Internet Inspiration – September 20, 2014

This is a really long article, and so far I’ve only skimmed it, but maybe at one point I’ll have the attention span to go through the whole thing. What I really like are the quotations he pulls to emphasize his point. So even if you just read it for the quotes, it’s worth it.

I was a little worried that this article would oversimplify depression and emotions (I think their layout reminds me of upworthy), but thankfully they didn’t. They brought in some spectrums and really highlighted the interconnectedness of your physical needs and the emotional responses they incite.

If aliveness is such a good thing, how could a person have too much of it? While it may not be possible to be too alive, the aliveness of any moment can be more than you know how to handle. Let’s come back to something babies know that adults forget: any given moment of life can be totally overwhelming.

You really have no idea how many ways it’s possible to be disoriented all at once until you’ve done some time as a human infant. It’s how we all begin: thrust into circumstances beyond our control, having absolutely no idea what’s going on, totally dependent on other people for our survival, and ruled by our biology. We go from calm contentment one moment, to complete calamity in the next. None of it makes any sense, because we haven’t yet developed the cognitive infrastructure for making sense of things. Just figuring out how to be alive occupies every moment of every day.

Related: my favorite video explaining how depression is an invitation for Deep Rest.

Still a long read, but a good one: The Definitive Ranking of Every West Wing Character. I agree, even though I can only watch West Wing in spurts because so much Sorkinese drives me crazy.

In case you’re needing poetry, Tyler Knott Gregson is wonderful.

Sacred Adornment. I love it.

The more I opened spiritually the more conscious decisions I made about fashion. Adornment became an act of self-love. I also began to support more handmade shops and artists. I love to share and help support others on their creative paths. it gives each piece of adornment meaning. And the times I am spending too much on clothes or jewels, I take a step back and ask “what am I trying to fill?” I try to remember I do not ‘need’ anything to complete me. Everything is within.

It’s been a really long time since I went through my blogroll, and arriving at Susannah’s site is such a breath of fresh air.

I really appreciated Alex’s understanding of the question-underneath-the-question.

When people ask me questions like:

“How can I tell when a piece of writing is done?”

Often, what they’re really asking me is:

“Why doesn’t my writing look & sound the way I want it to?

It makes sense in my head… but it’s not translating onto the page.

So I keep fussing and fussing, trying to make it better, and it’s annoying.”

My advice? Keep fussing.

It reminds me of this great quotation from Ira Glass:

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.