This is an excerpt from the book Indians on Vacation by Thomas King.
If you missed it, you can read part one of this passage here.
When Bernie tells the story of Uncle Leroy, she closes her eyes so she can see the story, whole and complete. “I told you it wasn’t much of a house, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“And that all the paint had been stripped off by the weather?”
“You told us that too.”
“And that Leroy had had a little too much to drink?”
Bernie would always pause at this point to let the tension build.
“So, Leroy’s big idea,” she’d begin again, after the proper amount of time had passed, “was that he would paint the Indian agent’s house. But he didn’t have any paint. And nobody else on the reserve had any paint, either. I’m guessing you can see the problem.”
“No paint.”
“So Leroy had to improvise.”
Just the word “improvise” would set Bernie off, and she’d begin laughing. And we’d have to wait until she stopped.
“In those days, there was a store in Cardston run by this Mormon family. They sold all sorts of used stuff, household and farming. Some of it was okay, and some of it was garbage, and if you didn’t know the different, the Mormons weren’t going to tell you.
“So, after Leroy sobered up, he rode over to Cardston to that store and bought an old milk pail, one of those zinc things with a wood piece for a handle. It was a sorry sight, that bucket. There was a story in the newspapers not long ago about a woman who collects junk like that.”
“Now they’re called antiques,” Mimi told her mother.
“So, Leroy took his junk antique and filled it with fresh cow flops. He mixed in some water, stirred it all up until it was brown and pasty, and went to work. He wasn’t sloppy either. He took his time and painted every inch of the house with cow poop. From a distance, it didn’t look bad at all. And as long as you were upwind, you didn’t notice the smell.”
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Indians on Vacation – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Meet Bird and Mimi in this brilliant new novel from one of Canada’s foremost authors. Inspired by a handful of old postcards sent by Uncle Leroy nearly a hundred years earlier, Bird and Mimi attempt to trace Mimi’s long-lost uncle and the family medicine bundle he took with him to Europe.
By turns witty, sly and poignant, this is the unforgettable tale of one couple’s holiday trip to Europe, where their wanderings through its famous capitals reveal a complicated history, both personal and political.
This is an excerpt from the book Indians on Vacation by Thomas King.
At some point in the story of Uncle Leroy and the Crow bundle, Bernie would touch on the drinking.
“Leroy was no drunk,” she would say, “but he did drink. And Mr. Nelson or Wilson was one of those born-againers. Man thought he could talk to god when he was really just mumbling to himself. Drinking, according to Mr. Indian agent, led to singing, and singing led to dancing. Man would have banned laughing. Would have made smiling a hanging offence.
“One year, this Wilson or Nelson organized a sports day at the same time as the Sun Dance, to try to lure people away from Belly Buttes. And he ordered the buffalo tongues mutilated, so that the women couldn’t use them in the ceremony.”
“You never knew the man,” Mimi reminded her mother. “You weren’t even born yet.”
“Stories don’t die. Stories stay alive so long as they’re told.”
Bernie would make another pot of coffee and break out the special chocolate-covered cookies as she worked her way to the heart of the matter.
“There was this bootlegger from around Missoula. Donald somebody. Like the duck. Drug dealer. Back then it was alcohol. Today it’s other stuff. So, Donald the Duck would bring his booze onto the reserve, and Leroy would find him or he would find Leroy. Didn’t much matter. The result was always the same. Leroy would get drunk, and when he got drunk, he would do something stupid.”
“This is where Uncle Leroy paints the guy’s house?”
“Stop getting ahead of the story. I raised you better than that.”
Sometimes Bernie would tell the story quick, and sometimes she would draw it out.
“Like I said, in those days, you had to have a pass to leave the reserve. Signed by the agent. Leroy didn’t pay much attention to that rule, and every time he left the reserve without a pass, that agent would try to have him arrested. And every time Leroy asked that agent for a pass to leave the reserve, Nelson or Wilson would turn him down.”
Even if you didn’t know the story, you knew that this kind of a situation was bound to go bad at some point.
“Nelson or Wilson had a house. Government issue. It wasn’t a big house. The roof leaked a little, and it didn’t have no better insulation than a plastic sack. It was painted white, but that didn’t last long. Cold winters and hard winds stripped the paint away until there was nothing left but the wood. You need me to draw you a picture?”
