S.B. Dworski reflects on the nature of being “siloed”, which most of the world is grappling with, and a new way to think about it.
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A Body Language Vaccine for Stress and Overwhelm (S.B. Dworski)
Since the convergence of Covid-19 and the run-up to the election, I’ve been increasingly bombarded with homemade mini zeitgeist-videos expressing the pent-up emotions we’re all sharing during this rocky time. The best of these I forward to good friends; mostly, I enjoy a good chuckle, then hit delete. I’ve kept this one on my desktop,…
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S.B. Dworski on Escape, Noodles, Ecstasy
Fueled by a quarantine fantasy of hiking the Appalachian Trail, S.B. Dworski’s path took her into unexpected territory…
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S.B. Dworski Ponders “Sonder”
Frequent contributor S.B. Dworski dives into John Koenig’s deeply beautiful concept, Sonder, which has poignant resonance today.
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Sea Change Can Be Contagious (Susan Dworski, W.S. Merwin)
In posts and emails, I shared the questions fueling Improvised Life’s new architecture and many changes. Among the deeply affirming messages I received from readers, the most interesting was from long-time contributor Susan Dworski. She wrote of the contagious aspect of this sea change.
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When Not Kondo-ing Pays Off (Louise Bourgeois, Susan Dworski, Italo Calvino)
There are many reasons not to follow Marie Kondo’s mission to declutter. Witness this report from Susan Dworski, with Louise Bourgeois and Italo Calvino…
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‘When one window closes, another opens’ (Kay Ryan +Susan Dworski)
From an island farm in the Pacific Northwest, Susan Dworski relates her post election strategies and one small miracle, with poem.
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Snow as Transformation, via Mary Oliver + Susan Dworski
Watching the evening news and the huge white swirl bearing down on the Eastern seaboard, we inhabitants of the West coast’s eternal green dream of the joy of a new snowfall and the ways it can reconfigure our lives.
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simon beck’s snow art + dworski on why we improvise
As a spring snow storm sweeps through the midwest, it seems fitting to post these wondrous snow paintings by artist Simon Beck along the frozen lakes of Savoie, France. He creates the beautiful geometric patterns, some as large as 3 soccer fields, by plodding through the snow in snowshoes for hours at a time. How long the…
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Ode to Eggs (Let Me Count the Ways…)
Although a lot of people complain about the price of eggs, we think they are a bargain. One or two can still make a mighty meal for under two bucks. And there are ENDLESS ways to cook treat them. To spark egg possibility-thinking, we reprise our edit of Renee Schettler Rossi’s “All Hail the Mighty Egg” that appeared in in Leite’s Culinaria some years ago: inspired ideas fueled by memory, passion and hunger.
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Marsha Linehan on Building a Life Worth Living
We got interested in psychotherapist Marsha Linehan after a reader told us that it was she who first used the Buddhist concept of Radical Acceptance as a therapeutic tool in psychotherapy. It was a groundbreaking approach, as were the treatments she pioneered for patients who were previously written off as hopeless. The story of how she developed it — as a young woman she had been one of those “impossible” patients — is a marvel of resourcefulness and creativity.
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Boosting Wellness Through Language
Over the years, we’ve come to to view illness as a path that can, if we are lucky or open to it, provide a lot of illumination and healing. When we mentioned this to our remarkable physical therapist Rachel Miller Williams she nodded and offered this surprising view.
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George Booth, Chronicler of Our Sublime and Oddball Life
When a friend sent us news that legendary New Yorker cartoonist George Booth had died, we realized that his work has provided joy, comfort, and uplift throughout our entire adult life. In a single drawing, he managed to convey the wild complexity of ordinary lives through the simplest of details, embedded with a deeply life-affirming message.
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David McCullough’s Essential Advice About Writing + the Virtues of Analog
When brilliant chronicler of American history David McCullough died recently, two people sent me excerpts from obituaries, so apt was his wisdom for Improvised Life. Here’s his brilliant advice for becoming a good storyteller and why he used a 1940 typewriter to write his award-winning books.
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Role Models for Those Feeling Ancient
As I was contemplating the mighty big birthday I will be celebrating this week, I stumbled on this tiny video. Yeah, that’s it. Role models.
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Our Hands Surprise Our Head (Francis of Assisi, Tessa Traeger, Bertjan Pot)
A fragment from St. Francis of Assisi got us thinking about hands in a new way. Into our head flew images from photographer Tessa Traeger’s moving series, Voices of the Vivarais, of working people in the ancient province in south-east France. and a video about Dutch designer Bertjan Pot.
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Kevin Kelly’s Cheap PDF of his Wonderful ‘Cool Tools’
When Kevin Kelly’s published Cool Tools, his giant “catalog of possibilities”, five years ago, it immediately became our favorite catalogue. Its descriptions are literary, its selection attuned to creative minds. We find it relaxing to read while it makes our brains sparkle in unexpected ways. Now it’s available for $3.99.
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Reasons for Not Doing the Thing Today (Madeleine Dore, Maya Angelou, Louise Bourgeois)
The other day, a newsletter arrived in my inbox with a list that made me instantly relax. “Some reasonable reasons you didn’t do the thing today” was from Madeleine Dore, author of Extraordinary Routines, which explores “how we navigate the pendulum swings of our days”, i.e. how to live with meaning and creativity and unleash our productivity. Her brilliant list grew out of her realization that there is no secret to productivity, and that the very notion is deeply awry.
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Personal Rigs for Pleasure, Illumination, Escape
The other day in Central Park, I saw I guy lying in a hammock under the sweeping branch of an ancient tree. Nearby was heavy-duty dolly that he’d used to haul a hammock stand to the beautiful spot.
It got me thinking about personal rigs people devise for getting OUT unfettered by any ideas of embarrassment or propriety.
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Your Wisdom App + Clint Eastwood on How Not to Get Old
Frequent contributor Susan Dworski threw this compelling video over my transom, accompanied by her thoughts about the apps she’s been seeing lately selling all manner of salvation. She asks a big question and points to a surprising path…
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