Get Behind the Mule

Three things I'm working on:

#1 ALL OF THIS:

Build a good name. Keep your name clean. Don’t make compromises, don’t worry about making a bunch of money or being successful — be concerned with doing good work and make the right choices and protect your work. And if you build a good name, eventually, that name will be its own currency.
- Patti Smith


#2 DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU WILL DO

Our old CMO said he had "DO WHAT YOU SAY YOU WILL DO" painted on his wall at home. It was his family's motto. Or something. I can't remember the specifics. Anyway, it's eternally difficult albeit solid advice.

 
#3 GET BEHIND THE MULE

That Other Thing

“And I would tell him, so full of twentysomething wisdom, that life is almost never about choosing between one thing you really want and another thing you don't want at all. If you're lucky, and healthy, and live in a country where you have enough to eat and no fear that you're going to get shot when you walk out your door, life is an endless series of choosing between two things you want almost equally. And you have to evaluate and determine which awesome thing you want infinitesimally more, and then give up that other awesome thing you want almost exactly as much. You have to trade awesome for awesome. Everyone I knew, no matter what they chose, was at least a little in mourning for that other thing.” 

Kristin Newman, What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding

Orchestra, she says

But she seems to know that positive energy has a habit of finding its way out into the wider world. One day, after we have toured the temple, she leads me down to a small bridge that crosses over a creek. We stand on the bridge and she touches her hand to her ear. She wants me to listen. So we listen: She and I simply stand there by the water for a couple of minutes, listening to the sound of the current. Then she smiles — it really is like a ray of light, this smile — and points to the creek and utters a single word in English, as she looks into my eyes.

‘‘Orchestra,’’ she says.

From Jeong Kwan, the Philosopher Chef

nature's old love song

After dark, when the camp was at rest,
I groped my way back to the altar boulder
and passed the night on it, — above the water,
beneath the leaves and stars, — everything
still more impressive than by day,
the fall seen dimly white, singing
Nature's old love song with solemn enthusiasm,
while the stars peering through the leaf-roof
seemed to join in the white water's song.
Precious night, precious day to abide in me forever.
Thanks be to God for this immortal gift.

John Muir, The Writings Of John Muir