We made it safe to our hotel pretty late. It’s windy out here in Austin! The wind was treating the trucks on our route like rag dolls. Lot’s of trucks were on the side rode and we even seen a couple trucks regain control after battling the wind on the road in front of us.
We were safe and we drove safely. My sister even taught me how to check tire pressure. Hahaha It’s fun to get out and be away from the daily habits that make me feel productive. Makes me think differently about productivity.
I’m just glad we’re using the wind to fill our sails! On to our next adventure!
Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas IS AFRAID of the truly passionate painter who dares — and who has once broken the spell of “you can’t.”
“But we can still participate in a deeper and more lasting sense of happiness when we choose the life of meaning over that of mere happiness. Happiness stays with us longer when we let it come uninvited rather than on-demand.”
Happiness is about how we feel, physically and mentally, so its attainment is a matter of attention to one’s self. Meaning, on the other hand, is about how we are spiritually oriented toward the other, an activity that by nature must aim at something beyond and greater than one’s own self. This problematic situation reminds me of Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
The problem with the pursuit of happiness is that no matter how much we improve our surrounding conditions to be conducive of our happiness, we will soon get accustomed to those very conditions and the good feelings wear off. As a result, we lose ourselves to an endless project of an ever more intricate maintenance of our physical and mental states. Unlike the pursuit of meaning that opens us to the other, the sole pursuit of happiness shuts us off from the other.
Sometimes I go looking and exactly what I need is right there waiting for me. I love when that happens! It’s like everything aligns and I get a hug from all the words I needed to hear.
Today I didn’t really wake up with a question that I needed answered today. It’s always nice to have a question. It’s even nicer to have the right question. Sometimes it takes me several times to find the right question. It’s fun.
They make you think life is all about finding the right answers but the truth is life’s all about finding the right question. What are you asking yourself before you go to bed? What are you looking for when you wake up.
I think that’s what gives you connection to being alive. Then when you’re connected to being alive and searching for new questions to come up with, you have your million reasons to keep on living.
It’s a terrible thing when you get to a place in life where you don’t even have the energy to ask questions anymore. It’s a sad dark place when the things you’ve always cared about slip away as if you never had a fire in your heart before. I can only hope those moments of darkness are short for you. When the clouds drift away, get back to those questions that lit your fire again.
For me, the questions are one of the greatest gifts to being alive.
St Augustine’s Teaching The joy of friendship is beautifully described in this quote:
In my friends I found pleasures, which captivated my mind: shared talk, shared laughter, mutual acts of kindness, the shared reading of good literature, of moments of levity and seriousness; occasional disagreements that were without ill-feeling, as a man can disagree with himself, which gave relish to our more usual concord; teaching and learning from each other, longing impatiently for each other when absent, welcoming our absent friends with joy when they returned. There and other such tokens, which proceed from the hearts of those who love each other and express themselves in the face, the speech, the eyes, and a thousand gestures of goodwill, are so to speak, the kindling of the fire which melds together, making one out of many. (Confessions IV.18.13)
Walter Hansen from “Augustine and C.S. Lewis on Friendship”
Over the past couple years, I stepped away from the hustle and bustle of life to learn who I was and to heal myself from the many losses I experienced. One of the things that came from this period of growth was learning how to deeply love my friends when I’m around them. I know we say it a lot, but the only way it has been possible for me to be able to love my friends properly was to learn how to deeply love myself.
Augustine’s description of friendship is beautiful. It sounds like an intimate friendship that would add so much value to being alive. I learned (and am still learning) that in order to even attempt a friendship to that level of intimacy, it absolutely, without a doubt, requires that identical friendship with your inner self. St Augustine refers to this inner friendship as one you’d have with God. The Christian faith which St Augustine wrote about, would suggest these two things are not interchangeable. But let’s not forget how connected everything is. If we don’t respect ourselves, we don’t know how to respect our friends. If our inner voice is harsh and condescending, that is how we will treat our friends. There’s no way around it. This isn’t religion or spirituality. This is basic psychology.
Religion vs Psychology aside, the quote above is a great description for #squadgoals. Who doesn’t want a friendship like that? When I have free time, this is how I want my time spent. These are the friendships I want to cultivate and maintain.
I think I’ll post this one on my wall to motivate me to take my artist dates.
How many times today did you wish you were doing something else? How many times today did you say, “I don’t even want to be here.”
I was feeling that way a lot a few weeks ago. I finally said, “No! No more.” to that voice. I have spent years learning how to step away from the crowd. I have spent years learning to allow myself to say no to the things at take away value from my life. I didn’t put in all that work to show up to places that bring me down. I’m going to the places and people that bring me life!
Some people may think that philosophy is selfish. It’s not. My dreams, goals, and values aren’t things that would take away from someone else. Not one thing I desire will make someone go without. Not one of my values will make another human suffer. It’s me who will suffer if I don’t remain focused on those things. It is me who will feel less than.
I’ve been working through Artist’s Way (I only have a couple weeks left), and got stuck on chapter eight, Recovering a Sense of Strength. I don’t know what this chapter is about yet, but I think the title is a reminder that I need to reinforce my inner dialogue. I need to say no to the thoughts that are going to bring me down and take me away from enjoying the life that I’ve worked so hard to create for myself, the future I’m currently creating, and the present that I want to be part of so badly.
I’m grateful and happy for where my life is. I wasn’t always happy. I didn’t know I was allowed to be. I didn’t know I was allowed to have Sundays to myself to clean and think and read and sleep. It’s so silly how the world wants us going going going. I just want to enjoy my life.
Fear isn’t always a bad thing. Having no fear is great. But doing something even when you’re afraid, that’s courageous.
As writers we are the barer of all news, of truth, and of the tough conversations no one wants to have or even be conscious of. Heck, I don’t even wanna be conscious of some of the stuff I’ve researched for writing. When we write, we shouldn’t always be comfortable. I mean there’s a time a place for it, but if we have the gift and determination to get a work out (especially a novel), shouldn’t we creep outside of our own comfort zones?
I mean writing should be the place we allow ourselves to get loud. It should be our place of freedom. Of releasing all the limitations placed on us by social standards. Sometimes doing this by zooming in on the truth in some creative way.
I say all that to say, be courageous creative writers. Speak about the hard stuff even with fear in chest. Speak about the truths that hide in plain sight. The ones we fought for years ago but have grown too tired to care for anymore. There’s a million reasons to write, but the best reasons are the ones that make us better human beings than we were yesterday.
Making the unknown known isn’t always a simple task. There’s times it’s so easy we make it difficult because we were told it was difficult. And there are other times the answer comes to us with so much ease, it feels divine.
