thesyncretismofpolysemy

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

“Never affirm, always allude: allusions are made to test the spirit and probe the heart.”

— Umberto Eco, The Island of the Day Before

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”

— Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

“The noun of self becomes a verb.”

— Christopher Alexander

Notes:

When the self is a noun: we protect, prove, & perform.

When the self becomes a verb: we express, explore, & embody.

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

The worst that can be said of a man is that “he did not pay attention.”

— William Meredith

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The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

— Julia Cameron

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“It was not my best because there was no substance. There was no substance because there was no experience.”

Lauryn Hill on the music she created

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

The single greatest challenge for any ambitious person is reframing slowing down as an essential part of your performance, not a reward for your effort.

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

Children:

They come through you but not from you.

Kahlil Gibran

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

Motivation has perfect attendance. It always shows up after you.

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

Dustsceawung (Old English): contemplation of the fact that dust used to be other things - the walls of a city, the chief of the guards, a book, a great tree: dust is always the ultimate destination. Such contemplation may loosen the grip of our worldly desires.

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

On perspective:

“The day I decided that my life was magical, there was suddenly magic all around me.”

-Marabeth Quin

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

Do what makes mornings exciting and nights peaceful.

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

embrace > escape

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

I needed to make, to do the work of unbreaking, in order to feel whole again; I needed something to anchor me to the ongoingness of being alive, to the plasticity of being necessary for turning trauma into self-transcendence. 

Popova

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

broken people break people

[thesyncretismofpolysemy]

“The old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Antonio Gramsci