From The Gift — Lewis Hyde

Shoemaker and the elves

“For a brief period, say a week, he will experience a longed-for freedom. Then normalcy will descend, and then the years of labor to acquire that freedom as a true possession. The gift is not ours yet but the fullness of the gift is…

Ladybirds in the warmth

Ladybirds are clever little things. They clearly like the warmth. In winter, they’re able to seek out the windows of my bedroom (and have done in every bedroom I’ve had in London), and seek out the little gaps built into the windows (called trickle vents to enable a continual flow of…

Nothing

Bring nothing

Seek nothing

Take nothing

On exploring the inner, nothing

Bring nothing — humility. Leave all that you are, that you believe, that is on your mind, behind.

This is huge

If a beautiful flower blooms in the forest, and there’s no-one around to see it bloom, no bees take its nectar, no flowers are pollenated, no-one appreciates its beauty, no biological function is served by its existence… was the value of its existence any less?

Everything hinges on this one question.

(15.8.22)

Purpose

Two types

Mission driven purpose — external

External: linear, clear, part of a greater whole, fulling a mission. Brings with it a clarity of purpose that sidesteps the ambiguity of everyday life.

Death and endings

I consider endings in every little thing I do, insofar as I’m able.

When raving, I am acutely aware that this magical night of incredible music and fun and revelry will end. That ending spurs me on beyond flagging energy, beyond social inhibitions, beyond mental…

On a creative process

While it’s iterative and a lot of these parts of the process overlap, there is a flow to it.

You start off in this wonderful blank space, an open universe of possibilities and within that you start to see these ideas bubbling up. As you take ideas you see them…

Grandad scenario

Scenario of being with Donkey having an extremely rare (by that time in our lives, exceptionally rare) opportunity for us to chat as friends and as grandads. One of his grandkids comes along to ask him to pay attention to some passing minutiae of childhood excitement and he chides them away…

Energia

Energy is one of those qualities that moat impacts people, in a good way.

Energy is the reason cited by Matt as to why we would be good parents

Energy is why people applauded so much at the end of Tio Menél’s life. Energy was how he touched people.

Dancing

I spend such an inordinate amount of time thinking deeply about the meaning of life. The only time I feel like I 100% have the answer completely clear is when I’m dancing. Make sense of that!

(26.5.23)

Expression

Expression has so much to do with this. Finding oneself, fulfilling oneself, self-actualising oneself, becoming whole as one self — it can all be found through expressing oneself as oneself and as one self.

Upon resignation

I have just resigned for the third time in my life.

The first time was due to the erosion of ambition.

The second time was disappointment.

The third…?

Plummet

I suddenly found myself at the bottom of a plummet. Not plummeting, not falling, stationary, at the bottom.

There, at the bottom, static, I found that all the writing seemed utterly pointless, utterly worthless, the most pointless endeavour I could ever embark upon. There was no…

The Golden Tool

Perseverance

Counts for more than anything else.

Breaks down to daily habits plus a regain mechanism, bolstered around hope, because perseverance is simply actions performed regularly over a long period of time.

My Worldview

There are aspects of it that I had sussed from my early teens. There are elements of it that I’m still trying to figure out.

I believe it’s important to cultivate and sustain a profound sense of awe and wonder at our very existence in this life, in this universe.

A very real risk

There is a very real risk that this dread of not honouring my one exquisite opportunity of being alive by doing ‘something’ purposeful and meaningful with it is actually what is preventing me from honouring this one exquisite opportunity of being alive.

(27.5.23)

Hello old friend

Turns out that when I was having a positive conversation scenario, realised it wasn’t real, but realised I wanted to continue the conversation, that I could legitimately continue it with myself.

Overthought

Put bluntly, I feel like I have overthought the nature, purpose and meaning of life to such an extent that I am hounded by the inescapable and irreconcilable feelings of, on the one hand, boundless, bottomless, inextinguishable and indefatigable hope, optimism, joy and gratitude in the face of our…

Equanimity with our lack of equanimity

No matter how fed up or seasick the sailor might get, no matter how much they want to get off the boat, they can’t. They are still reliant on the boat for their presence in the stormy seas.

Philosophy of science

What if it’s creation rather than discovery. What if it’s all a created approximation and we’ll never get to a complete theory of all because it’s literally unknowable — at least to human minds, possibly entirely by anything within the whole.

How would we live with that?

(11.11.21)