“Nope. I can see it.”
“So this one time, Donald the Duck brought his wagonload of booze onto the reserve, and before long, Leroy found him. And not long after that, Leroy got his big idea.”
You can read part two of this story here and learn more about Uncle Leroy’s big idea.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Indians on Vacation – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Meet Bird and Mimi in this brilliant new novel from one of Canada’s foremost authors. Inspired by a handful of old postcards sent by Uncle Leroy nearly a hundred years earlier, Bird and Mimi attempt to trace Mimi’s long-lost uncle and the family medicine bundle he took with him to Europe.
By turns witty, sly and poignant, this is the unforgettable tale of one couple’s holiday trip to Europe, where their wanderings through its famous capitals reveal a complicated history, both personal and political.
Have you ever wondered how some people are able to maintain discipline for longterm change but others lose motivation quickly?
As I was reading the Holy Sh!t Moment by James Fell, he discusses how a eureka or “holy sh!t” moments can prompt long-term and sustainable change. He also discusses how we can prepare ourselves for these types of moments and why they work so well.
A eureka moment can change your identity and create long lasting change. Photo by Justin Leibow | Accessed on Unsplash.com
Main impacts
Eureka moments are emotional and provide a shift in priorities, passion, or identity.
Identity shifts are essential.
There are always cascading effects in other areas.
Eureka moments are emotional
Eureka or holy sh!t moments, are usually quite emotional, and the emotional aspect helps create a shift in priorities, passion, or identity. For example, finding out that you’re pregnant or will become a parent can cause huge shifts in priorities as a result of this new identity (parent). There are lots of examples of pregnant women quitting drugs/alcohol/smoking once they find out they’re pregnant, and they’re able to successfully quit as this new identity becomes their new focus/priority and they’re constantly reminded of it.
You can help prep for a eureka moment by laying the ground work and being open to it, but generally the moment has to happen naturally.
Here are some ways you can start prepping for a eureka moment:
Be open to new ideas or experiences.
Think about what you want to change and why.
Start questioning your motivations.
When you’re stuck, go distract yourself and do something totally different until you know what you need to do next.
Ideas for ways to distract yourself are to go for a walk, exercise, cook, or do something creative. Basically you want to walk away from it until you’re ready to continue working on it. Creating that space gives you time to come back with a fresh perspective or new ideas.
As this is an emotional event, it can come from a place of discomfort. If you’re currently unhappy with your situation, this can be a good time to start prepping for a eureka moment.
Identify shifts are essential
Ideally, you want to focus on the type of person that you want to become. Focusing on being the kind of person who is healthy and thankful for what their body can do is much more powerful than focusing on how much weight you want to lose. Focus on being the person who perfects a specific sport, not on getting to a specific size or weight.
Most importantly, shame doesn’t work and often times shame can actually make things worse. So don’t keep making yourself feel bad, rather focus on the kind of person you want to be. As you develop your new identity, you’ll gradually change your exterior (or skills) too.
If you change your identity, your habits will also change. If you view yourself as someone who is healthy and takes care of themselves, then you’ll find that you gradually start making healthier choices and habits. Identify who you want to be and start asking how each decision aligns with that identity.
Another important tip is to not let yourself daydream about what life will be like when you reach your goal. Studies have shown that if you daydream about the end result, you almost feel like you’ve accomplished the goal and you often lose motivation to work towards it. Daydreaming about end results don’t get you where you need to be, rather it’s better to dream about the process and how much you’ll enjoy the journey.
Cascading effects
Positive habits in one area often spill into other areas of your life. This can be for two common reasons:
A result of the focus: If you’re focused on getting really good at a sport, you often end up eating better and consuming less alcohol, drugs, and junk food with the specific aim to help you achieve your goal. Maybe you noticed certain foods make it more difficult to train or recover after training, so you end up eating it less to improve your training. Even if you’re not specifically looking to change your eating habits, your key goal is both influenced by and influences other aspects of your life.
A result of how you feel: Often times becoming successful in one area can make you feel happier and more confident. That feeling can help you be successful in other areas. This confidence can spill over into areas like your career or relationships, helping you to feel and do better in those areas too.
As you focus on improving yourself in one way or building expertise in one area, you often affect other areas of your life. It makes sense, each aspect of your life is both connected to every other aspect of your life and to everything else around you.
