“The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”
– David Whyte
The Ultimate Touchstone of Friendship
Practice Any Art
“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.”
– Kurt Vonnegut
Improve The Silence
“Don’t talk unless you can improve the silence.”
– Jorge Luis Borges
Measure Time
“Being with you and not being with you is the only way I have to measure time.”
– Jorge Luis Borges
Hopping Through Life on One Leg
“It doesn’t matter how sensitive you are or how damn smart and educated you are, if you’re not both at the same time, if your heart and your brain aren’t connected, aren’t working together harmoniously, well, you’re just hopping through life on one leg. You may think you’re walking, you may think you’re running a damn marathon, but you’re only on a hop trip. The connections gotta be maintained.”
– Tom Robbins
A Smooth Hinge
“There is a door between the logical and intuitive worlds, and we must put a smooth hinge on it, and let it swing…”
– Lorna Crozier
Tenderness Towards Yourself
“Developing tenderness towards yourself allows you to see both your problems and your potential accurately. You don’t feel that you have to ignore your problems or exaggerate your potential.”
– Chögyam Trungpa
Kinder
“It’s embarrassing that after 45 years of research and study, the best advice I can give to people is to be a little kinder to each other.”
– Aldous Huxley
Makers
“You feel differently towards the world when you make things.”
– Milton Glaser
The Tremors That Rise
“The tremors that rise when a new life starts to feel possible against all odds.”
– Lafawindah
A Song Only You Can Hear
“You don’t love someone for their loss, or their clothes, or for their fancy car, but because they sing a song only you can hear.”
– Oscar Wilde
Our Real Work
“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.”
There There Be Space
“Let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup. Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
A Saint of your Own Province
“To gain your own voice,
forget about having it heard.
Become a saint of
your own province
and your own consciousness.”
– Allen Ginsberg
Become The Ocean
“If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.”
– Leonard Cohen
Love is Everything Around You
Thank you, rainbowsalt.
Addicted
“I was never addicted to one thing, I was addicted to filling a void within myself with things other than my own love.”
– Yung Pueblo
Kindness Scales
“It scales better than competitiveness, frustration, pettiness, regret, revenge, merit (whatever that means) or apathy. Kindness ratchets up. It leads to more kindness. It can create trust and openness and truth and enthusiasm and patience and possibility.
Kindness, in one word, is a business model, an approach to strangers and a platform for growth.It might take more effort than you were hoping it would, but it’s worth it.”
Resurfacing this quote I posted in 2017. It’s so good.
Disembodied Communication
“The body is everywhere assaulted by all of our new media, a state which has resulted in deep disorientation of intellect and destabilization of culture throughout the world. In the age of disembodied communication, the meaning and significance and experience of the body is utterly transformed and distorted.”
Have I mentioned that I’ve been trying to figure out the Internet?”
– Eric McLuhan
Uranus, Eris, and the Riddle of the Internet, by Eric Francis Coppolino
(Thank you Tim)
Not Knowing What To Do
“Eventually we realize that not knowing what to do is just as real and just as useful as knowing what to do. Not knowing stops us from taking false directions. Not knowing what to do, we start to pay real attention.”
– David Whyte
Success
“For me, success is not a public thing. It’s a private thing. It’s when you have fewer and fewer regrets.”
– Toni Morrison
When Someone Leaves
“When someone leaves, it’s because someone else is about to arrive.”
– Paulo Coelho
Home
“Home is where people notice when you’re not there.”
– Alexander Haymen