The Caneelian – Leadership, Creativity, Startups, Organizational Culture
The personal blog of Caneel Joyce PhD, executive coach & culture builder. Work is a spiritual journey and sometimes a total cluster.
I often hear people say that they no longer read novels; that if they’re going to take the time to read a book, they want to learn something.
But “nonfiction” means neither objective nor important.
Fiction teaches empathy and truth about the impossible diversity human experience: This is NOT a waste of time.
Reading novels is both enjoyable and enlightening. Practice it. Allow yourself.
(And for some book-loving inspiration, check out my favorite tumblr blog, Bookshelf Porn.)
There is a certain age when a woman must be beautiful to be loved, and then there comes a time when she must be loved to be beautiful.
Françoise Sagan (#quote in NYTimes.com article)
The market for something to believe in is infinite
Hugh MacLeod (via nuradical) #quote
I don’t worry about inspiration. I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, ‘Well, now it’s writing time and now I’ll write.’ There’s no difference on paper between the two.
Frank Herbert, science fiction writer (via @academicladder)
If you want to write, you can. Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent, whatever that is. Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who would listen to me if I do? You’re a human being with a unique story to tell, and you have every right. Yours enlarges the circle.
Richard Rhodes: How to Write: Advice and Reflections, Harper, 1995.
That initial element contains an enormous number of built-in decisions that limit the scope of the intellectual or visual problem at hand, thankfully preventing the paralysis that results from the overwhelming unlimited scope of decision contained in a blank page or empty space. The initial element provides a leverage point for expression. Also that starting element helps to find a problem that one can actually make progress on.
Edward Tufte’s The blank page, the empty space, the paradox of choice on Ask E.T. Forum, 2006. {This was one of my inspirations for The Blank Page: Effects of Constraint on Creativity}