I believe this can also happen in the reverse too. If you’re in a funk mentally or hating some aspect of your life, that negativity can spill into other areas. It can make you less motivated to take care of yourself or less motivated to achieve your goals.
I believe everything is connected, so it make sense how there can be so many cascading effects.
Final thoughts
I found this book really interesting. It was quite different than the typical self improvement book that just focuses on doing the work. It really highlighted how a huge mental and emotional shift can spark and sustain change. Sure you still need to do the work and be consistent in pursuing your goals, but this was an interesting complement to the typical improvement tips.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Photo by Joanna Kosinska | Accessed on Unsplash.com
This is an excerpt from the book Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
‘One time, however, we were near quarrelling. He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up over head, and the blue sky, and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly. That was his most perfect idea of heaven’s happiness – mine was rocking in a rustling green tree, with a west wind blowing, and bright, white clouds flitting rapidly above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells; but close by great swells of long grass undulating in waves to the breeze; and woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstacy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle, and dance in a glorious jubilee.
‘I said his heaven would be only half alive, and he said mine would be drunk; I said I should fall asleep in his, and he said he could not breathe in mine, and began to grow very snappish. At last we agreed to try both as soon as the right weather came; and then we kissed each other and were friends. After sitting still an hour, I looked at the great room with its smooth, uncarpeted floor; and thought how nice it would be to play in, if we removed the table; and I asked Linton to call Zillah in to help us – and we’d have a game at blind-man’s buff – she should try to catch us – you used to, you know, Ellen. He wouldn’t; there was no pleasure in it, he said; but he consented to play at ball with me. We found two, in a cupboard, among a heap of old toys; tops, and hoops, and battledoors, and shuttlecocks. One was marked C., and the other H.; I wished to have the C., because that stood for Catherine and H. might be for Heathcliff, his name; but the bran came out of H., and Linton didn’t like it.
‘I beat him constantly; and he got cross again, and coughed, and returned to his chair; that night, though, he easily recovered his good humour; he was charmed with two or three pretty songs – your songs, Ellen; and when I was obliged to go, he begged and entreated me to come the following evening, and I promised.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Wuthering Heights – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before; of the intense relationship between the gypsy foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw; and how Catherine, forced to choose between passionate, tortured Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrendered to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff’s bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.
As I was reading The Power of an Hour by David Lakhani, he talks about how it’s not always a lack of time that’s the problem, but rather a lack of dedicated/focused time. The book discusses how setting aside one hour a week can enable monumental change.
This was similar to The 4% Fix (see blog post here), but written more for someone in business. It discussed both how one hour can create significant change, and then goes on to discuss in great detail things you can do within that hour.
Don’t miss out on the time you have, use the time you have more effectively. Image by Murray Campbell | Accessed on Unsplash.com
Main impacts
You need more focused time, not just more time.
Plan your time! Outline exactly what you need to do within that hour.
Outline what success looks like to you.
You need more focused time, not just more time.
A key message I got from this book was that despite everyone saying we’re too busy or have no time, we don’t need more time. What we really need is more focused time, meaning we need to be intentional with our time. Focused time is where you set aside a certain amount of time (suggestion from David is 1 hour), and you remove all distractions to focus on a specific activity/goal.
One hour can be powerful, or it can be filled with distractions causing you to not accomplish anything. You also have to deliberately remove ALL distractions. Put your phone away, turn off all notifications, close your email program, tell no one to contact you, etc. Just a friendly reminder that nothing is too urgent that it can’t wait 45 min.
David suggests that the first time you do this, it should be a full 60 min focused on outlining what you want to change/fix/improve in your life or business. Then going forward he suggests breaking the hour into 45 + 15 minutes, with the first 45 minutes completely focused on the activity and then use the remaining 15 min to do any admin type work or complete an initial first step/action towards your goal. For instance, if you’re working to improve your health, the first 45 min might be focused on coming up with a weekly workout plan and then the last 15 min could be scheduling a workout class or contacting a personal trainer. That way you can remove all distractions (including phones/internet) until the last 15 min, improving your focus in the first 45 min.
This focused hour can spark change and gives you the time to outline a clear strategy to achieve your goals.
Plan your time!
