Tag Archives: Brain Pickings

Something Good

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1. This quote from Pema Chödrön’s new book, Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change:

It’s not impermanence per se, or even knowing we’re going to die, that is the cause of our suffering, the Buddha taught. Rather, it’s our resistance to the fundamental uncertainty of our situation. Our discomfort arises from all of our efforts to put ground under our feet, to realize our dream of constant okayness. When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness. Another word for that is freedom—freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human.

2. Two posts from Lissa Rankin: Stop Striving. You Are Already Enough. and 6 Life Lessons I Learned from Blogging.

3. This heartbreaking video. This was going around on Facebook last week, and I finally watched it. This is the real shit. If you’ve ever loved someone and lost them (especially if it was to cancer), and had to keep living after, you will feel this man’s pain, and at the same time be reminded we are not alone.

4. The impossible choice by Sunni Chapman on Roots of She. With everything that’s been going on with my Dexter, this post was pure medicine for me. Especially this,

Oh Life, you are so kind. Even if you had taken him from me, you are still so kind. Because you gave me the love of this dear sweet being, for as long as he wants to be with me, and for a million other reasons, as well. Thank you Life, for this gift of seeing, and thank you Life, for this greatest gift of LOVE.

Thank you, Sunni.

5. The Burning House: What People Would Take if the House Was on Fire on Brain Pickings. I thought so much about this with the fires here this summer, love seeing what people would take, what is precious to them.

6. The Renegade Craft Fair in London on decor8. I would have spent so much money at this. And p.s., I love Holly’s latest blog design, especially the new header and link buttons.

7. 8 life lessons, gracefully learned – advice for my younger self on The Freedom Experiment.

8. Living Into My Words from Erica Staab. And not just because she quoted me, but because of things like this,

How often do we assume that we are the only ones struggling with something, to wrestle alone with our thoughts, fears and doubts only to hear when we finally gain the courage and bravery to share…“Me too.”

9. Famous Writer’s Small Writing Sheds and Off-The-Grid Huts. I felt physical pain looking at these, a tension and nausea in my body because my desire was so intense. I love these, want one someday.

10. Charles Bukowski, Arthur C. Clarke, Annie Dillard, John Cage, and Others on the Meaning of Life from Brain Pickings. So many great quotes here.

11. My Creative Life: Tammy Strobel, an interview with Susannah Conway. I am reading Tammy’s new book right now, so especially loved hearing her talk about her life as a writer. Susannah also shared a few links in her Something for the Weekend post (where I get at least one thing for this list each week) to people living in tiny spaces (Tammy lives in a tiny house) which are making me, once again, want to purge, downsize, declutter, and simplify.

Susannah also shared a link this week to this gorgeous video, The Most Beautiful Lies sung by Clare Bowditch and a few other lovelies.

And while we are talking about the brilliant Susannah Conway, here’s an interview with her on Sassyology.

12. 22 playful + productive + passion-stoking things to do, this September from Alex Franzen on Unicorns for Socialism.

13. The Only Way to Respond to Life, a sweet post by Leo Babauta on Zen Habits. “This moment is a ridiculously generous miracle.”

14. My dog: the paradox on The Oatmeal. Too funny, slightly naughty, and so true.

15. 5 Important Reasons to Slow Down Today on Pick the Brain.

16. 9 Ways to Get a New Venture Cracking from Jennifer Louden.

17. This poem from Rumi.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass
the world is too full to talk about.

18. This quote from the Dalai Lama.

Hardship, in forcing us to exercise greater patience and forbearance in daily life, actually makes us stronger and more robust. From the daily experience of hardship comes a greater capacity to accept difficulties without losing our sense of inner calm. Of course, I do not advocate seeking out hardship as a way of life, but merely wish to suggest that, if you relate to it constructively, it can bring greater inner strength and fortitude.

19. Humans of New York.

20. Our dreams don’t belong to us. They belong to the world. from Kelly Rae Roberts.

Something Good

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I have a blogging schedule, but apparently the Universe has other plans. At about noon yesterday, mid-post, I suddenly lost all ability to connect to any wordpress.com site. It didn’t matter what device I tried, I could navigate the internet just fine, but was blocked from anything wordpress.com. It was so frustrating. I had a whole other post and a half to finish, but when I finally, truly gave up checking at 7:30 last night, still nothing.

