I’m not interested in whether the glass if half empty or half full. I’m interested in figuring out how to fill the glass.
~ Donal Kaberuka
slip:4a1198.
The glass →
July 02, 2023 — #39 →
Reading time: About 5 minutes, 1000 words
Get 7 for Sunday in your inbox. → Subscribe here.
This issue is https://7forsunday.com/39
The pause between →
I often discover I’m really enjoying myself when I am simply submerged in experiencing. Novelty will of course afford this opportunity (but it’s dangerous to chase novelty.) Unfortunately, if I find something mundane which I discover I’m enjoying I shift to wondering if I can make my enjoyment be productive.
If you’re trying to get through your work as quickly as you can, then maybe you should see if you can find a different line of work. And if you’re trying to get through your leisure-time reading and watching and listening as quickly as you can, then you definitely do not understand the meaning of leisure and should do a thorough rethink.
~ Alan Jacobs, from And Then?
slip:4uayae1.
I sometimes grasp leisure. Far too often I feel compelled to turn leisure into work. I once used “festina lenta” as my touch phrase for a year, and now that’s sounding like a perfect example of my turning my leisure into work.
ɕ
Mindless malice →
Even when one is crossing it at seventy miles an hour on a four-lane highway, the desert can seem formidable enough. To the forty-niners it was unmitigated hell. Men and women who are at her mercy find it hard to see in Nature and her works any symbols but those of brute power at the best and, at the worst, of an obscure and mindless malice.
~ Aldous Huxley
slip:4a1197.
Curiosity →
One should always be curious. Not a passive curiosity dependent upon information received, but an aggressive curiosity that compels one to seek things out and ascertain them for oneself.
~ Issey Miyake
slip:4a1196.
Self-understanding →
I’m often paused, even paralyzed, by uncertainty. My hope is that this is a sign that I’ve developed some (originally absent, apparently) humility. I swing wildly between feeling confident in simply doing “the work” simply for the sake of experiencing the process, and panicking in the face of self-criticism for wasting my talents and resources. Literally, the only thing which saves me is the knowledge that it takes a significant amount of self-awareness to even think to write a paragraph such as this.
Never play to the gallery… Always remember that the reason that you initially started working is that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest in some way, you would understand more about yourself and how you coexist with the rest of society. I think it’s terribly dangerous for an artist to fulfill other people’s expectations — they generally produce their worst work when they do that.
~ David Bowie from, David Bowie on Creativity and His Advice to Artists – The Marginalian
slip:4uteda1.
I’m not sure it’s terribly dangerous. But it’s certain that I get twitchy and restless if I go searching for others’ approval. It feels far better to sit down, shut up, and start. Actually, it’s really a double-negative: It feels far less worse to sit down, shut up, and start than it does to seek others’ approval for whatever it is I have the urge to work on.
ɕ
The disturbing truth →
Artists never stop looking for the disturbing truth behind the facade. When reality arrives, they won’t be surprised, because they saw it coming. Sometimes they even encouraged it to come.
~ Seth Godin
slip:4a1195.
It’s all memory →
Has it ever struck you that life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you so quick you hardly catch it going?
~ Tenessee Williams
slip:4a1194.
Contrast →
How important is having a vision? I’m feeling like it’s very helpful to have a vision which is both clear and simple. To be clear is one thing, but when I try to share a vision with someone else, it goes badly if it’s not also a simple vision.
This isn’t quite a contradiction (building projects are high variance), but it’s an interesting contrast – what made two seemingly similar projects develop so differently? Why did building the Empire State Building go so smoothly, and the World Trade Center struggle? What can we learn by comparing the two projects? Let’s take a look.
~ Brian Potter from, Building Fast and Slow, Part 1: The Empire State Building and the World Trade Center
slip:4ucopu1.
The question, “Who will do what by when?” tends to rock worlds. If I’m going to trot out that last focus, I better have a clear and simple vision of the “what”.
Also, what a deliciously deep dive, in just the first part linked to above, into how the Empire State Building was imagined, designed and built.
ɕ
Prescription →
One of the basic elements of the relationship between oppressor and oppressed is prescription. Every prescription represents that imposition of one individual’s choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed into one that conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness.
~ Paolo Freire
slip:4a1192.