To make the most of this hour, it’s incredibly important to plan your time! This is quite similar advice to what was outlined in The 4% Fix (see blog post here). Be very intentional about how you spend this time and clearly outline what you want to accomplish in that hour, so that when you sit down to work you can jump right in.
Here are some really useful questions he outlined to help you plan your time:
What do I want to accomplish in this hour? (Be specific!)
What specifically am I going to do? (Plan the details!)
Who else needs to be involved in this hour and what other resources do I need? (Come prepared!)
How will success be defined? (Define the end goal!)
He suggests doing some of these actions during the hour:
Write down all the steps for what you need to do to achieve your goal (What?/How?)
Add deadlines for each step (When?)
Outline who needs to be involved at each stage (Who?)
Allocated time in your schedule (and others) to accomplish all of this (How?/When?)
What action can you do right now? – Use your remaining 15 min for this. (Take action!)
Personally, I would add one more action to the list above, that would be to outline your why for the goal. Why are you doing this and why do you want to accomplish this? Having a clearly defined why can help maintain a sense of motivation throughout the journey.
Outline what success looks like to you.
I think this was one of the more powerful ideas in this book. He states that the key to any goal or target setting is to clearly outline what success will look like. That means, at what point do you feel like you’ve accomplished your goal?
The power of outlining success is that when you actually accomplish it, you get a huge feeling of accomplishment. Often times we work on vague goals (get better at this language/skill), and it becomes something you can always work on but never really accomplish. These vague goals remove any sense of accomplishment or success, so it feels like you’re never really getting anywhere. BUT if you outline key goals or accomplishments, you can see progress being made and it makes you feel more productive.
I know I’m often guilty of these vague goals, such as writing down “improve my Thai skills” every year, which feels repetitive and doesn’t give me a clear goal to work towards. You can always get better, so when have you really achieved “success”?
This is something I’m going to be much more intentional about when setting goals. I know this is why people always talk about using S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound) goals, but I’m not always good at setting those kind of goals and they can feel too constraining or cumbersome to create. But thinking about what success means, is a much easier way to frame it. It also gives me key milestones to celebrate, making it a bit more manageable and rewarding.
Final thoughts
There were a handful of good concepts and ideas from this book that helped complement the ideas discussed in The 4% Fix. I feel like it helped me appreciate the value of getting different perspectives on the same thing. The two books were both discussing a very similar concept, but were very different in their approach.
I feel like if you’re not in business, then there’s quite a bit of this book that won’t apply to you. But if you either have your own business or are involved in the business/management world, there might be some really useful ideas in this book. To be fair, it’s also setup in a what where you can easily just read the sections that are relevant to your life.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
This is an excerpt from the book A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf.
The British Museum was another department of the factory. The swing-doors swung open; and there one stood under the vast dome, as if one were a thought in the huge bald forehead which is so splendidly encircled by a band of famous names. One went to the counter: one took a slip of paper; one opened a volume of the catalogue, and …..the five dots here indicate five separate minutes of stupefaction, wonder, and bewilderment. Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men? Are you aware that you are perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe? Here had I come with a notebook and a pencil proposing to spend a morning reading, supposing that at the end of the morning I should have transferred the truth to my notebook. But I should need to be a herd of elephants, I thought, and a wilderness of spiders, desperately referring to the animals that are reputed longest lived and most multitudinously eyed, to cope with all this. I should need claws of steel and beak of brass even to penetrate the husk. How shall I ever find the grains of truth embedded in all this mass of paper? I asked myself, and in despair began running my eye up and down the long list of titles. Even the names of the books gave me food for thought. Sex and its nature might well attract doctors and biologists; but what was surprising and difficult of explanation was the fact that sex – women, that is to say – also attracts agreeable essayists, light-fingered novelists, young men who have taken the M.A. degree; men who have taken no degree; men who have no apparent qualification save that they are not women. Some of these books were, on the face of it, frivolous and facetious; but many, on the other hand, were serious and prophetic, moral and hortatory. Merely to read the titles suggested innumerable schoolmasters, innumerable clergymen mounting their platforms and pulpits and holding forth with a loquacity which far exceeded the hour usually allotted to such discourse on this one subject. It was a most strange phenomenon; and apparently – here I consulted the letter M – one confined to the male sex. Women do not write books about men – a fact that I could not help welcoming with relief, for if I had first to read all that men have written about women, then all that women have written about men, the aloe that flowers once in a hundred years would flower twice before I could set pen to paper. So, making a perfectly arbitrary choice of a dozen volumes or so, I sent my slips of paper to lie in the wire tray, and waited in my stall, among the other seekers for the essential oil of truth.
