photo: galenfrysinger.com
While looking at images of Taliesin West for our string light post, we came across this sign of Frank Lloyd Wright’s “The Organic Commandment”. We’re not sure if it’s one or four, or ‘commandment’ rather than principles, but we find it worth mulling…
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how to be yourself in 10 simple steps
(Video link here.) A reader sent us this lovely little video her friend Julia Warr made. It is about 95-year-old Maia Helles, a former Russian ballet dancer who she met on a plane four years ago. Warr became convinced that Maia “remains resolutely independent, healthy as a forty year old…through the benefits of her daily exercise routine, which Maia perfected, together with her Mother, over 60 years ago, long before exercise classes were ever invented.”
Towards the end, Maia reveals the keys to her long life:
“My secret for a long life is simplicity and work and enjoyment. “
And we would love to know her exercise routine.
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copyright: mastermind maps
A few weeks ago we wrote about the concept of “pulsing and resting,” throughout the work day; actually taking breaks from work in order to get more done (and do better work!). One of our readers introduced us to the Pomodoro Technique, (names after a tomato-shaped timer) which is based on this very idea and provides a specific method:
(Video link here.) Ekso Bionics, creators of a robotic exoskeleton that enables paraplegics to walk, has created a compelling video about their remarkable invention. Much of the video is of Amanda Boxtel, an early product tester, who has not walked since she sustained an spinal cord injury 20 years ago (though she has mastered – and taught – many sitting-down sports.) Watching her, and listening to her speak of her experience, is to be reminded of – and really “get” - the little ordinary things that we take for granted…“putting my heal on the ground…being able to bend my knee..taking a step and then another step…a walk in nature.”
woodie guthrie
We’re not very big on New Year’s resolutions. We’ve always felt like “resolving” to accomplish big fat goals for the year sets us up for failure, and ignores life’s complexities—oftentimes, a single resolution is actually made up of a lot of different pieces. It’s juggling all of those pieces that makes keeping resolutions so difficult.
This is why we really appreciated the latest newsletter we received from David Allen, of Getting Things Done
While Allen would probably reccommend going through each question and writing down an answer, we just used them as food for thought to center ourselves for what’s ahead. We hope they are helpful for you too. read more…
Forbes Online recently published a piece called “How to Be More Interesting (In 10 Simple Steps).” We love the steps (and Jessica Hagy‘s illustrations that accompany each one), we couldn’t help feeling like they weren’t really about being “interesting,” but more about BEING YOURSELF. We’d retitle it: How to Be Yourself, In 10 Simple Steps. (Being yourself will guarantee you are interesting.) Here’s the list, with our favorites in bold face: read more…
christopher niemann via the new york times
In his 2010 New York Times series, Christopher Niemann nailed what we think about everyday when we leave the house: However hard we try to weigh knowns and unknowns, unexpected “stuff happens” in our lives and in those around us. Some of what happens is swell, and some is really hard. It’s how to respond to the hard stuff that interests us.
Recently, on Clayton Cubitt’s blog Constant Siege, we found two amazing quotes by friends who had been diagnosed with breast cancer within a few days of each other. We view them as extraordinary responses to the question “What to do when things get really rough and scary?”
From Xeni Jardin, one of the founders of BoingBoing: read more…
We already so burnt out from holiday stuff, blogging, renovating, life, that this piece by guest blogger Sarah M came just in the nick of time:
As a chronically overcommitted, over-scheduled multi-tasker, I regularly push myself to max capacity. Working long hours, offering up my time for others’ projects, sacrificing sleep for productivity, and running home only to leave again five minutes later have become common practice. I can see the flaws in this system, but it’s helpful to have a reminder, which makes a recent piece by Tony Schwartz in 99% extremely valuable.
The big takeaway is that doing more doesn’t necessarily mean we’re getting more done. He uses the example of two people who both work 10 hour days: one barely leaves his desk all day and one works 90 minutes at a time, taking brief breaks to renew his energy. By the afternoon, the constant worker’s capacity to get anything done has so diminished that he is actually LESS productive than his colleague who works less time. The more productive of the two works in pulses rather than constantly, maintaining his capacity and focus throughout the day. read more…
joe villon
We don’t know what we’d do without Cara de Silva, who almost daily sends us something moving and interesting. Even if we don’t post it, we feel like she threw a gift our way: something we would have otherwise missed. This weekend she alerted us to a stunning piece in the New York Times written by novelist Henning Mankell (famous for his dark and beautifully-rendered crime novels). Mankell writes about the art of listening and the importance of story-telling in everyday life, his great lessons from living in Africa for nearly 25 years. It is a quick, essential read: a perfectly written story in itself, rich with images and wisdom Henkell learned…by listening.
“…It struck me as I listened to those two men that a truer nomination for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person. What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats — and they in turn can listen to ours.
Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.
So if I am right that we are storytelling creatures, and as long as we permit ourselves to be quiet for a while now and then, the eternal narrative will continue. read more…
(Video link here.) The other day on on Constant Siege, we found this clip of a young Steve Jobs stating one simple, transformative fact that is curiously easy to overlook:
“When you grow up you tend to get told the world is the way it is and you’re life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family, have fun, save a little money.
That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.
Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
No matter what you think of the guy, this is an amazing bit of wisdom.
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maira kalman: 'food rules' by michael pollan
We have a lot of respect for writer Michael Pollan’s writing about the food industry, and heard that his 2009 book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual
Last month Pollan re-released the book with a set of fabulous illustrations by Maira Kalman, and we were hooked. Pollan’s rules are totally sensible, easy to follow ideas for maximizing the good stuff in your diet, most of which we can definitely get behind. But it’s the great images that really pull you in and make the rules come alive. Here are some of our favorites, starting with the one, above, whose simple rule is “Cook”: read more…
For a long time, it was our habit to jump out of bed and start working: reading blogs, news, emails, writing. We were, literally, swept away each day by the virtual world we love to wander around in; there were no real breaks and downtime, no time to turn inward, quiet. Every morning, we simply jumped in.
Then a friend told us that he made a practice of always reading something uplifting or illuminating first thing in the morning – NOT firing up the computer and NOT reading the news, but rather taking the time to read a bit of poetry or a philosophy, something that was more about ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’. We decided to try it, turning to books that we valued but hadn’t looked at for years – Wherever You Go, There You Are… Neruda’s Garden: An Anthology of Odes… reading as we drank a cup of tea in the quiet of the morning. It changed everything; the books we read have the effect of centering us for much of the day, while teaching us a new perspective.
A piece that we return to frequently, and that we find reverberating mightily in our thinking, is by Vietmamese Zen master, poet and peace advocate Thich Nhat Hanh. It’s called “What’s Not Wrong”, from his book Peace Is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life
“How-To Work Better” by Swiss artists Fischli & Weiss has long been one of our favorite manifestos: the reminder we need daily. We’d seen it all over the internet, and posted it as a sign long ago. We hadn’t realized that it was, in fact, an installation, painted on the wall of an office building in Zurich.
Imagine if, instead of advertising, bill-boards featured signs like this…or if building owners just took it upon themselves to paint (or stencil) their buildings a little differently…
via Swiss-Miss
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rough painted brick walls
