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How to Get Out of Your Own Way and Unblock the “Spiritual Electricity” of Creative Flow

How to Get Out of Your Own Way and Unblock the “Spiritual Electricity” of Creative Flow
by Maria Popova “No matter what your age or your life path … it is not too late or too egotistical or too selfish or too silly to work on your creativity.” “Art is not a thing — it is a way,” Elbert Hubbard wrote in 1908. But the question of what that way is, where exactly it leads, and how to best follow it is something artists have been grappling with since the dawn of recorded time and psychologists have spent decades trying to decode, outlining the stages of creativity, its essential conditions, and the best technique for producing ideas. In 1978, a few months after she stopped drinking, artist, poet, playwright, novelist, filmmaker, composer, and journalist Julia Cameron began teaching artists — by the broadest possible definition — how to overcome creative block and get back on their feet after a “creative injury.” Art by Sydney Pink from 'Overcoming Creative Block.' Writing in the introduction to the 10th anniversary edition, Cameron adds to the most beautiful definitions of art: Related:  mystique

6 Things {Sexy Consciously Awake} Women Want From Sex About Me I am a lover of words and all things true. I am an awake women who will not be held down. I am here to do great things for what other reason is there to live and breathe. “If you want to be the kind of lover women never forget, then it’s time to seriously educate yourself on the art of sex. Contrary to popular belief, women are not less sexual than men, we’re just wired differently. While men can get an erection and go from zero to hero in less than five minutes, most women need a whole heck of a lot more than that to feel sexually satisfied. Let’s get one thing straight: women love sex. Men, do you want to see your woman’s body convulsing in orgasms? Then listen up! “Consciously awake women want more than physical sex. You are more than your physical body, which is but one level of your existence. Physical sex will only take you so far. When two people connect energetically – not just physically – MAGIC happens. “Consciously awake sex transcends basic sex on ALL LEVELS. MEN!!

Questionnaire 20 Charles Bukowski Quotes on Writing ... where no reviews are ever written. 15. “There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer who has to go into the streets is a writer who does not know the streets. . . when you leave your typewriter you leave your machine gun and the rats come pouring through.” 16. 17. 18. 19. “..few writers like other writers' works. 20. Next: Stephen King’s 20 Quotes on Writing 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. in spite of everything, don’t do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don’t do it.” 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. thought they were writers. 17. 18. 19. “..few writers like other writers’ works. 20.

Joan Didion on Keeping a Notebook by Maria Popova “We are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not.” As a lover — and keeper — of diaries and notebooks, I find myself returning again and again to the question of what compels us — what propels us — to record our impressions of the present moment in all their fragile subjectivity. From Joan Didion’s 1968 anthology Slouching Towards Bethlehem (public library) — the same volume that gave us her timeless meditation on self-respect — comes a wonderful essay titled “On Keeping a Notebook,” in which Didion considers precisely that. Though the essay was originally written nearly half a century ago, the insights at its heart apply to much of our modern record-keeping, from blogging to Twitter to Instagram. Portrait of Joan Didion by Mary Lloyd Estrin, 1977 After citing a seemingly arbitrary vignette she had found scribbled in an old notebook, Didion asks: Why did I write it down? What, then, does matter?

Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World What Makes a Great City: E.B. White on the Poetics of New York by Maria Popova “A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry.” A great city is like a great love — it makes you feel closer to your own center, envelops you in its immutable and caring magic, and no matter how far from it you may travel, it always beckons you with steadfast, unshakable mesmerism. But what makes a great city? Scholars, social scientists, and urban planners have pondered the question for centuries, pointing to everything from walkability to the social life of small urban spaces. Seventh Avenue looking south from 35th Street, Manhattan. In one of the most spectacular passages, he writes: But White’s words also emanate the universal exhilaration of any large city that cajoles humanity into a state of constant interaction: A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. Stone and William Street, Manhattan. Donating = Loving Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter.