What could be the reason, then, of this curious disparity, I wondered, drawing cart-wheels on the slips of paper provided by the British tax-payer for other purposes. Why are women, judging from this catalogue, so much more interesting to men than men are to women? A very curious fact in seemed, and my mind wandered to picture the lives of men who spend their time in writing books about women; whether they were old or young, married or unmarried, red-nosed or hump-backed – anyhow, it was flattering, vaguely, to feel oneself the object of such attention, provided that it was not entirely bestowed by the crippled and the infirm – so I pondered until all such frivolous thoughts were ended by an avalanche of books sliding down onto the desk in front of me. Now the trouble began.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
A Room of One’s Own – Summary
Here is the book summary from Goodreads:
A Room of One’s Own is an extended essay by Virginia Woolf. First published on the 24th of October, 1929, the essay was based on a series of lectures she delivered at Newnham College and Girton College, two women’s colleges at Cambridge University in October 1928. While this extended essay in fact employs a fictional narrator and narrative to explore women both as writers and characters in fiction, the manuscript for the delivery of the series of lectures, titled Women and Fiction, and hence the essay, are considered nonfiction. The essay is seen as a feminist text, and is noted in its argument for both a literal and figural space for women writers within a literary tradition dominated by patriarchy.
What would you do if you had one hour each day to yourself?
As I was reading The 4% Fix by Karma Brown, she talked about how she changed her life by setting aside one hour in her morning to work on her goals and projects. She calls this the 4% fix, as one hour is 4% of your day. By setting aside one hour in the morning, she’s been able to reach and surpass her goal of publishing multiple books.
This is not a book summary or a review. This is simply a discussion of ideas that made the greatest impression on me when reading this book.
One of the most important messages in this book was to be very deliberate about how you spend this hour. Having an extra hour to work on anything is precious, and use it accordingly.
Pick a project or goal
Generally she suggests that you use this extra hour for a project or something special. Pick what you want this hour to work towards. If you have a dream goal or project, spend it on that.
You should have an overarching goal or project that you’re working on. Maybe it’s working on a skill, or exercising, or even just having quiet time to reflect.
Plan the details
Once you have a general guidance on what this hour is for, plan each morning and plan exactly what you want to do. That way you can wake up and get straight to it. This hour is precious, and you want to make the most of it. The best way is to show up prepared with a plan of what you want to accomplish.
If your overarching goal is to write a book, plan which days you are writing, editing, and planning. If your goal is to run a triathlon, plan which days you’re going to run, swim and bike; and then make sure your equipment is set out the night before. Make it easy to get started in the morning.
Part of spending this time intentionally is also to make sure you don’t get distracted by other things. Don’t spend your time with little tasks or with busy work. Don’t open your emails or be tempted to respond to people. Don’t open social media. Avoid all distractions, so that you can completely focus on your intended goal.
Mornings are important!
So I know a lot of people don’t consider themselves morning people (including myself!), but apparently mornings are one of the best times for this kind of deep work. There is a lot of science behind why mornings tend to be the best time to work on creative projects, so let me give you some examples. I don’t have links to the studies that back these up, you’ll have to read her book to get more details.
Reasons to take time in the morning
One key part of mornings is that you haven’t had to make many decisions yet, so your decision making ability hasn’t been exhausted. You’re also less fatigued and you have more self control. Your mind is not exhausted from all the little things that wear you down during the day. This makes it a good time to focus on work that requires both willpower and brain power; you tend to have the most in the morning. Honestly, this is the strongest argument I’ve heard for doing deep work in the morning, it makes sense that the hundreds of decisions we make each day wear us down by the end of the day.
Generally, people are more creative and active in the morning. Even if it’s not a creative endeavour you’re working on, using more creative thinking can benefit you in all areas. You can use creativity to find innovative solutions, or just to work on a creative project. Either way, mornings are apparently best. Personally, I think this is more dependent on the person, but I think it’s worth trying out all times of the day to see what works best for you (including in the morning).
