|
aaa02f0
|
For here was the hole in Alma's theory: she could not, for the life of her, understand the evolutionary advantages of altruism and self-sacrifice. If the natural world was indeed the sphere of amoral and constant struggle for survival that it appeared to be, and if outcompeting one's rivals was the key to dominance, adaptation, and endurance--then what was one supposed to make, for instance, of someone like her sister Prudence? Whenever Alm..
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
99bd79d
|
Divine Time, Geological Time, Human Time, Moss Time.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
39e45e8
|
He became a poet the way other men become monks: as a devotional practice, as an act of love, and as a lifelong commitment to the search for grace and transcendence.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
bdedda7
|
When the time is ripe for certain things, they appear at different places, in the manner of violets coming to light in early spring.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
a659df3
|
Don't rush through the experiences and circumstances that have the most capacity to transform you.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
fa57df8
|
This was not a considered decision. Nor was it a gesture of charity, draped in a warm mantle of maternal kindness. No, this was an act of intuition, sprung from a deep and unspoken feminine knowledge of how the world functions.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
d91271a
|
So I don't try to kill off my fear. I don't go to war against it. Instead, I make all that space for it. Heaps of space. Every single day. I'm making space for fear right this moment. I allow my fear to live and breathe and stretch out its legs comfortably. It seems to me that the less I fight my fear, the less it fights back. If I can relax, fear relaxes, too. In fact, I cordially invite fear to come along with me everywhere I go. I even h..
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
f890f3d
|
You are free, because everyone is too busy fussing over themselves to worry all that much about you. Go be whomever you want to be, then. Do whatever you want to do. Pursue whatever fascinates you and brings you to life. Create whatever you want to create--and let it be stupendously imperfect, because it's exceedingly likely that nobody will even notice. And that's awesome.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
ace9469
|
Boehme makes such leaps, such contradictions, such confusions of thought. It is as though he wishes to vault directly into heaven upon the strength of his logic, but his logic is deeply impaired." She reached across the table for a book and flung it open. "In this chapter here, for instance, he is trying to find keys to God's secrets hidden inside the plants of the Bible- but what are we to make of it, when his information is simply incorre..
|
|
anemone-coronaria
book-of-matthew
jacob-boehme
lilies-of-the-field
mysticism
new-testament
plants
theories
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
100c807
|
Only when we are at our most playful can divinity finally get serious with us.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
330b921
|
He realized that "failure has a function. It asks you whether you really want to go on making things."
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
3147511
|
Remember that you're nothing but a beginner - even if you've been working on your craft for fifty years. We are all just beginner here, and we shall all die beginners. So let it go.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
1dc5ea7
|
But I remember thinking that learning how to endure your disappointment and frustration is part of the job of a creative person. If you want to be an artist of any sort, it seemed to me, then handling your frustration is a fundamental aspect of the work--perhaps the single most fundamental aspect of the work.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
beea8a1
|
She loved it even more than ever, perhaps, because now, as an adult, she finally had the perspective to appreciate the value of her own joy.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
faeb648
|
If your goal in life is to become fearless, then I believe you're already on the wrong path, because the only truly fearless people I've ever met were straight-up sociopaths and a few exceptionally reckless three-year-olds--and those aren't good role models for anyone. The truth is, you need your fear, for obvious reasons of basic survival. Evolution did well to install a fear reflex within you, because if you didn't have any fear, you woul..
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
33b77c7
|
writers like Jack Kerouac (who called himself an "urban Thoreau") set forth to redefine and rediscover ways to live in America without slogging through what Kerouac called the endless system of "work, produce, consume, work, produce, consume..."
|
|
beats
consumerism
culture
kerouac
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
ef13182
|
Never apologize for it, never explain it away, never be ashamed of it. You did your best with what you knew, and you worked with what you had, in the time that you were given. You were invited, and you showed up, and you simply cannot do more than that.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
4d304e0
|
I always try to remind myself that I am having an affair with my creativity, and I make an effort to present myself to inspiration like somebody you might actually want to have an affair with--not
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
5dd187d
|
I thought of how many people go to their graves unforgiven and unforgiving. I thought of how many people have had siblings or friends or children or lovers disappear from their lives before precious words of clemency or absolution could be passed along.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
25da205
|
It's all just a game.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
f333d23
|
Fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
2d56f71
|
I would like to spend the rest of my days in a place so silent--and working at a pace so slow--that I would be able to hear myself living.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
396f9d7
|
which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and it grants us these remarkable minds, in order that we try to reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than anything." "I know that is what you think," said Alma, patting his hand again, "and I believe it is quite an inventive notion, Mr. Wallace." "Do you think I'm correct?"
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
b0db688
|
Why had their lives turned out this way, and not another way?
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
a5f2d70
|
Recognizing this reality--that the reaction doesn't belong to you--is the only sane way to create. If people enjoy what you've created, terrific. If people ignore what you've created, too bad. If people misunderstand what you've created, don't sweat it. And what if people absolutely hate what you've created? What if people attack you with savage vitriol, and insult your intelligence, and malign your motives, and drag your good name through ..