Character Strengths and Virtues The strengths and virtues[edit] CSV defined character strengths as satisfying most of the ten following criteria. Character strengths are The introduction of CSV suggests that these six virtues are considered good by the vast majority of cultures and throughout history and that these traits lead to increased happiness when practiced. The authors draw from the writings of various thinkers. Practical applications of positive psychology include helping individuals and organizations correctly identify their strengths and use them to increase and sustain their respective levels of well-being. Finally, other researchers have advocated grouping the 24 identified character traits into just four classes of strength (Intellectual, Social, Temperance, Transcendent) or even just three classes (without Transcendence). List from the book[edit] The organization of these virtues and strengths in the book is as follows.[1] Relation to virtue ethics[edit] See also[edit] References[edit] External links[edit]

Quantified Self | Self Knowledge Through NumbersQuantified Self | Self Knowledge Through Numbers How I created the languages of Dothraki and Valyrian for Game of Thrones In a guest blog article, David J Peterson uses his experience as a language creator on Game of Thrones, Defiance, and Dominion to discuss the world of conlang. My name is David Peterson, and I’m a conlanger. “What’s a conlanger,” you may ask? Thanks to the recent addition of the word “conlang” to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), I can now say, “Look it up!” Language creation has been around since at least the 12th century, when the German abbess Hildegard von Bingen created her Lingua Ignota—Latin for “hidden language”—an invented vocabulary she used for writing hymns. Tolkien: the father of modern conlanging Before crafting the tales of Middle-Earth, J. Due to the general obscurity of the practice, many conlangers remained unknown to each other until the early 1990s, when home internet use started to become more and more common. Conlang typology Conlangs have been separated into different types since at least the 19th century. Conceptualizing time

a good question - my attempt in answering it wine sulfites While most people want to focus on the glamour or romantic side of wine, there are a decent handful that are just as interested in the chemistry of wine, especially if they suffer from wine headaches. Sulfur dioxide (SO2), or sulfites as they are best known in the wine world, is a chemical compound that occurs naturally at low levels during the process of wine fermentation. It is also added by many winemakers during the fermentation stage of winemaking to protect and preserve the wine's character, flavor and color. Sulfur Dioxide is both antimicrobial and antioxidant in nature - making it one of the top allies available to vintners, as it impedes the oxidation of the wine and prevents it from fermenting its way to vinegar. "Contains Sulfites" Current FDA regulations in the United States require that all wines, both domestic and imports, that contain 10+ ppm of sulfur dioxide state "Contains Sulfites" on the label. Which Wines Have the Lowest Sulfite Levels?

Regarding the colon: Stop abusing this handy punctuation mark The colon is a versatile punctuation mark. Here are its three primary functions, followed by a few other uses: 1. "But here's the interesting thing: He hadn't ever been there before." Note the capitalization of the first word after the colon. But handbooks are divided over whether to capitalize complete sentences. The Chicago Manual of Style advises doing so only when the defining or expanding passage following the colon consists of two or more sentences. Others disagree, and though I usually follow Chicago, I concur with them: It can be difficult in a passage to know when the definition or expansion ends, and the distinction between a single sentence and two or more seems trivial and inconsistent. 2. He makes this moral argument: "Taking whatever we need from the world to support our comfortable lives is not worthy of us as moral beings." Note that the colon concludes an independent clause that introduces a statement; it brings the reader to a temporary halt. 3. 1. 2. Other uses

Children of Hags: photographer captures heterochromians with different-coloured eyes – Llamas' Valley By Llamas' Valley | “Heterochromia – Children of Hags” is a conceptual photography project by Amsterdam based Lithuanian photographer and Llamas’ Valley contributor Maria Cavali. The photographer keeps looking for people who have differently coloured eyes and photographs them. The project started as a conceptual idea of an identity project. It continued as mythological research and now it has developed into something extremely adventurous. Maria says she feels absolutely in love with all the people she photographs and the amazing stories she’s been able to hear and share. The website of “Heterochromia – Children of Hags” is coming soon.

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