Finally, it’s usually quiet in the morning and there are less distractions (even if you don’t have kids). You’re likely to have fewer distractions including from messages or people trying to contact you, people are less active on social media, and there are less expectations for you to be available. To be fair, I could see this also being the case late in the evenings.
Now, mornings might not be a best fit for everyone, but they tend to be a really good time deep work. Give mornings a chance! But ultimately, find what works best for you.
Start small and be kind to yourself.
In the book, she also gives practical guidance on how to incorporate this hour into your day, and what’s needed to make it sustainable.
She personally wakes up at 5am everyday, and suggests that you wake up an hour earlier than normal to fit this time into your day. However, waking up an hour earlier usually means that you also have to adjust your bedtime. It’s best to adjust your wake up and bed time together gradually. Start with getting up 5-10 min earlier (and going to bed 5-10 min earlier) and gradually move it up to where you want it to be. If you jump to one hour earlier, you may experience some jet lag-type symptoms, as your body is not ready for that drastic change. But a gradual transition is easier and more sustainable, as it gives your body time to get used to it.
Also, be kind to yourself! It’s okay to start small, and you’re not going to be perfect. Sometimes you won’t be able to wake up early, and that’s okay. It’s better to be kind to yourself and be persistent than judging yourself harshly and giving up. Most importantly, find what works for you. Everyone is unique and there is no one size fits all solution.
Final thoughts
I thought this book was quite practical and useful. It walks you through why it’s useful, how to make the most of it, and how to build the habit. I think there’s some pretty good advice in here. I don’t know if I’m going to start waking up at 5am everyday, but I do think I’m going to try using my mornings more deliberately.
What do you think about this practice?
What would you do if you had one hour to yourself each day?
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
This is an excerpt from the book Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.
Note the capitalization is intentional and follows how it was written in the book.
I saw a vision! In the dim Air above the grey Waves hung a white, shining cross. Its whiteness was a blazing whiteness; it far outshone the Wall of Statues behind it. It was beautiful but I did not understand it. The next moment brought enlightenment of a sort: it was not a cross at all but something vast and white, which glided rapidly towards me on the Wind.
What could it be? It must be a bird, but if I could see it at such a great distance, then it must be a bird of much greater size than the birds I was accustomed to. It swept on, coming directly towards me. I spread my arms in answer to is spread wings, as if I was going to embrace it. I spoke out loud. Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! was what I think I meant to say, but the Wind took my breath from me and all I could manage was: ‘Come! Come! Come!’
The bird sailed across the heaving Waves, never once beating its wings. With great skill and ease it tipped itself slightly sideways to pass through the Doorway that separated us. Its wingspan surpassed even the width of the Door. I know what it was! An albatross!
Still it continued, straight towards me, and the strangest thought came to me: perhaps the albatross and I were destined to merge and the two of us would become another order of being entirely: an Angel! This thought both excited and frightened me, but still I remained, arms outstretched, mirroring the albatross’s flight. (I thought how surprised the Other would be when I flew into the Second South-Western Hall on my Angel Wings, bringing him messages of Peace and Joy!) My heart beat rapidly.
The moment that he reached me – the moment that I thought we would collide like Planets and become one! – I gave out a sort of gasping cry – Aahhhh! In the same instant, I felt some sort of pent-up tension go out of me, a tension I did not know I had until that moment. Vast, white wings passed over me. I felt and smelt the Air those wings brought with them, the sharp, salty, wild tang of Faraway Tides and Winds that had roamed vast distances, through Halls I would never see.
At the last moment the albatross swung over my left shoulder. I fell to the Pavement. He flapped his wings in a frantic, panicked sort of way, stuck out his wiry pink legs and tumbled out of the Air into a sort of heap on the Pavement. In the Air he was a miraculous being – a Heavenly Being – but on the Stones of the Pavement he was mortal and subject to the same embarrassments and clumsiness as other mortals.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Piranesi – Summary
**I don’t usually do this, but I feel like this is a book best read not knowing much about the plot. I would suggest not reading the book summary, but here it is in case you’re interested.
In case you’re interested, here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
For readers of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and fans of Madeline Miller’s Circe, Piranesi introduces an astonishing new world, an infinite labyrinth, full of startling images and surreal beauty, haunted by the tides and the clouds.
