Many months ago I dropped what used to be Twitter from my life. I missed it immediately, not for the political extremism but for the carefully cultivated feed I’d developed over the years I had it. Sometimes I still miss that, because the alternatives aren’t all that great yet. But I keep pressing on with…
“I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among…
“Mr. Alcott seems to be reading well this winter: Plato, Montaigne, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Sir Thomas Browne, etc., etc. ‘I believe I have read them all now, or nearly all,’ — those English authors. He is rallying for another foray with his pen, in his latter years, not discouraged by the past, into…
“All morning I lay down sentences, erase them, and try new ones. Soon enough when things go well, the world around me dwindles: the sky out the window, the furious calm of the big umbrella pine ten feet away, the smell of dust falling onto the hot bulb of the lamp. That’s the miracle of…
“Let nothing bind you. Transcend right and wrong, good and bad. Move on like a solitary lion. Make heaven and earth your dwelling. Renew! Renew!” — Awa Kenzo, Zen Bow, Zen Arrow I say I don’t pay attention to news, but I’m nonetheless very aware of what’s happening in the world. These things tend to…
“Be in the dojo wherever you are. It is your choice—live like a sage or exist like a fool. — Awa Kenzo, Zen Bow, Zen Arrow “Do your best at each and everything. That is the key to success. Learn one thing well and you will learn how to understand ten thousand things. Ten thousand…
At a reunion recently an old friend I hadn’t seen in years was talking about the level of rowing she’s been doing. She turned her hands palms up and showed me the evidence in the form of blisters. Elite rowers are a tough lot, and this otherwise sweet and warm person is as mentally tough…
“I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through – then follow through.”— Eddie Rickenbacker The more time I spend on this planet, the more I feel the fulfillment of deliberate action. You build momentum in your life when you do what you say you’re going to do with enough people. There’s…
We each plot our beginnings in this lifetime, but what of our endings? When do the wheels come off? When will be the last time we do that thing we love to do? We ought to look this expiration date squarely in the eye and be aware that all good things must pass, thus cherishing…
“We all have an essence, something inside of us that was uniquely assigned by the universe. This goes deeper than talent and skill. It’s a calling. An inner necessity. Your essence doesn’t care about power, promotions, or possessions. It only cares about one thing: expression.If essence is who you really are, then expression is how…