From my adventures in the subculture of addiction recovery, I’d learned that the trajectory of one’s life often boils down to a few identifiable moments—decisions that change everything. I knew all too well that moments like these were not to be squandered. Rather, they were to be respected and seized at all costs, for they just didn’t come around that often, if ever. Even if you experienced only one powerful moment like this one, you were lucky. Blink or look away for even an instant and the door didn’t just close, it literally vanished. In my case, this was the second time I’d been blessed with such an opportunity, the first being that precious moment of clarity that precipitated my sobriety in rehab. Looking into the mirror that night, I could feel that portal opening again. I needed to act. But how?
In truth, I needed an entirely new lifestyle. Finding Ultra: Rejecting Middle Age, Becoming One of the World's Fittest Men, and Discovering Myself by Rich Roll What is this blog about?
Looking at the many varied posts; I can see that I have been thinking about time, and how it functions and we function within it. . I have thought hard about the brain, how it is a very unique tool, and how to improve all it's functions to make my work better. I have learned it is plastic and changeable. We can change, we do change. I have read and used and experimented with many aspects of health, fitness and nutrition. I have tried many things and tried to distill all the conflicting information to have a simple concise plan. I want to create and build and that is all about endurance. I love authors and writing and creativity. I love creativity and believe it matters and it makes everything you do better. I write and I am trying to learn, and want to see what others are doing. I went to college on an art scholarship, studied literature, computers, and business The more eyes and minds on a problem, the more efficient the solution. You are your network. You become what your network is. Good business is creative, I find business creative and interesting and when business is done well , it is a powerful force to make the world around it better and when done badly it is one of the most destructive. I also believe firmly that specialization is for insects. Great minds are many things, and can do many things, can be many things, and can makes many things better for them simply taking an interest in it. Creative people matter, look at some figures in history, Richard Feynman, Voltaire, Da Vinci, the list is long but these are all people who saw new potential in the everyday world. Someone the other day was making fun of liberal arts majors. I promise you, you give me a team of ten liberal arts majors and pit them against ten MBA's, the liberal art's team will stand a chance of creating something new, because the world is full of people with tools and nothing to say and no original thoughts in their head. I could create a world with liberal art's majors. With MBA's I can refine a price point or talk at great length about Operations strategies but they, as a whole, do not create, they refine. Keep in mind I am a liberal arts major and an MBA. I find the world fascinating and people's reactions even more so, and believe that mental systems like Buddhism have tools and ways of life that are compelling and ways of living that work and have worked for thousands of years. All these topics fascinate me and I it think shows in the posts on this blog. What seems like a lack of focus is actually me finding ways to function in the world, trying to be creative in a world that up until recently valued only obedience and specialization. I remember reading somewhere, I believe it was Plato, about the concept of Philosopher King, and since we are the Rulers of our lives and the CEO's of our finances self business, it is a good model to imulate, taking control of our lives, living our creative lives, with balance. I am all about finding the balance. And since the world changes constantly, balance matters and is also dynamic. That is what this blog is about, is finding the tools to create the balance you need to create. No matter who the artist, there needs to be a pocket of tools in hand to keep you functioning. D MURAKAMI
I’m a hard worker. I concentrate on my work very hard. So, you know, it’s easy. And I don’t do anything but write my fiction when I write. INTERVIEWER How is your typical workday structured? MURAKAMI When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerize myself to reach a deeper state of mind. But to hold to such repetition for so long—six months to a year—requires a good amount of mental and physical strength. In that sense, writing a long novel is like survival training. Physical strength is as necessary as artistic sensitivity. Haruki Murakami Interview - Paris Review One does feel tremendously, when one is in this beautiful country, that one is part of a larger soul, which embraces everything … It looks as though the amount of good and evil were about the same in the world. I think the good will probably win in the end – though not necessarily, unless the most persistent and tremendous efforts are made … But I’m not a pessimist, and I think it will be all right. I think we shall ultimately work all the disorder into a single principle, which will be an Absolute – but which at present exists only potentially and at the nature of which we can only very dimly guess. aldous huxley "I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones." — Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet) "I believe in the power of the imagination to remake the world, to release the truth within us, to hold back the night, to transcend death, to charm motorways, to ingratiate ourselves with birds, to enlist the confidences of madmen."
— J.G. Ballard "Beauty, the world seemed to say. And as if to prove it (scientifically) wherever he looked at the houses, at the railings, at the antelopes stretching over the palings, beauty sprang instantly. To watch a leaf quivering in the rush of air was an exquisite joy. Up in the sky swallows swooping, swerving, flinging themselves in and out, round and round, yet always with perfect control as if elastics held them; and the flies rising and falling; and the sun spotting now this leaf, now that, in mockery, dazzling it with soft gold in pure good temper; and now again some chime (it might be a motor horn) tinkling divinely on the grass stalks—all of this, calm and reasonable as it was, made out of ordinary things as it was, was the truth now; beauty, that was the truth now. Beauty was everywhere."
— Virginia Woolf (Mrs. Dalloway) May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
— Neil Gaiman I'll let a train be my feet
If it's too far to walk to you If a train don't go there I'll get a jet or a bus Because I'm going to find you You're going to see me shadow soon around you And my head is my only house unless it rains I walk the meadow plains Water deserts are my eyes until I find you I won't sleep until I find you I won't eat until I find you My heart won't beat until I wrap my arms around you My arms are just two things in the way Until I can wrap them around you You can make my sad song happy Make a bad world good I can feel you out there moving You're mine, I know I'll find you And my head is my only house until I've found you I hate to have other people hear me sing this song If this reaches you before I do Follow it to "I love you" That's where I'll find you And my head is my only house until I find you Lyrics - Captain Beefheart - My Head is My Only House Unless it Rains This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.
Resist much. Obey little. — Walt Whitman |
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