Ikigai is basically a Japanese word for your purpose in life or a happy life. “Iki” means to live and “gai” means reason, so the word literally means the reason to live. It’s a combination of what you’re passionate about, what you’re good at, how you can help the world, and what kind of job you can have. As I was reading the book The Little Book of Ikigai by Ken Mogi to understand more about about this concept, I learned a bit about how to do what makes you feel fulfilled.
Here are the aspects of the book that resonated the most with me:
Five pillars of Ikigai.
Doing what you love without expecting recognition.
The interaction of language and culture.
Five pillars of Ikigai
Ken Mogi starts off by introducing the five pillars of ikigai, and constantly refers to them throughout the book. The five pillars are a good way to get an initial idea of ikigai.
The Five Pillars:
Starting small:This pillar focuses on just finding a way to start, that any small step is progress and it doesn’t need to be monumental. It can be doing something small towards your goal or finding ways to incorporate it into your life. This also included focusing on all the small details to improve performance or quality, such as perfecting every step of a process.
Releasing yourself: The goal is to release yourself from judgement or from the goal of being successful. With this release, you give yourself permission to focus on your interest simply because you enjoy it, you’re not doing it to prove your worth or your success to others. When you change your motivation to be entirely internal rather than external, then you gain more joy from it and it becomes more sustainable (see other pillars).
Harmony & sustainability: A key part of ikigai is to ensure that what you’re doing is both sustainable and long-lasting. Most of the other pillars support and enable sustainability, such as having internal motivation (releasing yourself), and enjoying the process (joy of little things). But make sure to consider how you can incorporate your ikigai into your life for the long-run and make it sustainable.
An incredible example of sustainability discussed in the book is the Ise Shrine. The shrine is dismantled and rebuilt every twenty years. This rebuilding process has been going on for the past 1,200 years! To ensure this is possible, there are many details that need to be planned ahead and considered, such as planting a specific tree far enough in advance that there will be enough of the exact size needed, and having access to individuals with special carpentry techniques that are past on from one generation to another. The sustainability is embedded directly into the processes and culture of the shrine.
The joy of little things: The goal is to find joy in the process and all the details. If you’re able to enjoy what you do and all the stages of it, it will help keep you consistent and make the process more sustainable. The more sources of joy you have, the more likely you’ll continue to pursue an interest. It’s similar to the cliche of make sure you’re enjoying the journey, not just the destination.
Being in the here and now: For this pillar, you need to focus on what’s happening in the present. Don’t get all caught up in the past or the future. This goes hand in hand with releasing yourself, so you’re not too preoccupied with becoming “successful” in the future, and the joy of the little things, so that you find joy in all the steps of improving your craft or career.
Example of the Pillars
As an easy way to show how all of these five pillars can interact, let me share with you an example that Ken Mogi shared for how they manifest in a sumo wrestler’s career. A sumo wrestler must start small by focusing on every little detail of each technique in their training to perfect the skill, such as where to place your feet. More amateur sumo wrestlers often have to attend to the needs of a more senior wrestler, which requires them to release themselves by focusing on another’s needs and desires. The overall harmony and sustainability of the sumo wrestling practice is upheld through the many rituals and traditions that maintain a consistent culture. There are many ways that wrestlers find joy in the little things, such as the taste of chanko (a dish unique to sumo wrestlers that helps them gain weight) or hearing the cheers of fans, and these enjoying each of these helps make their career more sustainable. During a match, a wrestler needs to be completely submersed in the present moment, aka being in the here and now, for their optimum performance.
Doing what you love without expecting recognition
This aspect is kind of a combination of pillars two and four, the releasing yourself and finding joy in little things. When you release yourself from judgement of others and are simply doing it because you love it, you also usually find joy in the little things. These two pillars together help you do what you love without expecting recognition. Most people who have become successful, have been consistently practicing the same skill simply because they enjoy doing it, and eventually they get so good other people start to take notice. Look at famous authors, artists, performers, and others, a lot of them became successful because they just kept practicing their skill at any opportunity they had.
Usually, when you do something because you genuinely love it, you want to continue doing it no matter what. You find pleasure in the details and you continually try to improve. The focus on improving yourself instead of who is taking notice, helps make the process more sustainable (pillar three) and enables you to continue perfecting your skill while finding joy in the process.
