Sometimes you try and you fail. Good. You learned something. Trust that was what was supposed to happen. Go help someone else with what you learned.
Sometimes you try and you succeed. Good. You learned something. Trust that was what was supposed to happen. Go help someone else with what you learned.
Notice the two above statements are exactly the same. Except for one word. Can you find the difference?
“And the boy loved the tree…….very much. And the tree was happy.” -Shel Silverstein, The Giving Tree
“And…and you know what, maybe I’m crazy. But when I walk through a forest that I saved, when I hear the sound of wind rustling in young trees, trees that I planted myself, I realize that I have my own little bit of control over the climate. And if after thousands of years one person is happier because of it, well then…I can’t tell you the feeling I get when I plant a birch tree and I see it grow up and sprout leaves, I…I mean, I fill up with pride, I…” -Astrov in Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov (Annie Baker adaptation)
“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.” -Chinese Proverb
Very slowly burning, the big forest tree
stands in the slight hollow of the snow
melted around it by the mild, long
heat of its being and its will to be
root, trunk, branch, leaf, and know
earth dark, sun light, wind touch, bird song.
Rootless and restless and warmblooded, we
blaze in the flare that blinds us to that slow,
tall, fraternal fire of life as strong
now as in the seedling two centuries ago. -“Kinship”, a poem by Ursula K. Le Guin
It’s summertime. Get outside. Get some fresh air. Look at the beauty and fullness of the trees and appreciate them for all their majesty.
I’ll leave you with this gorgeous love letter to trees by Herman Hesse… (Courtesy of Susan Cain and Maria Popova. Check out their work here and here.)
For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.
Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.
A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.
A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live.
When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts… Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.
A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.
So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.
“Sometimes the most powerful moments in a film are the quiet ones.” -Louis Malle
For the filmmaker…
A good discipline or practice is to go through every scene in the script and ask yourself the following two questions:
Can I shoot this scene in one take?
Can I communicate the story of this scene with no dialogue?
If you can, that’s the way to shoot it.
If you can’t, then you know whatever shots and dialogue you do keep, will be that much more meaningful and powerful.
“If you want to be given everything, give everything up.” -Lao Tzu
“Being loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” -Lao Tzu
Free-free, set them free (oh-ooh-whoa)
Free-free, set them free
Free-free, set them free
Free-free, set them free
If you need somebody, call my name
If you want someone, you can do the same
If you wanna keep something precious
Gotta lock it up and throw away the key
You want to hold on to your possession
Don’t even think about me
If you love somebody
If you love someone
If you love somebody
If you love someone, set them free
Free-free, set them free (set them free)
Free-free, set them free (set them free)
Free-free, set them free (set them free)
Free-free, set them free (set them free) -song, “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free” by Sting
If you fear loss, be grateful for that fear. For that means you have something that’s very precious. You love and you are loved. This is an incredible gift.
Like all gifts, they were given. Not earned. Gratitude and not holding on are the key to sustaining right relationship and keeping your ego in check. You are merely a participant in the infinite loop of grace.
“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” -Lao Tzu
“Past performance is not indicative of future results” is a common disclaimer placed on any investment solicitation.
We can also apply this disclaimer to our own lives.
What you did prior, your successes and your failures, your wins and losses, are not indicative of what you’ll do next.
Let that humble as well as inspire you. What you did before doesn’t matter. Let go of the old. Have beginner’s mind and be wide open to the new. Be free to make whatever art or change you now desire.
“Excellence is a function of uniqueness.” -credo from Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan
“The great law of life is to be yourself. Though this axiom sounds simple it is often a difficult task. To be yourself you have to learn how to become the person you were dreamed to be. … What are you called to do? In old-fashioned language: what is your vocation in life? When you find that what you are doing is what you love, what you were brought here to do, it makes for a rich and contented life. You have come into the rhythm with your longing. Your work and your action emerge naturally: you don’t have to force yourself. Your energy is immediate. Your passion is clear and creative. A new calling can open the door into the house of your vision and belonging. You feel at home in your life.” -John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book Of Blessings
Ari Weinzweig, Co-founding Partner of Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor, Michigan, writes a fantastic weekly newsletter. It’s chock full of delicious food for thought (and food to make). In a recent issue, he laid out four guideposts to effective differentiation. They are as follows.
While he’s writing from his personal experience of creating and running Zingerman’s for over forty years, these guideposts apply for anything you’re passionate to do.
I encourage you to check out the full issue here. He goes into great detail and provides substantive context and great links to learn more. All of which will get you thinking and more importantly, move into action.
“Thomas Jefferson kept a copy of Seneca on his nightstand. George Washington staged a reproduction of a play about Cato at Valley Forge in the winter of ‘77/’78 to inspire the troops. Patrick Henry cribbed lines from that play which we now credit to him: “Give me Liberty or give me death!” It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the United States might not have an independence day to celebrate if the Founding Fathers hadn’t been inspired by Cato, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius.
At the core of the American experiment was liberty. At the core of Stoicism we have not only a love of freedom, but the counterbalancing virtues to that freedom: Justice. Duty. Self-Control. Honor. Selflessness. These are the traits that were required not only in those dark days of revolution, as bloody footprints from starving soldiers marked the snows in New Jersey and New York, but also the traits needed equally now in moments of prosperity and plenty, division and distraction.
Let today be a celebration of recommitment. A rededication to truth, to work, to taking responsibility. Because the work must continue if this great experiment, first founded 248 years ago to the day, is to continue as it should. As it must.” -Ryan Holiday.
“If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.” Emily Dickinson, poem If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking
John Adams: “A second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere, or a cataclysmic earthquake, I’d accept with some despair. But no, You sent us Congress! Good God, Sir, was that fair?” -from the musical, 1776 by Peter Stone
If you ever doubt the power of your art, I’m reminded that in the darkest hour at Valley Forge, George Washington staged a play about Cato.
Celebrate today. Be grateful for all that you have. And then recommit to making your art. You never know how big an impact it can make.
In the long run, the little bit you manage to accomplish on your worst days will be worth more than the lot you accomplish on your best days.
Even if it’s a single thing, you can say to yourself, “Well, at least I did that.“
Consistency is a superpower.
“There’s a songwriter who wrote all of her music in the same messy room in an old office building. It hasn’t been touched in thirty years and she refuses to let it be cleaned. The secret is in that room, she says. She believes it, and it works for her.
Charles Dickens carried a compass to make sure he always slept facing north. He believed that alignment with the electrical currents of the Earth supported his creativity. Dr. Seuss had a bookcase with a false door hiding hundreds of unusual hats. He and his editor would each pick a hat and stare at each other until inspiration came.
These stories may or may not be completely true. It doesn’t matter. If a ritual or superstition has a positive effect on an artist’s work, then it’s worth pursuing.” –The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
Belief is a choice.
So choose wisely.
Choose beliefs that empower and energize you. That give you confidence.
If need be, find evidence that supports your belief. Examples of people who accomplished what you set out to do (and in many cases with far less advantages and opportunities) are abundant.
Then demonstrate your belief to yourself (and others, if that’s important to you) by taking consistent action. Small, everyday wins keeps the belief flywheel turning.
It’s never been easier to learn a new skill or start a business or make and release your art. All the tools are out there for anyone who has the desire. Money is no longer an excuse.
But because it’s never been easier, it’s never been harder to stand out from the crowd. You will not succeed because of scarcity of choice.
Create out of love and passion.
Commit to excellence and generosity.
Be consistent and iterative with your action.
Hone your message. Craft your story. Tell it to anyone and everyone who will listen.
Over time, it will happen.
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