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
a9bc24f
|
Well... "why" is a hard question to answer in any language."
|
|
life
love
why
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
b6c1145
|
Ambrose had misread the world. He had wished for the world to be a paradise, when in fact it was a battlefield. He had spent his life longing for the eternal, the constant, and the pure. He desired an airy covenant of angels, but was bound - as is everyone and everything - by the hard rules of nature. Moreover, as Alma well knew, it was not always the most beautiful, brilliant, original, or graceful who survived the struggle for existence; ..
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
c6cffed
|
lm 'kn 'rGb btdmyr 'y 'Hd 'w 'y shy. lm 'rGb sw~ bltsll bhdw mn lbb lkhlfy, mn dwn 'n ykwn lrHyly 'y jlb@ 'w `wqb.
|
|
الرحيل
انهاء-العلاقه
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
14b47c9
|
flwqt lm ykn mnsban llbHth `n lrwmnsy@, nh wqt lbHth `n lshf wlslm lldhyn l y'tyn l mn lwHd@.
|
|
السلام
الهدوء
الوحده
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
c379623
|
Be wakeful and watchful, she heard Henry say. Make sure you are not the only member of your party who can write or read a letter. If you need to find water, follow a dog. If you are starving, eat insects before you waste your energy on hunting. Anything that a bird can eat, you can eat. Your biggest dangers are not snakes, lions, or cannibals; your biggest dangers are blistered feet, carelessness, and fatigue. Be certain to write your diari..
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
4299bed
|
they filled her with the most astonishing sensation of synthesis-as though all the most disparate elements of her biography were at last knitting together. All the things that she had ever known or loved in the world were stitching themselves up and becoming one thing. Realizing this made her feel both unburdened and triumphant. She had that feeling again--of being most spectacularly alive. Not merely alive but outfitted with a mind that wa..
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
a4d330e
|
Struggle was the explanation behind all the most troubling biological mysteries: species differentiation, species extinction, and species transmutation. Struggle explained everything
|
|
nature
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
376dedf
|
When you're lost in those woods, it sometimes takes you a while to realize that you are lost. For the longest time, you can convince yourself that you've just wandered a few feet off the path, that you'll find your way back to the trailhead any moment now. Then night falls again and again, and you still have no idea where you are, and it's time to admit that you have bewildered yourself so far off the path that you don't even know from whic..
|
|
life
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
321176d
|
I wanted to be all Gandhi about this. I wanted to be all Nelson Mandela about this. Not realizing at the time that both Gandhi and Mandela were lawyers.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
2b7dfda
|
Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome. Your fear--programmed by evolution to be hypervigilant and insanely overprotective--will always assume that any uncertain outcome is destined to end in a bloody, horrible death. Basically, your fear is like a mall cop who thinks he's a Navy SEAL:
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
f7b186b
|
Vitamin E, get much sleep, drink much water, travel to a place far away...meditate and teach your heart that this is destiny." - Wayan"
|
|
eat-pray-love
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
02aa48a
|
In any case, our love is not a typical love, as is typically felt between men and women. We share something else between us - something more immediate, more cherishing. That has been evident to me from the beginning, and I pray it has been evident to you. My wish is that we two could live together as one, both contented and elevated, and ever-seeking.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
df7e05b
|
I'm here. I love you. I don't care if you need to stay up crying all night long, I will stay with you. If you need the medication again, go ahead and take it - I will love you through that, as well. If you don't need the medication, I will love you, too. There's nothing you can ever do to lose my love. I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you. I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneline..
|
|
life
loneliness
love
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
9cd65c1
|
Our planet is inhabited not only by animals, and planets, and bacteria, but also ideas. Ideas are a disembodied energetic life-form. They are completely separated from us but capable of interacting with us.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
2ffe06e
|
Alma knelt in the tall grass and brought her face as near as she could to the stone. And there, rising no more than an inch above the surface of the boulder, she saw a great and tiny forest. Nothing moved within this mossy world. She peered at it so closely that she could smell it- dank and rich and old. Gently, Alma pressed her hand into this tight little timberland. It compacted itself under her palm and then sprang back to form without c..
|
|
microscopic
moss
mosses
small-world
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
3a36ed4
|
There's no dishonor in having a job. What is dishonorable is scaring away your creativity by demanding that it pay for your entire existence.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
b3ead32
|
people's judgments about you are none of your business.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
50d4bbe
|
Lahtilaskmine kolab kahtlemata vaga hirmutavalt neile meie seast, kes elavad usus, et maakeral on kaepide ja maakera poorlemiseks peab just nimelt tema seda kaepidet lakkamatult keerama, sest kui ta seda ei teeks, kui ta kas voi hetkekski lahti laseks, saaks kogu universum kohemaid hukka. ... Istu vaikselt maha ja ara monda aega uldse osale. Ja vaata, mis siis juhtub. Tuleb valja, et linnud ei langegi keset lendu surnult maha. Puud ei kuiva..
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |
|
1acefb0
|
Inimesed kujutavad ette, et hingesugulane on keegi, kellega sa taiuslikult kokku klapid, ja seda ju igauks endale ihkab. Aga toeline hingesugulane on hoopis peegel, inimene, kes naitab sulle koike seda, mis sind tagasi hoiab, ta sunnib sind poorama tahelepanu su enda isikule, et sa saaksid oma elu uueks muuta.
|
|
|
Elizabeth Gilbert |