Monthly Archives: August 2015

Date: by | Categories: Being Different, Findings, Misfits, On Writing, Projects, The Writer's Quest

Making Time for Our Passion

Flower in Sunlight on Island

Flower in Sunlight on Island

“Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones,
as the wind extinguishes candles and fans fires.” – Francois de La Rouchefoucauld

I think this is one of the reasons so many people get to the middle of life and feel unsatisfied, disillusioned, restless . . . as if something is missing. Because something is missing.

We tend to learn to put our passions aside. We learn to quiet them, to ignore them.

And for those “mediocre” interests, the ones that may have caught our interest, but haven’t come from the soul, this absence does seem to diminish them.

Fence Textures

Fence Textures

For those passions that are part of who we are, however, the going without, the denial, actually fans the fire consuming us sometimes from within.
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Date: by | Categories: On Writing, Projects, The Writer's Quest, Uncategorized

I Love to Write

"Modern Blindness" by Kevin Sloan

“Modern Blindness” by Kevin Sloan

I love to write. To be at the page.

That moment when the conscious self gives way to the subconscious and you are transported to another dimension, one where time seems suspended, where time seems to pass as if you’re in some sci-fi flick where years go by for people on the outside but for those in the wormhole it seems like seconds.

And when you emerge from that, you sometimes see that everyone you know has just kept going, aging the way we do minute-by-minute with our eyes on the future or the past.

Yet somehow in that suspended state you have held on a bit longer to that deep down part of who you are, that essence of your true self . . . which is the real fountain of youth.

Yeah, I love that.
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Date: by | Categories: Findings, Getting Out Of Our Own Way, On Writing, Other Cool Birds, Poetry, Projects, Retreats, The Writer's Quest, Things We Learn, Uncategorized

The Obstacle Is The Path

Boat and Boy by Peter van Straten

“Boy and Boat” by Peter van Straten

There is a Zen saying that sometimes the obstacle in the path is the path.

A friend of mine who is not a writer, though he is a very talented visual artist, shared some insight with me once that has resonated with me quite a bit the past few months.

“Consider this,” he said: “in the Chinese language, there is a word for Crisis. Much like words in English, the word is made up by combining two different words. The first symbol is the Chinese word for Danger. The second symbol is the Chinese word for Opportunity.”

On Leadership by Peter van Straten

“On Leadership” by Peter van Straten

When we consider the duality of all things, and the idea that an obstacle might also be an opportunity . . . when we acknowledge that the unwanted condition has a right to exist; that every conceivable state might have a purpose in the grand scheme (even if only as a “learning experience”), we provide ourselves with the chance to grow.

Back in November and December of last year, I wasn’t writing. From August through the end of the year, I was working nearly every day and was utterly exhausted those meager hours each week I wasn’t working.

I was frustrated, but believed that things would slow down in the new year. After all, my job is busiest August through November.

Except when it’s not.
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