Month: June 2022

Before science, we used myths and legends in an attempt to explain the unexplainable.

Today, thanks to the hive mind of the internet and the scientific method we can observe and test. As a result, dismiss many of these false beliefs as superstition.

What predictions or promises has this organization or person made that have come to pass? With time, many things can be proven or debunked. One only needs to examine the history to see what was said and what has happened to find inconsistencies.

I heard recently that resiliency is the product of agency. Knowing what you can do can make a difference.

Notice this isn’t about having the right answer but rather understanding what you are capable of doing.

Some people wait for help. Others go find it.

It is generally understood that when you go alpine-style meaning you travel fast and light in the mountains, you are not going to carry all the comforts of life. In fact, you are carrying only what you need to survive. The least amount of gear to safely give you passage. When you strip away to the bare bones, you are now free to climb faster.

This mentality does not just apply to climbing but also how we approach our very lives.

Could you simplify your budget, the food you eat, and the relationships you put energy into? Could you cut TV time or how many times do you check your email? Do you really need social media (or does social media need you)?

When you simplify your life you will be surprised to discover how fast you can move.

You are not Wonder Woman. There is only one of her.

You can try to follow in her footsteps and do everything for everyone. At the end of the day, however, you will come up short.

Instead, you can be really great at a few things. And let others have an opportunity to be superheroes. Allowing that space, being vulnerable enough to say, “Can you help me?”

The reason why superheroes struggle to thrive in our culture isn’t the lack of superpowers, it is because we struggle to ask for assistance.

Pain is heavy but desire can be stronger.

When you love something so much, you are able to push through the discomforts of the challenge that lay before you.

This is why we don’t hesitate when your child needs a kidney or when a family member needs a couple bucks to make rent.

Indeed, love conquers all.

A dollar is just a piece of paper until we all agree it is a means of exchange for goods. Unless everyone agrees it has value and if it is scarce, we then use it to run an “economy” or to bring status, and yes, bring meaning to some people’s lives.

We can touch paper but we can’t point to the economy.

Therefore, things only have meaning when you decide to put meaning into them.

Art
Family
Friends
Parents and siblings
Credentials
Authority structures
Traffic signals
Flags
Symbols
Permits
Exercise
Learning and education

…

The only art you love is the love you give art.

Recently, I came across the letters of Vincent Van Gogh. They are incredible. Anyone striving to become an artist (which I have argued for quite a while everyone can) should stop and read.

One excerpt from Van Gogh to his dear friend Theo:

That rakes up the eternal question: is life visible to us in its entirety, or before we die do we know of only one hemisphere?

Painters – to speak only of them – being dead and buried, speak to a following generation or to several following generations through their works. Is that all, or is there more, even? In the life of the painter, death may perhaps not be the most difficult thing.

For myself, I declare I don’t know anything about it. But the sight of the stars always makes me dream 90 times shared. Share this highlight
in as simple a way as the black spots on the map, representing towns and villages, make me dream.

Why, I say to myself, should the spots of light in the firmament be less accessible to us than the black spots on the map of France.

Just as we take the train to go to Tarascon or Rouen, we take death to go to a star. What’s certainly true in this argument is that while alive, we cannot go to a star, any more than once dead we’d be able to take the train. So it seems to me not impossible that cholera, the stone, consumption, cancer are celestial means of locomotion, just as steamboats, omnibuses and the railway are terrestrial ones.

To die peacefully of old age would be to go there on foot.

As many of you know, Van Gogh struggled for most of his life with depression and poverty but eventually became one of the most important post-impression artists in history. Of course, he never lived to see all of that. The path of becoming an artist won’t always go viral or come with fame or fortune but it can fuel us in the lows to keep going.

If you could have something that makes you so rich inside, how could you ever be poor?

There’s clinical anxiety that is difficult to overcome. That is a whole separate conversation. What I wanted to write about is the general anxiety that humans face.

All of us worry. We worry about things that haven’t even happened yet. In fact, we experience this anxiety based on a movie we have played in our heads. One that causes us stress as we imagine the worst thing that can happen.

Then the thing we are worried about passes and we are usually fine. But then we perpetuate the cycle by worrying about the next thing.

The difficulty is in identifying the trigger. What causes us to worry about something that hasn’t happened yet? Why do we let our imagination change our current mood? Why are we living in the future and not the present moment? Why play through this movie over and over again, imagining the worst that could happen? Do we really know this is how it will play out or is it fiction?

All things to consider as we overcome our fears.

“You are only as young as you feel.”

An older cheetah doesn’t look at younger cheetahs in jealousy. Age is very much a human construct. It is an imaginary number we have created. A way to measure how many times around the sun someone has traveled.

But no one cares other than humans how old you are.

The reason I say this is because the science says the older we get, the more rigid we become. We stay in our ways, get comfortable with our thought patterns, we think we have things figured out. Nothing can be further from the truth. No matter how set we are there is still room for change. Our brains are plastic. It just takes more effort.

Leonard Cohen didn’t begin his music career until his 30s. Hallelujah was initially rejected. Bob Moore was 45 before he opened up his first Mill.

You don’t need more time, you just need to start.

When Alex Honnold is inevitably asked why he climbs some of the tallest walls in the world without a rope, his answer is the same as many athletes who engage in high consequence sports–he loves it.

It was the same for Phillippe Petite and even artists like Shepard Fairey who lay it on the line.

The love of the activity outweighs the consequences. To them, it is worth the risk. It doesn’t mean the fear disappears. Death is still inevitable but indeed feels very present in these moments. Much like one has a close call in driving a car.

The love of what one does truly can overcome all. Even fear.

Love-based decisions versus fear-based change our choices. We might not jump in front of a bullet for a stranger but would perhaps do it for your child.