“You must continuously feed the inner beast that sparks and inspires. I contend the DNA of talent is stored within the great museums of the world. Museums are custodians of epiphanies and these epiphanies enter the central nervous system and the deep recesses of the mind…

…My spiritual day of worship is spent each Sunday at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I experience, without fall, the shock of the old…

…Mysteriously, the history of the art of mankind can inspire breakthrough conceptual thinking, in any field.”

George Lois, Damn Good Advice (for people with talent)

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“But what exactly is an artist date? An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you preplan and defend against all interlopers.

You do not take anyone on this artist date but you and your inner artist, a.k.a. your creative child. That means no lovers, friends, spouses, children-no taggers-on of any stripe.”

Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

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Sometimes the hardest person to find the time for is ourselves.

Not the time with a book or screen in front of us, but the outside, moving, experiential appreciation of the real world around us.

I find it very easy to stay put. Sit down. Stay virtual.

I must battle my inertia to step outside, take a deep breath and explore.

Words cannot be enough to sustain us.

I can stretch the sustenance from books to cover most of my needs, yet I am deficient in a certain vitamin – art.

Time to book myself in for a date with Me, Myself and I.

“A physicist, doctor, accountant, lawyer, garbage collector, etc. without a sense of humor can still be terrific at what they do. But a creative person who is humorless could never produce consistently great work in communicating with warmth and humanity to the vast majority of the populace. Humor in creativity is like humor in life. People often ask me, “Does humor work in advertising?” but that’s a stupid question.

Does anyone ever ask, “Does humor work in life?” If humor is appropriate and funny (if it ain’t funny, we ain’t talking humor), it should “work.” The question should be, “How can you possibly create without humor?” Certainly, in all forms of communication, humor is a natural way to win someone’s heart.

In examining my work, lectures, and books I have written over the years, it’s difficult to isolate “humor” as a category because it runs through almost everything I do – and through most of my waking hours. Humor disarms and makes one more accepting of thoughts and images that could be hard to take in serious discourse. Say something serious in a funny way, and you can win over people every time.”

– George Lois, Damn Good Advice

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“A sense of humour leads you to take pleasure in the discrepancies of human nature; it leads you to mistrust great professions and look for the unworthy motive that they conceal; the disparity between appearance and reality diverts you and you are apt when you cannot find it to create it. You tend to close your eyes to truth, beauty and goodness because they give no scope to your sense of the ridiculous. The humourist has a quick eye for the humbug; he does not always recognize the saint. But if to see men one-sidedly is a heavy price to pay for a sense of humour there is a compensation that has a value too. You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn. He does not moralize, he is content to understand; and it is true that to understand is to pity and forgive.”

– Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up

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It helps to laugh. In particular, at ourselves is ideal.

It’s hard to be an arsehole if you are laughing. Except, of course, if you are pointing and laughing at another’s misfortune.

It is very difficult to hate the person who is making you smile. Why do you think a sense of humour features highly on dating wish lists.

When my Nanna was in hospital, at the end of her life, she joked in her indomitable East End way, making the nurses laugh.

Her son, my dad, did the same. Making jokes at his own expense when he’d been rushed to hospital. It turned out to be his last night. But my last memory of him is of him making the effort to put his concerned family at ease with some silliness.

I hope I’ve inherited the funny when in peril gene. But not the gene for an early exit by heart failure.

There’s only one way to find out: keep living with a pinch of humour. Practice until the whistle blows for the end of the game.

I’m sure I can at least muster some self deprication, before my family have to suffer from myself deprivation.

“We are all failures—at least the best of us.”

– J. M. BARRIE, quoted in Eleven Rings by Phil Jackson

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“The formula for success is quite simple: double your rate of failure.”

– Thomas J. Watson, Sr. (founder of IBM), quoted in The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson

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We learn more from failures.

Young and successful people can be galling. It’s hard to learn much from youthful success.

The edge for us older guys is our deeper experience of failures.

But it is hard to share how we have messed up. It provokes the ego. But it’s what gives ageing meaning. The accumulation of lessons from failure.

It’s important to take advice in context.

For example, taking life advice from a personal trainer is listening to someone who has one area of their life figured out.

It’s easy for them to lead by example and spout wisdom on health and fitness because it’s what they’ve chosen to focus on.

They have one human behaviour under control.

Advice can be beneficial, but words are easy to type. Dig a little deeper – what actions and experiences formed those words?

I failed at making a living as a personal trainer. It was ignorance of running a business rather than lack of knowledge that caused that failure.

I was too narrowly focused. I was of the naive school of, ‘If you build it, they will come.’

