Natalie Audelo

In choosing how we are in the world, we shape our experience of that world, our contribution to it. We shape our world, our inner world, our outer world, which is really the only one we’ll ever know. And to me, that’s the substance of the spiritual journey. That’s not an exasperating idea but an infinitely emboldening one.

In the natural world, nothing goes to waste. Matter constantly decomposes and reconstitutes in new shapes, serving new purposes. We have much to learn from this continuum of transmutation in human societies, where we throw “away” our waste to some invisible hereafter, rather than accept the truth: it remains.

The reason we’re so increasingly intolerant of long articles and why we skim them, why we skip forward even in a short video that reduces a 300-page book into a three-minute animation — even in that we skip forward — is that we’ve been infected with this kind of pathological impatience that makes us want to have the knowledge but not do the work of... See more

Her kindness and candor. Her curiosity and intellectual courage. Her willingness to explore and contemplate the layers of things rather than reaching for easy judgment

The ease of technology has given us unrealistic expectations for our real lives. And in real life, someone or something will always come knocking on your door. You can let it drive you absolutely mad, or you can fling the door open and tell them how happy you are to see them.

By all means, do your work and decorate your room. You’ve been afforded t... See more

Your vocation, in the mid-20th-century world I was born into, was your job title. This was such a diminishment of us. We are called not merely to be professionals but to be friends, neighbors, colleagues, family, citizens, lovers of the world. We are called to creativity and caring and play for which we will never be paid — and which will make life... See more

Choose work you have a natural aptitude for and a deep interest in. Develop a habit of working on your own projects; it doesn't matter what they are so long as you find them excitingly ambitious. Work as hard as you can without burning out, and this will eventually bring you to one of the frontiers of knowledge. These look smooth from a distance, b... See more