listening

Advice for Giving Advice

I was dismayed to see MYSELF in the brilliant, funny New Yorker piece “Wait but have you tried?” about the advice-giving that is everywhere. It pulled me up short and got me wondering what an antidote for this rampant habit might be?

Mister Rogers on The One of the Simplest Yet Rarest Gifts We Can Give

In this short video clip, the remarkable Fred Rogers describes one of the most powerful gifts he was given in his life, and got us wondering how we can give, and encourage it ourselves?

Lessons in Stillness and Quiet, with Mitch Epstein’s Astonishing Trees

At first, we only visited the New York Times “Lessons in Stillness from One of the Quiestest Places on Earth” because we wanted to see Mitch Epstein’s remarkable photographs of trees. But then, the story called us…

Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategy: Don’t Wait for Inspiration. Do this instead…

This video of artist and musician Brian Eno is full of interesting ideas about the creative process. The best, to us, is right up front in the first 1:44 minutes…

Potent Restful Secrets to a Working Vacation

We were about to take some time to do NOTHING when got a notice for Jury Duty and found a trove of essential, time-sensitive tasks that had fallen by the wayside. We wondered how to plough through obligations AND rest in a beachy, refreshing way?

The Greatest Gift We Can Give or Receive (Gogo, Virginia Satir)

Two-and-three-quarters-years-old Gogo’s wise words echo an essential principle of ground-breaking psychotherapist Virginia Satir…one we could all put to good use.

Ann Hamilton: ‘How Can Words be Acts of Making?’

At artist Ann Hamilton’s website, we found an extraordinary meditation on words, and the question: “how can words be acts of making?”

William S. Burroughs on Finding Answers and Making Changes

Sometimes we work SO hard that our health suffers with ailments like back pain or fatigue…Then we employ these tactics, and take a cue from William S. Burroughs…