The most important thing
What matters most? What's the most important thing right now, right here, that you can do, that will shape how you are, with yourself and with others? Knowing that everything matters, in the sense of the unavoidable chain of cause and consequence, the truth of actions and reactions, what's the most important thing ?
On having difficult conversations, and being better rather than doing more
Why do we yield to a torrent of mental anguish and work-based strain before we ask for help? What makes us believe that we have to hold an unbearable and impossible load alone? When we know that the unspoken expectation to "soldier on" serves the folks at the top of the proverbial layer cake and definitely not us, why do we do it? And how can we stop?
All useful questions to consider, and I encourage you to reflect on your own answers, but for the most part, I'd say they're not the primary focus when it comes to moving on skillfully, because a) we know the answers already (cultural conditioning, capitalism, social pressure, systemic inequality, etc), and yet we carry on regardless, which leads me to b) the realm of "why" can lead us to conceptualising, excusing, ruminating, lamenting and bemoaning. Whereas the more constructive and change-making approach is to ask: what now, what do I/we need to do differently, how can I/we help to make things better?
On doing hard things & feeling our feelings
I love second hand books. I love all books in fact. But there's something uniquely special about a book that's been leafed through, pondered over and passed along. A sense of which, if you're lucky, comes through from the marginalia and love notes within the folds.
These are the words on the inside cover of my pre-loved copy of Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche's The Joy of Living: "Dear Zach, If it's hard....do it! All the best, Wyan". My 11-year-old niece and I were sat reading our separate books in the garden recently when she asked me what my book was about. She noticed the inscription, which sparked a conversation about doing things that challenge us, and how navigating life's undulations does indeed, like the subtitle suggests, unlock the secret and science of happiness.
Getting clear on your needs & writing as a release
Clarifying what we need can help us to treat ourselves and others with greater care and attention. For me, writing is part of that process, of listening deeply. When I write, so much that comes out is garbage. And that's part of the process. A little glimmer or two of sense emerges from the sifting, by emptying out the waste matter the sense is easier to see.
Ways of seeing
There are two ways of seeing: through a critical, judgemental lens that pours a dispiriting and mobilising grey wash over what is really in front of you; or with an open mind that embraces the unknown, and a willingness to drop the biases, fears and preconceptions in favour of connecting with what's true. The latter may well mean coming up close with the reality of your flawed thinking, stumbling blocks, doubts and the very preconceptions that limit you. But it's far more honest, because in the exposure lies the illumination, from which comes the capacity to see the binds that restrict your head and heart. In clear sight lies potential for transformation, for a shift in perspective, a change of heart. See the grey without letting it dull your view.
On balance
On beginnings
On dis-ease
A beautiful state of emergency, or a a scabrous state of foreboding?
To be diseased is to be ill at ease. Set apart from ourselves, hovering on the brink, unbalanced, neither fully right, nor fully wrong, a little out of tune, out of focus, fuzzed on the periphery.
A mind out of synch (disordered), a body out of touch (disharmony), a state of bewilderment (disarray), feeling lost (disorientation), hopeless (disbelief), and helpless (distrust).
On emptiness
On silence
On going slow
Put your mind in the muscle: A call to attention
There’s a phrase that’s used in the fitness world that’s meant to help you focus: “put your mind in the muscle”. The theory is that by channelling your mental energy as well as your physical grunt, your efforts become more concerted, and you get results.
It’s a principle and a practice that I find makes the strain both worthwhile and satisfying. Not only does it keep my mind “in the game”, it helps me tune out all of the peripheral noise that would otherwise be a distracting hindrance to the reason I am in the gym in the first place – which is to develop strength, stability, balance and stamina.
On hope
The nauseating weight of words, via Harold Pinter
Whenever I get stuck with a piece of writing, when I have an idea but am unconvinced by my attempts to resolve it, I turn to the masters on my bookshelves for advice.
Always generous, always wise, eternally insightful, the books they have written and which I hold dear never fail to provide inspiration, sometimes usefully diverting me down another path so that I can return to my own with renewed hope.
How other people’s stories teach us who we are
It was DH Lawrence who said that “the only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself”. His point being that the collective story of humanity, whether in fact or fiction, as chronicled in the billions of words scratched onto paper and battered into computers by individuals across the world and throughout the ages, are testament to the enduring struggle that we all face to make sense of our place in the world.
The deceitfully simple idea that “to know thyself” is the reason for living, the ceaseless echo through the centuries of Socrates’ call that “the unexamined life is not worth living”, is the most maddening challenge there is.
As the philosopher Alan Watts once said: “Consciousness seems to be nature’s ingenious mode of self-torture.”
Why so? Because this interminable process of becoming who we are, of knowing what we should even aim to become, is exhausting. Writer or reader, the challenge is the same. We think therefore we suffer. That’s the unavoidable truth. The point is how you respond, which is where autobiographical accounts or indeed any story, fact or fiction, come in.
Read the rest of the article in the London Literary Review here.
The art of not reading. Or, selective attention as a means for intellectual survival
Reading is a serious business. It takes precious, irrecoverable, finite time to devote yourself to a book. In doing so, you make an active decision to press pause on your ordinary life so as to step into another world, another place, another time.
Why then, would you choose to continue reading something that is not only uninspiring but frustratingly disappointing?
My three words for 2018
Methods in madness. Or, when cleaning the fridge counts as a good day.
Day by day, minute by minute, hour by hour. Measures of worth and progress plotted on the artificial construct of human time known as the clock, where every moment that passes in which you don’t succumb to the compulsion to self-sabotage your wise intentions is a small, significant victory for sanity
Is it always wise to make an impact?
Where’s the value in what you do? What is the purpose of your work? Why do you live the life you lead?
These are the questions that regularly occur, in varying word formations, in many of the conversations I have.
Each of those questions assumes an answer, and carries with it the implication that it must be a noble one.