Browsing: Beautiful Things

Jayne Riew is a lovely friend of mine, and also a brilliant artist. She makes conceptual books and boxes — intimate spaces that explore intense emotional states difficult to express in words alone. Here is a piece that she made for me — and for all the readers of QUIET! It’s called “Be Still.” Here’s […]

I met some really incredible people at last week’s TED conference, and Rabbi David Wolpe was one of them. Here he is on the power of solitude: “When he was a child, the Seer of Lublin (later a famous Hasidic master) used to go off into the woods by himself. When his father, worried, asked him […]

One of the pieces of my recent TED talk that has attracted the most interest is the idea that the world’s major religions feature stories of seekers (Moses, Mohammed, Buddha, Jesus…) who go off, by themselves, to the wilderness, where they have revelations that they then bring back to the community. No solitude, no revelations. […]

Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That’s how the light gets in. -Leonard Cohen, from “Anthem”

Hi everyone, For the holiday weekend, here are three music picks to make you step lightly: 1. Me Gustas Tu, by my long-time favorite Manu Chao. If you’ve never heard of Manu Chao before, you’re going to be really thrilled to discover him. 2.”Life is Beautiful,” by the lovely singer-songwriter Amy Correia. 3. The book […]

Hi everyone, Here are this week’s reading and listening picks: 1. Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking, by Michael Michalko: Thought-provoking article. Here’s a sample: Creative thinking is work. …All creative geniuses work passionately hard and produce incredible numbers of ideas, most of which are bad. In fact, more bad poems […]