Believe me, it’s better to produce the balance-sheet of your own life than that of the grain market.*
Seneca
Remember that in a myth we are all the characters.**
Jean Houston
In our sophistication,
We are able to accomplish
a lot of expertises.
At the same time
we are neglecting
our inner self.
Our myth is not impossible
but difficult–
We are the resistance.
When we overcome
and make this journey,
Everyone receives.
*Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
**Jean Houston’s The Wizard of Us.
Growing up … is the equivalent of the biblical Fall. As adults we forget what it was like to be a child. There is a sense that the world was different then, and that something important has been lost, but we are unable to recall what this is, or exactly what it felt like.*
John Higgs
We have. in many ways forgotten what the world feels like. And so new maladies of the soul have emerged, unhappinesses which are complicated products of the distance we have set between ourselves and the world.**
Robert Macfarlane
Somewhere inside
of me, there breathes
a six year old full
of curiosity and wonderment, who
feels so small in a big world.
Somewhere inside
of me, humility
and curiosity quietly lead me
into whisper of the infinite where
all is well with my soul.
*John Higgs’ William Blake vs The World;
**Robert Macfarlane’s The Wild Places.
The systems we support, the people we dance with, the ruckus we create – it’s not for today, it’s for tomorrow. We’re here now, but we live in the future. We are making history. If you could have tomorrow over again, would you do it differently*
Seth Godin
Thin|Silence hit number 4500 yesterday–
Whispers from the future
of what is possible,
For you to mix into your daily reflecting,
To create your own potency
at the beginning of the day,
To remember and imagine anew
how astonishingly inventive and creative you are,
And how powerful this is for helping another.
I love Seth Godin’s closing question–
This is what our imagining is all about,
Changing tomorrow;
We cannot control
the future-shaping events,
And a lot of who we will be
is determined by our past,
But that leaves a lot of personal choice–
My guesstimate is around forty per cent.**
This is the area of my work–
I simply want to share what I’m discovering
to help anyone that I can,
So if I can help you in some way
to do-over your tomorrow,
Drop me a line–^
A gift – no charge,
And I also end up with loads of doodles,
So, if you’d like some, let me know.^^
*Seth Godin’s This Is Strategy;
**I can’t remember the source, but I remember reading that our baseline happiness measures around fifty per cent of our contentment, events (winning the lottery, being head-hunted for our dream-job, etc.) only make up ten, which leaves forty per cent to our personal choices;
^geoffreybaines@geoffreybaines;
^^I’ll post the doodles to anywhere in the world, free of charge.
To be here is to embrace the spiritual challenge of your ikigai, doing the hard work of figuring out who you are and what you have to give to the world.*
Rob Bell
Toward leggiero … The light touch. A way to make a sound without a commotion. Delicate and graceful. Showing up with care and with just enough extra, but not more than that.**
Seth Godin
I think I have a case of the deeps.
Listening to and following the whispers of life to be able to share them.
Back in 2014, I set out to blog everyday with a blog and a doodle for a year.
I couldn’t stop, and today is blog and doodle number 4,500.
I feel this is my ikigai, my heartfulness.
Something that fills my soul whilst serving others.
Whispers that I follow and seek and proffer in some simple way.
Both here and in my work with a few others around their talents, energies, and values.
Plumbing the depths.
No charge– a gift.^
*Rob Bell’s How To Be Here;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Toward leggiero;
^More to follow on this tomorrow.
You’re playing the show.
Own the show.
Own the space.
Lift the room.*
Gabe Anderson
I could see that the practice of surrender was actually done in two, very distinct steps: first, you let go of the personal reactions of like and dislike that form inside of your mind and heart; and second, with the resultant sense of clarity, you simply look to see what is being asked of you by the situation unfolding in front of you.**
Michael Singer
I read their email again–
The challenge had come from another
but the test was mine.
How will I respond?,
How might I use this
to grow into what I must do?
