The spot of the “QM Flow” session that I taught with Evan the weekend past at the Move NYC event. Sometimes I just take pictures where nothing is happening… yet.
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On this day
June 1st
Dedication
I ain’t going to give up. Every time you think I’m one place, I’m going to show up someplace else. I come pre-hated. Take your best shot.
~ Cyndi Lauper
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New associations
Instead of feeling complacent about what you know, you must expand your knowledge to related fields, giving your mind fuel to make new associations between different ideas. You must experiment and look at problems from all possible angles. As your thinking grows more fluid, your mind will grow increasingly dimensional, seeing more and more aspects of reality. In the end, you will turn against the very rules you have internalized, shaping and reforming them to suit your spirit.
~ Robert Greene
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Today
I don’t complain about the lack of time… what little I have will go far enough. Today—this day—will achieve what no tomorrow will fail to speak about. I will lay seige to the gods and shake up the world.
~ Seneca, Medea, 423-5
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Silence
The universe makes a sound — is a sound. In the core of this sound there’s a silence, a silence that creates that sound, which is not its opposite, but its inseparable soul. And this silence can also be heard.
~ Etel Adnan from, Shifting the Silence to Find the Meaning: 95-Year-Old Artist, Poet, and Philosopher Etel Adnan on How to Live and How to Die
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I am not a poet. Who knows, maybe if I were, I’d still be at a loss for words. On one hand, having read Popova’s short article I feel relieved; At the least, I’ve now noticed a person named Adnan has lived, and I’ve enjoyed a small sip of her writing. On the other hand, a gripping panic begins to rise up as it’s painfully clear that I will never make even the slightest progress in experiencing the totality of what this universe has to offer. Anyway, go take a sip.
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The unimaginable future
It’s an idiosyncrasy to which we are dedicated. It’s nerdy fun, but it has a serious point, too. As our co-founder Stewart Brand points out: the present moment used to be the unimaginable future.
~ Mikl Em from, Long Now Years: Five-digit Dates and Y10K-compliance at Home
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I’ll do the nerd stuff first: They take the leading zero in their representation of years so far, they’ve even figured out how to get it into their WordPress blog URLs. No, I’m not doing that. Yes, I am a supporting-member of The Long Now Foundation. And yes, of course I am on the waiting list to visit the clock they’re well-into constructing—in west Texas, I think it is?
I could easily wax obnoxious for a few thousand words rattling off a few things which are today blasé for me. But instead, I’d like you to hit reply and tell me: What’s something your primary-school-aged self would be astounded to learn about you?
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Care and feeding
I recently read Ray Bradbury’s, How To Keep And Feed A Muse. It’s a great essay by the way, and I suggest reading the entire collection in his book, Zen in The Art of Writing.
When I give my thoughts on interviewing, depending on who’s asked me and why, I sometimes veer off into describing where the questions come from; right smack in the middle of the interview, where do all the questions come from? Sometimes I do actively try to think them up on the spot; I’ll run through the topics we’ve covered, the ideas I had before we started, and then I’ll grab a thread of thinking and tug. But that rarely works and it’s always obvious to the guest, to me, and in the recording. Most of the time however, the questions just come to me. Like, *flash* …they come streaming at me far faster than I could say them. So what’s up with that?!
Maybe it’s my muse?
Have you heard of tulpas? A “tulpa” was originally, “a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being … created through spiritual or mental powers.” (Wikipedia) No, not that tulpa.
More recently, the term is being used to refer to… Well, you’re not going to believe me, so I’ll just pull-quote it:
A tulpa is an entity created in the mind, acting independently of, and parallel to your own consciousness. They are able to think, and have their own free will, emotions, and memories. In short, a tulpa is like a sentient person living in your head, separate from you. It’s currently unproven whether or not tulpas are truly sentient, but in this community, we treat them as such. It takes time for a tulpa to develop a convincing and complex personality; as they grow older, your attention and their life experiences will shape them into a person with their own hopes, dreams and beliefs.
~ What Is A Tulpa from, What is a tulpa?
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No, it’s not a joke. There are no drugs involved. They are literally talking about creating an entire, additional, thinking, conscious mind… which just happens to be running in the same physical organ as your mind. Sounds completly ape-shit-bonkers… until you start reading more about it and put some thought into how your mind developed. You [you reading. you as your current mind] certainly weren’t born in your brain. You-as-your-current-mind developed over years. How’d that happen?
What if you could do it again, on purpose, using your current brain?
Today I find myself wondering if I’ve created a nascent Tulpa. It doesn’t seem to mind being stuck in my brain; it has no control, but every once in a while it realizes there’s a cool, novel, human mind across the table, and here are these ice-cream-cone like things with the wires and… “oh OH! I have a question!!!”
…and then Craig’s all like, “now where did that question come from?”
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Men without chests
If one believes in objective order and value, then the failure to feel the proper sentiment in the face of a particular stimulus cannot be justified on the basis of mere personal preference, casually categorized under the rubric of “to each their own”; rather, it must be frankly countenanced as a deficiency in one’s human make-up. As Lewis confesses, “I myself do not enjoy the society of small children: because I speak from within the Tao I recognize this as a defect in myself — just as a man may have to recognize that he is tone deaf or colour blind.”
~ Brett McKay from, Men Without Chests
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…from C.S. Lewis‘s, 1934 The Abolition of Man.
The more I read, the more I find I want to explore and continue learning.
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§6 – I Choose To Fall!
(Part 18 of 37 in series, Study inspired by Pakour & Art du Déplacement by V. Thibault)
I’ve now read the entire book several times, and Chapter 6 never ceases to inspire!
Three thoughts:
I may not be the strongest. I may not be the fastest. But I’ll be damned if I’m not trying my hardest.
~ unknown
It ofttimes requires heroic courage to face fruitless effort, to take up the broken strands of a life-work, to look bravely toward the future, and proceed undaunted on our way. But what, to our eyes, may seem hopeless failure is often but the dawning of a greater success. It may contain in its debris the foundation material of a mighty purpose, or the revelation of new and higher possibilities.
~ Chapter 14, “Failure as a Success”, from Self Control, Its Kingship and Majesty, by William George Jordan, 1907
…
Failure is often the turning-point, the pivot of circumstance that swings us to higher levels. It may not be financial success, it may not be fame; it may be new draughts of spiritual, moral or mental inspiration that will change us for all the later years of our life. Life is not really what comes to us, but what we get from it.
The application in the Ways is to falls in life. To be able to take a disaster or a great failure, with the whole personality, without shrinking back from it, like the big smack with which the judo man hits the ground. Then to rise at once.
Not to be appalled at a moral fall. Yet it is not that it does not matter. The judo man tries by every means not to be thrown, but when he is thrown it does not hurt him and in a sense it does not matter. It matters immensely, and yet it does not matter.
‘Falling seven times, and getting up eight.’
~ “Falling”, from Zen and the Ways, by Trevor Leggett, 1978
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YES!
This arrived at my office while I was away… awesome work Julie! Thank you so much for all the effort that went into this book.
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Hero training
If you are in a crappy situation, struggling with weight loss, or struggling to change your diet, believe that the Hero version of you is waiting to develop. You’re in the ‘challenge’ part of the story right now. Without that, the Hero part will have no meaning.
Who wants to read the story about the awesome guy that got more awesome? Nobody!
~ Steve Kamb from, Hero Training 101: 4 Steps To Save The Galaxy
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