Patanjali