I ask you to assume that the person in front of you contains some piece of themselves that has no weight, size, colour, or shape yet gives them infinite value and dignity. If you consider that each person has a soul, you will be aware that each person has some transcendent spark in them. If you see the people you meet as precious souls, you’ll probably wind up treating them well.*
David Brooks
*David Brooks’ How To See A Person.
Faithfulness is is the art
of making something
for others
with who you are
and what you have–
In ways large and small
day after day.
Old age offers the opportunity to integrate and bring together the multiplicity of directions that you have travelled. It is a time when you can be awakened and new possibilities come alive for you.*
John O’Donohue
*John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara.
You need ritual not inspiration. Every day, no matter what, you must practise. Your practice ritual is your highest priority – an unbreakable commitment. Stubbornly protect this time against the demands of the world.*
Derek Sivers
*Derek Sivers’ How To Live.
When you’re beholding someone, you’re seeing the richness of this particular human consciousness, the full symphony – how they perceive and create their life.*
David Brooks
This is worth repeating
often.
*David Brooks’ How To Know A Person.
Nature bids us do well for all…Wherever there is a human, we have an opportunity for kindness.*
Seneca
In a conversation, you will often find that how you speak shapes the response you will get. It is also true that the way we listen the way the other person will speak.**
Esther Perel
Behold the person,
Listen attentively,
Speak kindly–
Virtues we can all grow in.
*Quoted in Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
**Quoted in Suleika Jaouad’s The Book Of Alchemy.
Write about yourself as if you were writing about a stranger. Describe whom you see, both the tangibles and intangibles…Be kind and generous.*
Debbie Millman
Success leads to the greatest failure, which is pride. Failure leads to the greatest success, which is humility and learning. In order to fulfil yourself, you have to forget yourself. In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself.**
David Brooks
It is very possible
to “write”^ about yourself
and to forget yourself–
I have found that people reflecting on their lives^^
invariably identify the difference
they want to make for others – directly or indirectly –
And how to do this
with who they are and what they have–
Losing themselves as they do.
*Quoted in Suleika Jaouad’s The Book Of Alchemy;
**David Brooks’ The Road To Character;
^I have open conversations with those I accompany;
^I offer this work in a gifted way – drop me a line at geoffreybaines@gmail.com.
Goodness isn’t sameness. Goodness, to be goodness, needs contrast, and tension, not perfect uniformity.*
Richard Rohr
*Richard Rohr’s The Divine Dance.
SOME RANDOM THIN|SILENCE
THIN|SILENCE FROM A YEAR AGO
The person who has overcome greed does not cling to any idol or anything and hence has nothing to lose: he is rich because he is empty, he is strong because he is not the slave of his desires. He can let go of idols, irrational desires, and fantasies, because he is in full touch with reality, inside and outside himself.*
Erich Fromm
*Erich Fromm’s The Revolution Of Hope.
The paradox is that hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for its own sake, leads to anhedonia, which is the inability to enjoy pleasure of any kind.*
Anna Lembke
The median narcissism score has risen 30 percent in the last two decades.**
David Brooks
Could it be
the pleasure-seeker requires more and more
to feel less and less, yet
the one who shares gains pleasure
in others?
The ancient ways and philosophers
and scriptures and mystics –
And all their children –
Will help us find who we can be,
Will help us remember what we can do.
The Koreans call it nunchi, the ability to be sensitive to other people’s moods and thoughts. The Germans (of course) have a word for it: herzenbildung, training one’s heart to see the full humanity in another.^
*Quoted in Arthur Brooks’ The Meaning Of Your Life;
**David Brooks’ The Road To Character;
^David Brooks’ How To Know A Person.
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