I forgot all my experience from a previous career in sales. I failed to sell myself, failed to differentiate my services and did too little prospecting.

In summary, I failed because of complacency.

The people who deserve to succeed are those that work hardest and smartest.

Working hard, by itself, can keep you employed and able to pay the bills.

What I am still trying to figure out is how to work smart.

Perhaps I should start by trying to learn from my accumulated failures.

How many more attempts at success do I have?

I suppose as many times as I can pick myself up, dust myself off, and have another go.

“There is only one failure in meditation: the failure to meditate faithfully. A Hindu proverb says, “Miss one morning, and you need seven to make it up.” Or as Saint John of the Cross expressed it, “He who interrupts the course of his spiritual exercises and prayer is like a man who allows a bird to escape from his hand; he can hardly catch it again.””

– Eknath Easwaran, How to Meditate

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“Every day is a new opportunity to begin again. Every day is your birthday.”

Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy

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A day is the most natural unit of time.

The sun rises, we wake up, it gets light, the sun sets and darkness descends. Our bodies go to sleep.

There is no technological, modern imperative that created a day. It is not based on an old Roman calendar. It’s been the same unit of time for billions of years.

That’s what makes it the natural unit to measure our lives. A day is a fresh start, a blank canvas.

There are a limited number of hours in the day for action. We reset ourselves in sleep and start again.

If today was a mess we get to hit reset and do something different tomorrow.

Today I am 14,916 days old.

No need for a party. Don’t send a card. This is a private celebration. Every day. At my desk. I gave myself a present of this blog post.

I am happy to share it with you. Im sorry it’s not cake.

How are you going to celebrate your birthday?

“The technology, architecture, and working practices of a railway system fascinated me from the outset—I can describe even today the peculiarities of the separate London Underground lines and their station layouts, the heritage of different private companies in their early years. But I was never a “trainspotter.” Even when I graduated to solitary travel on the extensive network of British Railways’ Southern Region I never joined the enthusiastic bands of anorak-clad preteenage boys at the end of platforms, assiduously noting down the numbers of the passing trains. This seemed to me the most asinine of static pursuits—the point of a train was to get on it.”

– Tony Judt, The Memory Chalet

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“Here is a truth to which all writers can attest: Readers are more interested in process than in product…

…No matter how well read the audience may be, when it comes to the Q&A, it is always the same. After a few polite interrogatory skirmishes for form’s sake come the only questions that matter to the reader.

”Do you write in longhand or on a computer?”

If longhand: ”Pencil, ballpoint or old-fashioned ink pen?”

If computer: ”PC or Mac? Which font do you prefer?”

– Steven Fry, WRITERS ON WRITING; Forget Ideas, Mr. Author. What Kind of Pen Do You Use?

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Some people fetishise the means rather than enjoying the ends.

A book is designed to be read, not collected.

Things that are used have purpose.

Our energy should be focused on the doing rather than the looking.

Look is an empty word. It suggest no purpose. To look is emotionless and uncommitted. Read, however, has rich associations. It is observing and listening.

The most fascinating process should be our own. Because it’s based on practice rather than theory.

I love to find out how writers write. But the more I write, the less in thrall I am of other’s processes. No one can do my writing for me, so I try to focus on doing that, rather than following the suggestions of a complete stranger.

After all, things are meant to be experienced not notarised.

“My taste for quotation, which I have always kept—why reproach me for it? People, in life, quote what pleases them. Therefore, in our work, we have the right to quote what pleases us.”

– David Shields, Reality Hunger: A Manifesto

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“’Cause everybody wants some hope (oh, baby)
Something they can barely know (oh, baby)
And though my heart will break, there’s more than I could take
I can never let it go

It’s in the photograph
It’s in the photograph
It’s in the photograph of love.”

– Weezer, Photograph

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Reading second hand quotes is like looking at other people’s holiday photos.

It’s nice to read a nugget of wisdom. But it’s second hand knowledge. We weren’t there.

Reading a book is travelling for ourselves. We experience all the linking events that get us to the snapshots: the atmosphere, the full sensations.

The quotes we select from our reading are the quotes of our own memories.

A quote shared to us might invite us to travel to the destination mentioned. I will pick up the book if I want to see the view myself firsthand.

I don’t want anyone else to describe it for me. Just tell me what it was like. If it’s good enough to share, let me know and I might buy a ticket and travel there myself.

However, a single quote can provide us with hope – a destination that we might reach in the future. An instant recognition of something that could change our life.

In one quote, a snapshot, that creates an image with a thousand words, all telling us to explore for ourselves!

