Anaïs Nin

 

We travel, some of us for ever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.   

- Anaïs Nin

Anaïs Nin was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the daughter of the composer Joaquín Nin and the classically trained singer Rosa Culmell.

Mary Oliver Bornin 1935

 

"You listen and you know you could live a better life than you do. Be softer, kinder. And maybe this year you will be able to do it."

It's not the weight you carry but how you carry it

- books, bricks, grief - It's all in the way you embrace it, balance it, carry it when you cannot, and would not, put it down. —Mary Oliver

That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying

I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,

as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,

was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel,
(brave even among lions),
“It’s not the weight you carry

but how you carry it –
books, bricks, grief –
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it

when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?

Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?

How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe

also troubled –
roses in the wind,
the sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?

— “Heavy” by Mary Oliver from Thirst.

 

To live in this world, 

you must be able to do three things: 

to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, 

when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

Mary Oliver

‘Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.’ Mary Oliver

Making Good DecIsions

"Courage cannot be counterfeited, it is a virtue that escapes hypocrisy" (Honoré de Balzac).

One of the hardest things to do in life is making a decision.

Honoré de Balzac died on August 18, 1850




Which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn

Letting go, not because you want to, but because you have to

Weighed down by past failures - “Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.”


The choice of walking away or trying harder
Would you ever know which one is taking you where?

And finally, Saying No
When you’re saying ‘yes’ to others, make sure you’re not saying ‘No’ to yourself.


It’s true we don’t know much about life, we never will, but the catch is to play the cards you're dealt.

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.” Thich Nhat Hanh

Tips for Journalists that Never Go Out of Style

40 Time-tested Tips for Journalists that Never Go Out of Style

By Jezzamine Andaquig on October 10, 2017

1. Always get the name of the dog.

2. Better to get it right than get it first.


3. Trust is our most important asset.

4. Endure the awkward silences in interviews.

5. Avoid clichés.

6. Pick up the damn phone.

7. And get out of the damn office.

8. Only quote when paraphrasing doesn’t do a better job.

9. With multimedia: complement, don’t repeat.

10. Know your equipment before you hit the field.

11. Give credit and thanks for user submissions.

12. Follow the money.

13. Ask open-ended questions.

14. Keep asking yourself: what is the story REALLY about?

15. Get good natural sound.

16. Experiment and take risks.

17. Capture more b-roll than you think you need.

18. When the eye and the ear compete, the eye wins.

19. Better to coach writers than fix broken stories.

20. Reports are about information; stories are about experience.

21. Arrive early, stay late.

22. Don’t let the powerful answer in the passive voice: “Mistakes were made.”

23. The best quote often comes after the reporter closes the notebook.

24. Journalism is a discipline of verification, not assertion.

25. Good writing is not magic, it’s a process.

26. Great journalism comes at the intersection of craft and opportunity.

27. Take responsibility for what readers know and understand.

28. Each reader brings an autobiography with them to a story.

29. In a nut graph, it’s not the graph that’s important, but the nut.

30. Place the emphatic word in a sentence at the end.

31. The antidote to procrastination is rehearsal.

32. Show AND tell.

33. Get a good quote high in the story.

34. Express your most important idea in the shortest sentence.

35. The most powerful form of punctuation is white space.

36. Write early to learn what you still need to learn.

37. Tell the audience what you know—and how you know it.

38. Don’t just interview the boss, talk to the mechanic.

39. To find stories, take a different route home.

40. If your mother says she loves you, check it out.





Source: https://www.poynter.org/40-time-tested-tips-journalists-never-go-out-style



 

What Is Life?

What is Life?

It is the flash of a firefly in the night.

It is the breath of a buffalo in the winter time.

It is the little shadow which runs across the grass

and loses itself in the Sunset."

-Crowfoot....April 1890, on his deathbed

Be still, and know that I am God.

Be still, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations,

I will be exalted in the earth

Psalm 46:10 

Elephants Under the Big Top

 

Elephants Under the Big Top

Information Overload is the Bane of my Life

Information Overload is the Bane of my Life



My daily struggle is to understand what is important, to my situation, in the constant barrage of information on the Internet.  

What can and should be ignored?  

Is my purpose to seek distraction, novelty and entertainment? 

Or is the goal and purpose to my Net Surfing to gain valuable knowledge?  

What do I hope to accomplish?

“There are things that attract human attention, and there is often a huge gap between what is important and what is attractive and interesting."

- Yuval Noah Harari   

  

And Donald Trump has not helped make being informed easy with all his mixed messages.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.”

― William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around the World

Playing For Change is a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music. Join the movement here:
https://playingforchange.com/members/

From the award-winning documentary, "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music", comes "Stand By Me", the first of many Songs Around The World produced by Playing For Change. This Ben E. King classic features musicians around the world recorded by the Playing For Change team during their travels. This song continues to remind us that music has the power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people.



Link: https://youtu.be/Us-TVg40ExM

Vincent Van Gogh

"Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and that we obey them without realizing it."

—Vincent Van Gogh