If we love others first, we will not have to spend time worrying if they like us.
Because it doesn’t matter. We already love them anyway.
Author: Rebecca Toh
your life is no longer consumed by hunger
“When you take the time to draw on your listening-imagination, you will begin to hear this gentle voice at the heart of your life. It is deeper and surer than all the other voices of disappointment, unease, self-criticism and bleakness. All holiness is about learning to hear the voice of your own soul. It is always there and the more deeply you learn to listen, the greater surprises and discoveries that will unfold. To enter into the gentleness of your own soul changes the tone and quality of your life. Your life is no longer consumed by hunger for the next event, experience or achievement. You learn to come down from the treadmill and walk on the earth. You gain a new respect for yourself and others and you learn to see how wonderfully precious this one life is. You begin to see through the enchanting veils of illusion that you had taken for reality. You no longer squander yourself on things and situations that deplete your essence. You know now that your true source is not outside you. Your soul is your true source and a new energy and passion awakens in you.”
— John O’Donohue
Again and again, I go back to John O’Donohue. He clears out the cobwebs in my soul.
the tiny chef
I don’t know why but I’m really into The Tiny Chef!
His instagram account is particularly lovely.
*Chuckles*
#1 Start somewhere
Everything starts from somewhere.
Books start from the momentum of the first word, then a sentence, then one paragraph, then a page. It builds from there.
Movies begin from a writer sitting in a dark room dreaming up the first line of a dialogue, or one scene sketched out on paper.
Paintings arise from one uncertain stroke that leads to the next.
Start somewhere. It doesn’t matter where. Begin small and gently.
The bar — one word, one line, one stroke — is so low you cannot help but succeed.
Homesick
The perpetual feeling of homesickness, of feeling like we belong somewhere else, where the heart is fuller, the air clearer, the colors more vivid…
Can we be homesick for a place we’ve never known?
the future is written
Have you heard about GPT-3 yet? The language-generating AI? The AI that “writes”?
Here’s a screenplay it wrote, given this prompt –
Below is a screenplay for a film-noir hard boiled detective story by Raymond Chandler about the boy wizard Harry Potter:
“Scene: A small dingy office, early morning, furniture of the Salvation Army store variety. Sordid atmosphere. Harry Potter, in ratty tweed suit, unpressed shirt, and unshined shoes, sits behind the desk looking haggard, rumpled, and embittered. In one corner of the office a torn shade rattles at the wind gusts outside. Harry has one long index finger on the butt of a .38 and he broods over a photograph. The photograph shows a gorgeous blonde wearing an evening gown. She is holding a cocktail in one hand and looking pensively at a cigarette in the other. A tear adorns her cheek. Harry looks at her for a long moment, sighs, then puts his gun down and stands.”
— GPT-3
I’m kinda scared.
the elegant joy of black and white photography, part 2
real feeling
It’s not enough to do things, but I must do them with real feeling, with heart. Sometimes I catch myself coasting, nodding without real feeling, falling into things I don’t care for. But it’s all a waste of time.
Invest your entire being into the things you care about and you no longer need to wonder about the meaning of life. Meaning becomes the air you breathe — a basic, unquestionable element of life.
you want it darker, we kill the flame
the time experiment
For a day, an hour, or maybe just ten minutes, try this: Pretend time doesn’t exist, and live, for once, without the notions of “past” or “future”. Throw away your to-do lists, schedules, goals, worries, and live only in the deep now.
How does it feel?
Do you like how it makes you feel?