The key is to stop thinking about the judgement of others, don’t get caught up in what others think about you or how you compare to others. When you are only focused on what you’re doing, then you can truly embrace who you were meant to be, and do all the things that you want to do.
An Example
An incredible example of this is the world-famous sushi chef, Jiro Ono, who developed his sushi skills simply because he loved it. He did it without worrying about the expectations of others or what was the typical way of starting a sushi stand/restaurant. In this way, he developed multiple tools and processes unique to himself, which are now used across the world and are attributed to his ingenuity. Despite this incredible success and impact, he didn’t design any of those tools for others, but simply to make his craft better and help himself while continuing to learn.
The interaction of language and culture
A fascinating part of this book, was highlighting the strong connection between language and culture. One often reinforces and reflects the other, and you see it manifested and embodied in both.
Ikigai is a common word in Japanese, considered a part of everyday life, but it’s not always given that much thought. But its concept is seen throughout the country, in the way that people find joy and purpose in their work, and the efforts people go to perfect what they focus on without aiming for recognition. This language and practice have become so intricately intertwined, that it’s become a part of the Japanese culture. Interestingly, individualists (like Steve Jobs) are not usually fostered in this kind of system, but rather the type of people more commonly found are those with passion and mastery of their craft.
Another interesting example is the link between onomatopoeia and sound symbolism in the Japanese language and culture. In Japan, there’s a dictionary of onomatopoeia sounds that includes 4,500 examples of onomatopoeia expressions, as each sound has a distinct meaning. For example, ton ton vs don don, a simple change in one letter changes from a light tapping (ton ton) to a heavy, thudding one (don don). Japanese manga authors use these types of expressions extensively, with each one adding more nuance to the story. This type of sound symbolism is so embedded in the Japanese culture that they are also commonly used in professional contexts to highlight nuances.
Final Thoughts
This book was quite interesting, and I learned a lot about Japanese culture and life through the exploring the concept of ikigai. The book isn’t really an instructional guide on how to find or develop your ikigai, but it does act as a great introduction the concept. I feel like this book gives you the ground work to understand the concept and helps you start contemplating what your purpose in life is. You can use the pillars to assess your current or future interest, helping to shape them into something more sustainable.
There are many more examples of how ikigai can manifest in people lives in the book. If you’re interested in this topic, I would recommend reading the book to find out more.
I would love to know your thoughts on this concept, do you think you have an ikigai in your life and what is it?
This is an excerpt from the book Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver.
Adults can change their circumstances; children cannot. Children are powerless, and in difficult situations they are the victims of every sorrow and mischance and rage around them, for children feel all of these things but without any of the ability that adults have to change them. Whatever can take a child beyond such circumstances, therefore, is an alleviation and a blessing.
I quickly found for myself two such blessings-the natural world, and the world of writing: literature. These were the gates through which I vanished from a difficult place.
In the first of these-the natural world-I felt at ease; nature was full of beauty and interest and mystery, also good and bad luck, but never misuse. The second world-the world of literature-offered me, besides the pleasures of form, the sustentation of empathy (the first step of what Keats called negative capability) and I ran for it. I relaxed in it. I stood willingly and gladly in the characters of everything-other people, trees, clouds. And this is what I learned: that the world’s otherness is antidote to confusion, that standing within this otherness-the beauty and the mystery of the world, out in the fields or deep inside books-can re-dignify the worst-stung heart.
Have you read this book? I’d love to hear your thoughts in a comment below!
Upstream: Selected Essays – Summary
In case you’re interested, here is the book summary from Goodreads:
Comprising a selection of essays, Upstream finds beloved poet Mary Oliver reflecting on her astonishment and admiration for the natural world and the craft of writing.
As she contemplates the pleasure of artistic labor, finding solace and safety within the woods, and the joyful and rhythmic beating of wings, Oliver intimately shares with her readers her quiet discoveries, boundless curiosity, and exuberance for the grandeur of our world.
This radiant collection of her work, with some pieces published here for the first time, reaffirms Oliver as a passionate and prolific observer whose thoughtful meditations on spiders, writing a poem, blue fin tuna, and Ralph Waldo Emerson inspire us all to discover wonder and awe in life’s smallest corners.
