important

The thing that surprises you is what frees you because it has always existed, your world just hadn't yet expanded to include it

We’ve Lost the Plot

Illustration by <n>Drew Poppleton</n> for <n>The Atlantic</n>’s article “<n>We’ve Lost the Plot</n>”.

A graphic titled <n>Questions To Call Yourself Out On</n> by <n>We're Not Really Strangers</n>.

I've come to realize that negative criticism often arrives from the lips of someone incapable of accomplishing the things you can.

\- Unknown

I. POTENTIAL When we don’t like where things are headed, we’re left with a few responses:  Take charge  Find somebody else to put our trust in  Complain  The first two are an acknowledgement that things could be better. The latter is a choice to be stuck with the circumstances.  To see the potential is to see a better, happier, healthier future—for ourselves and for others.

https://www.jennyodell.com/museumofcapitalism_freewatch.pdf

A diagram illustrating the concept of <n>Flow State</n>, based on the work of psychologist <n>Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi</n>.

The only advice I have, if you can even call it that, is to sit as close to heart as you can.

We’re all looking for the light, hoping for an end to these dark times. But I for one am done with hope and all its precarious instability. Hope is predicated on a specific outcome, and when that outcome fails to arrive, we cast the world in shadow, our view of it shaken. Rather than hope, I would rather focus my energy on faith—belief in a higher purpose regardless of the end result. Hope has us wishing to see the light; faith assures us that it is there whether we can see it or not

The painting <n>Taking Time</n> by French artist <n>So Léo</n>.

When we over-index on documenting our lives, or infuse it with the aesthetic of cinema, scoring the climaxes, editing out the in-betweens that make up a life, we risk inverting its utility. Instead of being an existential hedge against dying, it becomes one against living. We end up believing things about our former selves that weren’t quite true, or doing it for the gram, or missing a hike before it’s even over. In our search for meaning we obscure it.

“Style is only common sense. You figure out what people like about you, and you exaggerate it.” – Jasper Johns

Everyone wants to succeed immediately and without pain or effort. Bad advice is everywhere. Build a following. Establish a platform. Learn how to scam the system. In other words, do all the surface stuff and none of the real work it takes to actually produce something of value. The disease of our times is that we live on the surface. We're like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep. Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something—the book you're writing, the album, the movie—and staying there for a long, long time.

“Let us read and let us dance—two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.” - Voltaire

Rick Rubin - How To Stop Overthinking

<n>Another Year of Growth Greeting Card</n> illustrated by <n>Lauren Wilson</n> for <n>Red Cap Cards</n>.

Have you ever thought about writing your own obituary? Not as if you’re dying now, but lets say in 40 years… how might you want it to read? And what would you need to change in your life today to become that person? Do I want to be remembered as startup guy who toiled over his laptop trying to reach inbox zero for the majority of his life? Or as a stand-up family man, who spent his time in nature, known for his legendary dinner parties and charitable deeds?

“If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, their oil would become tears.”  MAHMOUD DARWISH

You cannot negotiate friendship, barter for love, or buy a sense of purpose. Anything meaningful in life is done unconditionally—that is, it’s done for its own sake.

A part of yourself is completely unexplored till you meet a particular person or go to a particular place.

Superhuman

when we remember that emotions are impermanent, just like everything else in this universe, it becomes easier for us to stand next to the river that is the human mind & watch as things flow by

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.”  — Maria Robinson

“A brand cannot become complete unless it develops a story about a certain new value system and figures out how to communicate it to people, executes it by groping sensitively for its methodology and relationship with the times, pushes it to the public with great effort, and keeps adjusting it.” -Takashi Murakami in 032c 44

“An explained idea and a demonstration of the same idea often have little in common.” – Rick Rubin

A quote by author <n>Don Miguel Ruiz</n>.