Artful Quote
“People who know of me at all probably do so as a sailor; but I have always thought of myself as an artist, and I believe that the artist’s defining responsibility is to go to the edge of human experience and send back reports.”
Webb Chiles (6 x circumnavigations as a sailor)
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Lasting Shelter
I found this bit of wisdom in a fascinating story about a father’s hidden past…
“We cannot really save anyone. Not permanently. The safeguards we set up all fall away. In the best-case scenario, our babies grow up healthy and strong under our watch, then leave to set out on their own. Worst case, our attempts to protect our loved ones fail, and they are felled by something we could not stop. Knowing this––as my parents surely did during the bunker years, and as I do now as a mother––could drive us mad.
What do we do, then, if we cannot stop time or prevent every loss?
We carry on with ordinary acts of everyday caretaking. I cannot shield my beloveds forever, but I can make them lunch today. I can teach a teenager to drive. I can take someone to a doctor appointment, fix the big crack in the ceiling when it begins to leak, and tuck everyone in at night until I can’t anymore. I can do small acts of nurturing that stand in for big, impossible acts of permanent protection, because the closest thing to lasting shelter we can offer one another is love, as deep and wide and in as many forms as we can give it.”
The Most Haunting Truth of Parenthood by Mary Laura Philpott via The Atlantic
H/T Ryan Holiday‘s “The Reading List Email for August 21, 2022”
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“My favorite word in the English language is idioglossia. It means a secret language spoken between a few people. It is also a hidden thing.”
This quote is from a moving post about regret written by Nick Maggiulli.
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Eight Categories
“To be asked to give reasons for one’s personal decisions is to entertain the possibility that such reasons exist. Thomas Aquinas, another author on our syllabus, calls the reason that is the orienting point of all your other reasons your “final end.” Those who discover that they have such final ends, and learn to assess them, see their way to the exit from the fun house of arbitrary decisions in which the young so often find themselves trapped.
For the number of final ends is not infinite. Aquinas usefully suggests that the ultimate objects of human longing can be sorted into only eight enduring categories. If we want to understand where we’re headed, we should ask ourselves these questions:
- Am I interested in this opportunity because it leads to wealth?
- Or am I aiming at praise and admiration?
- Do I want enduring glory?
- Or power — to “make an impact”?
- Is my goal to maximize my pleasures?
- Do I seek health?
- Do I seek some “good of the soul,” such as knowledge or virtue?
- Or is my ultimate longing to come face-to-face with the divine?
Most students find, to their surprise, that they can locate their desires on this old map.”
The Art of Choosing What to Do With Your Life via NY Times
(Emphasis Mine)
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“There are an estimated 97 million songs built off of just 12 notes, but less than one percent of those songs resonate while the rest live in oblivion. Some of the oblivion songs are great. Many of the resonating songs are mediocre. Some of the resonating songs are truly dreadful.”
Lucky and Good by Bob Seawright
I often wonder if the internet has resulted in more “discovery” of hidden talent, or if it has simply enabled creators to produce and share more work that just adds to the noise.
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Speaking of songs that resonate, I’ve been listening to the Avett Brothers recently and these lyrics caught my attention…
From “Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise”:
When nothing is owed or deserved or expected
And your life doesn’t change by the man that’s elected
If you’re loved by someone, you’re never rejected
Decide what to be and go be it
There was a dream and one day I could see it
Like a bird in a cage I broke in
And demanded that somebody free it
Here’s the live version.