*Gabe Anderson’s blog: Own The Show;
**Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s Tiny Experiments.
Study upon study has revealed meetings are catastrophically inefficient.*
Matthew Syed
The reality, says Buber, is that we live in a “profoundly twofold” world, the realm of I-Thou and the realm of I-It. They are not two worlds. They are one. And they need each other.**
Philip Newell
Confession:
I’m not the best person
to ask about meetings.
If I can get out
of a meeting,
I will.
I’ve learnt
a few things after being in
thousands of meetings:
If you have to lead a meeting
and there is someone present better
at this, ask them to lead…
Don’t try to be a “meeting-person,”
Be yourself and
turn up in your superpower…^
Meetings aren’t bad,
They just lost their way, forgetful
that they are meant to stimulate and organise the new…
If you were out there everyday doing
new things, you’d come to long for a meeting
to bring it all together.
*Matthew Syed’s Rebel Ideas;
**Philip Newell’s The Great Search;
^I found myself to be a much happier listener than speaker – I began to take a notebook to meetings, in which I would mix things that were being shared in the meeting with thoughts and ideas I was reading about and that excited me. If anything pertinent appeared, I would share it.
Too often we get hung up on how risky it feels, and fail to focus enough on how generous the work is. Generosity is a great antidote to fear.*
Seth Godin
If you’re reading this book, it’s because you sense inside you a second self, an unlived you.**
Steven Pressfield
Generosity is risky,
So are humility and
faithfulness.
Each provides
a path from the familiar
into the unknown.
You are a who and a where,
But a voice calls to you
from your future.
More than a new idea,
It is the
perspective of your soul.
*Seth Godin’s blog: Kinds of courage;
**Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work.
Ignore all marketing and advertising.
Nobody is pushing what really matters.
Friendships, nature, family, learning, community.
The best things in life aren’t things.*
Derek Sivers
Regardless of your religion or lack of it, every person relies on the Transcendent to provide meaning for their lives. Transcendent refers to that which exists above or beyond. We all need to live for something above or beyond ourselves.**
AleXander McManus
There it is again,
The whisper of a thought
that if we stop to notice it
may grow into a possibility
of somehow making
someone’s world better.
*Derek Sivers’ How To Live;
**AleXander McManus’ FutureU.
The garden is a meditation practice, that of seeing when it is time for something to die. In the garden one can see the time coming for fruition and for dying back. In the garden one is moving with rather than against the inhalations and exhalations of greater wild Nature.*
Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Self-awareness, humility, and generosity are required for openness and creativity and therefore for impact. We need to take time for rest, refreshment, recovery, and renewal, and to celebrate our victories and honour our losses.**
Adam Kahane
Spring: new energy, beginnings and possibilities,
Summer: focus, flow, I am,
Autumn: fruitfulness, for you, I’m tired,
Winter: hiddenness, reflection, rest.
My favourite is Spring,
But I need each of the seasons–
I need to breathe
in and out.
*Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ Women Who Run With the Wolves;
**Adam Kahane’s Everyday Habits For Transforming Systems.
Our first long-term memories form between the age of two and four. Once we have a memory, we can begin to understand ourselves as a story that is acting out of time.*
John Higgs
You are the only you that has ever lived; you idiom is the only idiom of its kind in all of existence and if you cannot hear the sound if the genuine in you, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that someone else pulls …**
Brian McLaren
Two and a half years old,
Carrying some jam and bread to his Mummy
who had just returned home after
giving birth to a little boy.
Other memories would follow for me
in the home, at school, work, family –
My story had begun,
But to know my story is not to know me.
Through error and exploration,
I came to realise that I needed
more than a story–
What I really needed was a myth.
There is a temptation to
enlarge my story, to be
known for something,
But not so with my myth.
A myth is not demonstrative,
But it is full of rightness,
is its own reward and aims
to leave the world a better place.
John Higgs’ William Blake vs The World;
Brian McLaren’s Faith After Doubt.
THIN|SILENCE 
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