“As I lift my groceries into my car
I turn back for a moment and catch a smile
That blows this whole fuckin’ place apart.”

– Bruce Springsteen, Queen of the Supermarket

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“And therein lay my problem. Because, as I worked through what I could possibly say, I experienced an epiphany. I didn’t give a shit. Not a single iota. There was not an atom of my being that thought this discussion had any significance whatsoever.”

– Damian Hughes, How to Change Your Life (with Jake Humphrey)

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I have a philosophy that life needs to have moments that break open the fabric of the constraints of the day to day reality of our lives.

It’s being open to the things that set your pulse racing, the things that we see that are missed by others, that help us rise above the mundane.

In the day to day we can find ourselves stuck. Stuck in line supermarket, bored. Or stuck in a meeting, waiting around in places we would rather not be.

I’m interested in those sparks that ignite the sensation of aliveness. That cause excitement and inspiration.

These moments don’t need to be shared with others. It might just be a line from a song. Or the view of early morning light through the windscreen. Perhaps a triggered memory.

It’s a connection with a pulse of energy that travels deep within.

It’s not about thrill seeking. These moments cannot be instigated. It’s a willingness to occasionally be thrilled by surprise.

“When we are collecting books, we are collecting happiness.”

– Vincent Starrett, quoted in, On Conan Doyle by Michael Dirda

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“In books I find the dead as if they were alive; in books I foresee things to come; in books warlike affairs are set forth; from books come forth the laws of peace. All things are corrupted and decay in time; Saturn ceases not to devour the children that he generates; all the glory of the world would be buried in oblivion, unless God had provided mortals with the remedy of books.”

– Richard de Bury, quoted in The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs

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I love books.

Is it entirely natural? I love my family, but that is biological and to be expected.

Books are supposed to be good for you, but are they really?

I love the search for new books. It’s almost as good as the reading.

Because I am an addict.

Do I love books, or do I depend on them? If I do, is that such a problem?

Am I going to come to great harm in my modest but unquenching hunt for the next book?

It is simple arithmetic that says that there are more books than I could ever read.

How wonderful, I can never exhaust the supply!

Book collecting is the mildest of vices, but it is still a vice nonetheless.

“If humor ever became extinct, human beings would be left without souls. Philosophically, we must start with the idea of laughter. I cannot imagine anything more horrible than a society where laughter and poetry are prohibited, where the morbid self-absorption of the rich and the powerful and the hypocrisies of our clergymen and politicians go unchecked. Protecting from ridicule those who proclaim eternal truths is where most intellectual energy is expended in our world.”

– Charles Simic, The Life of Images

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“This is because the self who laughs is greater than the self who suffers—is momentarily outside the suffering self, liberated from it, laughing at it.”

– Oliver Sacks, quoted in Lawrence Weschler, And How Are You, Dr. Sacks?: A Biographical Memoir of Oliver Sacks

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Laughter is something better experienced than described.

It’s a sensation, spontaneous rather than deliberate.

I cannot will myself to laugh from a standing start.

But I can be more receptive to it.

Every situation, interaction, proclamation, sensation can be funny.

It’s a state of mind.

I can laugh at anything, if it’s funny.

And nothing can be funnier than the seriousness and self absorption of others.

The wilful absence of humour provokes the need for it to rush in and spread some warmth.

I will be on the lookout for a good laugh.

I’ll start with myself.

“In a conversation there is always more than one voice, and one of the voices must be our own or it is no conversation at all.”

– David Whyte, Crossing the Unknkwn Sea

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“The Wart did not know what Merlyn was talking about, but he liked him to talk. He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him like a baby, but the ones who just went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas.”

– T. H. White, The Sword in the Stone

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My blog posts are light splashes in shallow puddles.

Do they amount to any depth when put all together?

Do they drain into a body of water?

How large?

How deep?

I know that they are mostly the words of others, but nonetheless I’ve curated them.

I am part of the conversation.

I barged my way in, I’ve sidled up to the two writers talking and have weighed in with my opinion, even though both could justifiably say, ‘who the fuck are you?!’

Does my view matter?

It does to me.

I’ve introduced two writers who I knew would get along.

I’m a literary matchmaker.

This is a reflection of how I choose to spend my free time and my limited budget: on books, to continue these conversations.

And there is no end to them.

No Limit.

Literally an infinite number of conversations, quotes of others that I can match up.

Now let’s say I have 40 years left to live. That’s 365 posts a year, times 40.

14,600 blog posts. That’s how many days I have left to live, if I’m lucky.

Well, that doesn’t seem many.

But it does give me plenty of time to do the work. Or rather, time to play.