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    #97 Not loneliness. Solitude.

    All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone

    Blaise Pascal, https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/19682-all-of-humanity-s-problems-stem-from-man-s-inability-to-sit

    We often equate sitting quietly in a room alone with loneliness: a word with a negative emotional charge.

    But sitting quietly in a room can also bring solitude: the simple state of being by yourself, without any negative connotation.

    Solitude can give relief of the pressure to be constantly “socializing” (through social media apps or in real life).

    Relief of the pressure to socialize can make space.

    Space you can use to hear the thoughts in your head and the feelings in your body.

    Thoughts and feelings that can tell you what’s truly important to you.

    And then you realize that what’s truly important to you is nothing new.

    It’s something you already knew, before you learned not to listen.

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    #8 Musenküsse

    klimt-the-kiss-musenkuss
    Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss (1907-1908).

    der Musenkuss (German) The kiss of the Muse

    Creativity becomes much easier if you see it as a game of finding new ways of describing what has always been there.

    Observing, rather than inventing.

    It’s liberating. Because now the game changes from pulling ideas out of thin air to a game of discovery. Observation. Paying attention. Building upon what’s already discovered, then connecting the dots in way nobody else has.

    Most of all: listening, when the muse finally arrives and visits you for a kiss.

    There’s this voice in my mind
    Impossible to ignore
    And yet I fill my head with noise
    Drowning out
    What deep down I know to be true
    Do I even want to admit
    That this song in my heart
    Is not about me
    But about you?

    P.S.: I’ve observed the same principle in language learning (and wrote a book about the consequences of this mindset shift).

    Which begs the question…

    Where else would we do better if we observed a bit more, rather than trying to invent from scratch?

  • #390 Make the daily practice easy

    The trick to successful habit-building: make daily practice easy.

    We often do the opposite: we make weekly practice hard.

    If I tell myself I’m going to post one long blog post every week, I’ll find a million reasons not to write for the first six days until I have no choice but to write.

    But if I tell myself I will post daily, the longest I can procrastinate is… 12 hours?

    And after a week, I’ve practiced my publishing habit 7 times.

    So it goes for meditation, yoga, running, and any skill or habit.

    Make the daily practice easy.

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    #173 Are errors truly errors?

    I can believe I’ve published the perfect insight – until I narrate the podcast version a couple of weeks later and suddenly notice subtle typos and, sometimes, logical flaws. The typos and flaws were always there – but did I make a mistake earlier? 

    I can believe I’ve nailed this yoga pose – until, during one session, I suddenly sense some tension in my neck I had never noticed before. The tension was always there – did I make a mistake earlier? 

    I can believe I’ve cooked the perfect dish – until one day, I notice that the sauce tastes even better with a little less salt. But, even before I noticed it, the improvement was always there – did I make a mistake earlier?

    Maybe learning is not about errors but about gaining ever more subtle awareness.

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