Category: Inspiration
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Principle-centered Invention: Bret Victor on tools, skills, crafts and causes
I just watched an incredibly inspiring video of Bret Victor's CUSEC 2012 talk, Inventing on Principle. Bret's principle is creators need an immediate connection to what they are creating. He illustrates this principle during the first 35 minutes of the presentation, demonstrating some fabulously empowering "live coding" tools to enable programmers to manipulate and immediately…
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On the Personal Philosophy of Carl Rogers
A while back, I was delighted to discover the source of one of my favorite quotes: What is most personal is most general. The quote is from psychologist Carl Rogers' 1956 essay "'This is Me': The Development of My Professional Thinking and Personal Philosophy", which can be found in the first chapter in his 1961…
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Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind, Strength and Vulnerability
I’ve always been impressed with the incredible range of Joni Mitchell‘s music – her voice, guitar virtuosity and the different genres she has explored – but after watching a documentary about her life and work, I have a whole new level of appreciation. In fact, I watched the video – Joni Mitchell, Woman of Heart…
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Wholeheartedness: connection through courage, vulnerability & authenticity
I've watched this video on Wholeheartedness by Dr. Brené Brown from TEDxHouston (last June) several times since I first saw it tweeted by John Hagel (@jhagel) yesterday morning. It is one of the most inspiring talks I've seen, making all kinds of connections about connection and disconnection and a range of other core issues I…
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Creativity, Distractability and Structured vs. Unstructured Procrastination
I have been practicing structured procrastination while allowing a few blog posts to, uh, ferment a bit longer (not to mention other things I want to get done). As evidence, after reading Jonah Lehrer's recent post about unstructured procrastination – Are Distractable People More Creative? – I feel inclined to write about that, rather than…
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Clinical Wisdom: Knowledge, Experience, Compassion, Creativity and Honesty
NPR's Scott Simon (@nprscottsimon), host of Weekend Edition Saturday, is one of my favorite mainstream media players … and with over 1.3 million Twitter followers, I know I am not alone. Simon Says, his weekly essays, are among the most insightful and provocative segments I hear on the radio. In this week's essay, The Kindness…
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Blessing and Wounding: Longing, loss, pain and transformation
I was transfixed by an article in today’s Wall Street Journal – In Praise of the Crackup: A novelist peers through darkness to find glittering gems in writing and art – by Jeanette Winterson, in which she explores “the collision of creativity and mental instability”, digging deeper into the way that artists are often able…
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Contradictory ridges, self and Self
Continuing with the themes of poetry, inspiration and great friends, another great friend, Dan Oestreich, bought me a book of William Stafford‘s poetry, “The Way It Is“, a few years ago – one of many ways he helped me navigate a dark time filled with shadows.The other night, I picked up the book – which…
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Augurs of hope, past & present: MLK, Milk, Obama & all of us’s
Last week, on Martin Luther King Day, Amy and I watched the film, Milk, about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California (back in 1978). When we got to the Egyptian Theatre, Amy asked for two tickets to see "M-I-L-K", spelling out Milk's name. We laughed about…
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Hope and Dreams trump Fears and Smears
The speeches of the two U.S. presidential candidates Tuesday night were hopeful and inspiring, a welcome change from the fears and smears that dominated much of the campaign … or, at least, one side of the campaign. John McCain delivered the most gracious concession speech I have ever seen, and Barack Obama delivered yet another…