As long as you have questions, you’ll be on the path of fulfillment. Questions keep us child-like.
The more I’m with my children the more I’m enthralled and longing to be recruited into their classes they are unknowingly teaching. “Why?”, “Can I color?”, and “Where’s the rainbow?” are the questions they’re wrestling with now.
If we are honest, we’re still asking the same questions as well.
May we never lose the courage to ask.
One’s writing reflects one’s reading.
Opinions will align with those nearby.
What the person next to you points out, you’ll see.
Mark Twain said it best, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
And so do we with our geographical metaphors.
Check your surroundings.
That place in your chest that holds countless experiences, failures, successes, triumphs, and journeys…that place is a library. These are pages worth revisiting as long as the memory provides momentum, not drag, into your music.
The group that knows you. The group that is is for you. The cast of characters constantly pushing you towards a better story…they are a library and a source to keep you centered in your story.
There’s a forest leaned up against a mountain with a stream gently running through it. Walking through the trees you walk through a library. Standing atop the mountain you have library beneath you. And in the river is a library where answers are flowing over billions of questions sunk as rocks on the bottom. You can skip a rock or pause to see your reflection. What will you choose? Joy or joy?
The old-school library is a real place too, still. Billions of pages, asleep on the shelves, waiting to be thumbed through. With all of the wisdom in the world recorded and printed thus far, it’s hard to believe such a place is rarely frequented by most. Whimsical bravery is what sends one to walk into such a place. What happens if you find out what you didn’t know?
And then there’s Google. The library and, conveniently, the librarian in your pocket. One click and the unconnected is connected.
Alas, What’s To Be Written > What Has Been Written. That’s what you should do when you leave your libraries.
…is when something special happens.
100 calls and you’ll overcome the fear of rejection.
100 ‘hello’s’ later, you’ll forget the thought of ever avoiding self introductions.
100 workouts and the burn is welcomed (I recall from memory, not current experience).
100 speeches from now the stage turns comfy.
1 is good.
99 more and they will call you ‘Lucky’.
Frank Sinatra once said, “Having lived a life of violent emotional contradictions, I have an over-acute capacity for sadness as well as elation….whatever else has been said about me is unimportant. When I sing, I believe.”
What makes you and your heart sing?
Whatever your answer, may the metaphor be with you and you with the metaphor.
We need more believers.
Ashton.Gustafson 