But magically this morning, as Eric suggested, everything was working again. He said something like “don’t worry about it, take the rest of the day off and it will probably be back up in the morning.” Don’t you hate it sometimes when your partner is so right?

I suppose the logic here is that it’s a Tuesday Monday. Those of us that work a Monday through Friday week in the U.S. were mostly lucky to have yesterday as a holiday, so today is technically Monday, the day when I most need a list of good things, so here it is…

1. I am reading this book next, and I can’t wait.

2. This post from Tara Brach, True Refuge: Presence in the Face of Dying. Holy wow, talk about perfect timing. In it, she shares the story of Pam, whose husband is dying.

“Pam,” I said, “you’ve already done so much . . . but the time for all that kind of activity is over. At this point, you don’t have to make anything happen, you don’t need to do anything.” I waited a moment and then added, “Just be with him. Let him know your love through the fullness of your presence.”

3. Artist Takes Every Drug Known to Man, Draws Self Portraits After Each Use, which makes me never want to take another drug.

4. The Good Life Project from Jonathan Fields. I like his reason for doing this almost as much as the project itself.

We are strongly committed to sharing the stories of women. When Jonathan’s daughter was about 5 years old, he became tired of reading her to sleep with fables where the boy comes riding in and saves the girl. He wanted to raise a strong, empowered, impassioned daughter with his wife. And this was sending the wrong message. Being a writer, Jonathan began to create his own stories (including one about a badass girl detective who solves cases around the neighborhood and just happens to save a few boys).

Fast forward to 2012, Fields daughter has grown up in a household fueled by non-stop creativity and entrepreneurship. She’s exposed to it everyday. But when Jonathan began looking for powerful stories to share with his daughter about women creating great businesses, bodies of work and movements, he became incredibly frustrated at the lack of coverage in mainstream media. In Jonathan’s words, it was “one giant dude-fest.”

So, he decided to take on the challenge himself. If larger media outlets weren’t telling the stories of amazing women, Jonathan would. Which is why one of the core values of GLP TV is a deep commitment to sharing the stories of and spotlighting strong, innovative, creative women. On this show, women get equal, if not more, time than men.

Jonathan introduced the latest episode, an interview with a professional climber, this way:

I don’t believe people who say they don’t know what they’re passionate about.

They do know. YOU do know.

What you want to be when you grow up has been in your head since you
were 6. At least the pieces, the core qualities that matter.

But we get so wrapped-up in pre-judging the perceived “non-viability” of the things that light us up that we tell ourselves they don’t actually light us up anymore. Because that’s easier than saying we know what makes us breathless, but refuse to act on it because we have no clue how to make it into a living? And we’re terrified of failing and being judged.

5. Catalyzing Creativity: 7 Playful Activity Books for Grown-Ups from Brain Pickings. These look really, really fun.

6. And a few more from Brain Pickings: How to Read Like a Writer and New Year’s Resolution Reading List: 9 Books on Reading and Writing. The first post says this: “Every page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and small deliberations.” Yes, yes.

7. The Pleasure Of, “simple things of everyday life.”

8. Are you hanging by a thread? on the Daily Love, by Danielle LaPorte. And yes, the answer is yes, but this makes me feel so much better about it.

9. Happiness is Uncovering What You Already Have from Leo Babauta on Zen Habits.

You have all you need for happiness, right now. You don’t need to change anything about yourself, or your life. You just need to see what’s already there.

10. To be filed under “how the heck did I miss this?!”: World Humanitarian Day (August 19th), the I Was Here project, and the Beyoncé song and video that went with it. *sob*

10. Tina Roth Eisenberg’s 8 Steps for a Creative Life.

11. This quote from Mark Nepo:

Transformation always involves the falling away of things we have relied on, and we are left with a feeling that the world as we know it is coming to an end, because it is.

12. And Trotter, the French Bulldog, just because she makes me smile. (P.S. I’m normally not a fan of dog costumes, but these are cute, and she looks like she doesn’t mind, might even like it). She has the sweetest face.