“I know of nothing more difficult than knowing who you are and having the courage to share the reasons for the catastrophe of your character with the world.”
— David Shields
Really want to read this (and watch the companion documentary on Amazon). David Shields is one of my favourite writers. I quote him often.
Really want to read this (and watch the companion documentary on Amazon). David Shields is one of my favourite writers. I quote him often.
She made it through another year but not sure she’ll make another one…
🐕
It’s cold outside but not in here.
Just checking the weather for the next couple of days and it looks like I could quite easily get snow stranded at work!
Tucking into my favourite Xmas present.
Probably the most underrated feeling or state of mind that contributes subtlety but most powerfully to mental health and contentment is gratitude. There is always something to be grateful for. Even if it’s for something you don’t have, like chronic pain for instance. A bad day can always be worse.
Morning
The fire is slowly dying for the night…
So here we go with micro.blog… Haven’t the faintest how I’ll use it or if I even will. First impressions seem to indicate that it lends itself to informal, quick content but we’ll see I guess…
Brilliant and beautiful.
Quit chasing it. Happiness does not like to be chased.
It does admire a good heartbreak, though. A cleansing and terrifying dark night of the soul. A valley of disillusionment. A pit of despair. Happiness loves anything that is ego-shattering, identity-breaking, safety-smashing.
Happiness sniffs it out. Shows up quietly. Investigates. Watches and waits. Peers in the window. Scratches at the door.
You won’t notice at first.
You won’t notice for a long time.
(Anguish has a way of getting all our attention.)
You won’t even be thinking about happiness anymore.
Then one morning, you’ll wake up and walk outside and stumble right over it.
I’ve always found this time of year rather strange. I find myself surrounded by people both off and online looking back over the previous year and/ or looking ahead to the next.
I find myself doing neither. What’s done is done. Lessons will be learned or they won’t and what’s to come will come and the degree to which we have any conscious agency over any of it is (as I always boringly say) greatly overstated.
The only time that matters is now, the present moment – forever on the cusp of what’s gone and what’s unfolding. Neither memory nor imagination. An ever fluid liminal zone, ungraspable yet vitally and vividly apparent. Reality in the raw.
Nothings comes next, this is always it.
There are two conditions for growth: quietude and stillness. To avoid growth, have a goal. Create an agenda. Make a plan. Draw up a list of resolutions.
All growth is outgrowth. The germinant seed explodes.
Growth
Living by principles is not living your own life.
It is easier to try to be better than you are than to be who you are.— Marion Woodman
Nothing happens next, this is always it.