Thought provoking
"Let everything happen to you: Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final." - Rainer Maria Rilke
How to Get Lucky, The 4 Quarters Technique, & More
This idea is common now, especially, in the West, that meditation might be more about relaxation, or maybe addressing stress. But that’s not the meat of the program. The center of that program is a deep, profound, and progressive investigation about the nature of who we are and how our own minds work. It’s a deep investigation about the way our... See more
Oshan Jarow • Your mind needs chaos
In his 2012 essay, “More people should write,” writer and programmer James Somers described this process as creating a mental bucket for an idea, thereby unleashing a magnetic force between that idea and the world:
When I have a piece of writing in mind, what I have, in fact, is a mental bucket: an attractor for and generator of thought. It’s like a thematic gravity well, a magnet for what would otherwise be a mess of iron filings. I’ll read books differently and listen differently in conversations. In particular, I’ll remember everything better; everything will mean more to me. That’s because everything I perceive will unconsciously engage on its way in with the substance of my preoccupation. A preoccupation, in that sense, is a hell of a useful thing for a mind.
Once you’ve discovered the right mental buckets, or containers, for your creative work, it’s time to maximize the potential for unexpected connections. But to surface those connections, you also need the right tools.
Art and morals are... one. Their essence is the same. The essence of both of them is love. Love is the perception of individuals. Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality.
Maria Popova • What Love Really Means: Iris Murdoch on Unselfing, the Symmetry Between Art and Morality, and How We Unblind Ourselves to Each Other’s Realities
who taught me | sara hendren
sarahendren.comReaching our boundaries is not the same as limiting our growth. Sometimes we find our edges and an amazing thing happens; capacity is rebuilt, old wounds are healed and we grow further and more beautifully than before. The process is analogous to mineral growth in rock. Without a surface and a set of containing edges, minerals that we prize for... See more
Donald Winnicott • Article
"The key is to enjoy hanging out on the edge. That is, you find it interesting to attempt things one step beyond where you are right now. It could be the edge of your ability or the edge of your knowledge or the edge of your network.
If you reach — but just a little — and you do it every week, then you'll take on challenges that are manageable... See more
If you reach — but just a little — and you do it every week, then you'll take on challenges that are manageable... See more
3-2-1: On acting with confidence, the different types of age, and the importance of momentum
October 2024
I'm usually reluctant to make predictions about technology, but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple decades there won't be many people who can write.
One of the strangest things you learn if you're a writer is how many people have trouble writing. Doctors know how many people have a mole they're worried about; people who... See more
I'm usually reluctant to make predictions about technology, but I feel fairly confident about this one: in a couple decades there won't be many people who can write.
One of the strangest things you learn if you're a writer is how many people have trouble writing. Doctors know how many people have a mole they're worried about; people who... See more
Paul Graham • Writes and Write-Nots
Writing is hard.