Idle and Blessed

Enrique Martinez Celaya, world-renowned painter and physicist, decided to burn all his paintings in the late 80's. It was a significant pivot point in his career, post-apprenticeship and pre-success. He said he needed to build painting from the ground up.  So he destroyed all his paintings, and began to paint differently.  " I eliminated from my painting anything that anybody has ever said that I was good at. So if I was good at drawing, I took it out. If I was told I had facility with color, I took it out. And then I said, 'Well, if I give up all these things, what is painting, for me?'" Most of us spend our lives chasing success so desperately that we never give ourselves the freedom to explore the meaning of our lives without it. Or rather, the meaning of success without the ease of using our patterns and strengths. Maybe success is not phoning it in, staying in our lane, but honing our craft for the sake of the process itself. Maybe rejec...

My backyard is an oasis. Every morning I sit in my office and look out on (what seems to me like) a great expanse of lush greenness, teeming with life. The trees soar above, tiers of small-to-large bushes line the perimeter, and the middle is a gentle slope of grass. Birds never stop singing, and the sun or rain quietly finds its way through pockets of tree leaves down to the grassy floor. There is a perfect mix of steadiness and movement - the old still trees with their ever-flitting leaves embodying both together. And the creatures. The red cardinals and tiny finches, the birds that fight with squirrels, the birds that nest in the birdhouse. The chipmunks, the leaf cutter bees, and my favorite, the bunny who prefers early evening and rainy days. There is a constant flurry of movement in the yard, but you might only notice if you sit still enough to watch the window for a while. When you do, you will notice another constant sound: the highway, with cars like ocean waves that nev...