We are a collage of our interests, our influences, our inspirations, all the fragmentary impressions we've collected by being alive and awake to the world. Who we "are" is simply a finely curated catalog of those. Maria Popova More Quotes by Maria Popova More Quotes From Maria Popova Curation is more than packaging-it is to help readers [discern] what is important in the world. Maria Popova packaging important world In order for us to truly create and contribute to the world, we have to be able to connect countless dots, to cross-pollinate ideas from a wealth of disciplines, to combine and recombine these pieces and build new castles. Maria Popova discipline order ideas Build pockets of stillness into your life. Meditate. Go for walks. Ride your bike going nowhere in particular. There is a creative purpose to daydreaming, even to boredom. The best ideas come to us when we stop actively trying to coax the muse into manifesting and let the fragments of experience float around our unconscious mind in order to click into new combinations. Without this essential stage of unconscious processing, the entire flow of the creative process is broken. Maria Popova motivational order ideas Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Maria Popova productivity intricate art I think you need to be a little in love—not necessarily in a romantic sense, although that helps—but to be in love with the reality of your own life. Maria Popova reality needs thinking Be curious. Be constantly, consistently, indiscriminatel y curious. Maria Popova consistently curious When people tell you who they are, Maya Angelou famously advised, believe them. Just as importantly, however, when people try to tell you who you are, don’t believe them. You are the only custodian of your own integrity, and the assumptions made by those that misunderstand who you are and what you stand for reveal a great deal about them and absolutely nothing about you. Maria Popova integrity believe people This is the power of art: The power to transcend our own self-interest, our solipsistic zoom-lens on life, and relate to the world and each other with more integrity, more curiosity, more wholeheartedness. Maria Popova self integrity art Be generous with your time and your resources and with giving credit and, especially, with your words. It's so much easier to be a critic than a celebrator. Always remember there is a human being on the other end of every exchange and behind every cultural artifact being critiqued. To understand and be understood, those are among life's greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them. Maria Popova opportunity motivational giving You enrich people with creative resources, and over time, these Lego bricks that end up in their heads eventually build this enormous, incredible castle. Maria Popova castles creative people Life is a continual process of arrival into who we are. Maria Popova who-we-are process life-is Presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity. Ours is a culture that measures our worth as human beings by our efficiency, our earnings, our ability to perform this or that. The cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living. Maria Popova joy culture art To understand and be understood, those are among life's greatest gifts, and every interaction is an opportunity to exchange them Maria Popova interaction understood opportunity What is needed isn't merely tolerance but acceptance, wholehearted and unconditional. Maria Popova unconditional tolerance acceptance Most of us live our lives desperately trying to conceal the anguishing gap between our polished, aspirational, representational selves and our real, human, deeply flawed selves. Dunham lives hers in that gap, welcomes the rest of the world into it with boundless openheartedness, and writes about it with the kind of profound self-awareness and self-compassion that invite us to inhabit our own gaps and maybe even embrace them a little bit more, anguish over them a little bit less. Maria Popova compassion real writing Because it is possible to create - creating one's self, willing to be one's self - one has anxiety. One would have no anxiety if there were no possibility whatever. Maria Popova anxiety creating self Our chronic discomfort with ambiguity - which, ironically, is critical to both our creativity and the richness of our lives - leads us to lock down safe, comfortable, familiar interpretations, even if they are only partial representations of or fully disconnected from reality. Maria Popova locks creativity reality There are really cool or funny videos, or visually stunning photos, and that's fine, but none of them really give you more when you close that tab, you know? I try to find stuff that a little bit, in a tiny way changes how you see something about the world. Maria Popova funny-videos trying giving Curation is a form of pattern recognition - pieces of information or insight which over time amount to an implicit point of view. Maria Popova patterns pieces views he cult of productivity has its place, but worshipping at its altar daily robs us of the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living... Maria Popova capacity wonder joy
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