All kinds of gems floating my way this morning. Here’s one from Matt Webb at Interconnected:
“The trick’s to find the middleground. Don’t go with the flow, passively, but garden it. The flow is part of the self. Who was I talking to who told me how fish swim? They use the water around themselves, the vortices and turbulence, they use the properties of the water to propel themselves. They get more than 100% mechanical efficiency because they don’t swim through, they just swim.”
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My buddy John Engle had a nice piece written about him in the Hershey Chronicle, his hometown newspaper. It describes his work in Haiti over the years, using Open Space Technology to facilitate transformative learning and leadership. From the article:
“Good leadership is learning how to graciously share power,” Engle said. “We’re practicing different methods in Haiti that help people share power. It could be in a classroom, it could be community leaders. These are grassroots strategies for nurturing habits and practices which will enable democracy to take root. Democracy cannot be imposed from outside. It needs to grow from within.”
See why I love this guy? John has some more great nuggets on leadership from his Haitian colleagues at his blog.
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Alabanza. When the war began, from Manhattan and Kabul
two constellations of smoke rose and drifted to each other,
mingling in icy air, and one said with an Afghan tongue:
Teach me to dance. We have no music here.
And the other said with a Spanish tongue:
I will teach you. Music is all we have.
two constellations of smoke rose and drifted to each other,
mingling in icy air, and one said with an Afghan tongue:
Teach me to dance. We have no music here.
And the other said with a Spanish tongue:
I will teach you. Music is all we have.
— from Alabanza
by Martin Espada
Props to riley dog for the link.
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Sometimes, when life is dealing you a bunch of bum cards, you need to retreat and watch an uproariously funny movie.
So, my faithful readership, I am in need of your very best recommendations for really funny movies. Bonus points for films easy to get at an average video store (it’s a small island, and they do their best). Also you will get points if no one dies in the movie. We’re not into dying at the moment.
So let’s have at it. Anything has to be more amusing than Zoolander.
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For my friends in the gifting movement, some insight from the Buddha’s Sappurisadana Sutta:
‘These five are a person of integrity’s gifts. Which five? A person of integrity gives a gift with a sense of conviction. A person of integrity gives a gift attentively. A person of integrity gives a gift in season. A person of integrity gives a gift with an empathetic heart. A person of integrity gives a gift without adversely affecting himself or others.
‘Having given a gift with a sense of conviction, he — wherever the result of that gift ripens — is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions. And he is well-built, handsome, extremely inspiring, endowed with a lotus-like complexion.
‘Having given a gift attentively, he — wherever the result of that gift ripens — is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions. And his children, wives, slaves, servants, and workers listen carefully to him, lend him their ears, and serve him with understanding hearts.
‘Having given a gift in season, he — wherever the result of that gift ripens — is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions. And his goals are fulfilled in season.
‘Having given a gift with an empathetic heart, he — wherever the result of that gift ripens — is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions. And his mind inclines to the enjoyment of the five strings of lavish sensuality.
‘Having given a gift without adversely affecting himself or others, he — wherever the result of that gift ripens — is rich, with much wealth, with many possessions. And not from anywhere does destruction come to his property — whether from fire, from water, from kings, from thieves, or from hateful heirs.
‘These five are a person of integrity’s gifts.’
Happy Thanksgiving.