The Pythagorean Storyteller: December 2012

Friday, December 21, 2012

164 ~on learning

WHAT TO DO WHEN LOST IN THE WOODS?

Simple lessons to learn when you’re lost in the woods and for creators:

1. Finding oneself is the test of man.

2. Merely being out of sight of others in a strange forest gives a man the creeps—a natural feeling but a dangerous one. Never yield to it.

3. Stop, sit down, and try to figure out where you are. Use your head, not your legs.

4. Build a fire in a safe place.

5. Don’t wander about.

6. Don’t yell, don’t worry, and above all, don’t quit.

7. A thinking man is never lost for long. He knows that…he must remain where he is or push on to some definite objective, but not to the point of exhaustion…that someone will be looking for him, and strength in that knowledge makes hardships easier.

Editor’s Note: My Beloved Readers, this is the last post of the year. Happy 2013! The Pythagorean Storytelller will be back soon. Stay well and happy reading!

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

163 ~book news

THURSDAY LINKS: PERFORMANCE

Photo Credit: Nazareth College, Rochester (USA)

‘Hell Bent’ by Benjamin Lorr is a vivid adventure in yoga. Jacket Copy. LATimes.

The Big Screen: The Story of the Movies. Sunday Book Review. The NYTimes.

How to Read like a Reading Machine? The 6^th Floor. The NY Times.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

162 ~on motivation

TRACK YOUR SMALL WINS TO MOTIVATE BIG ACCOMPLISHMENTS

MO▪TI▪VA▪TION (n)

1. The act or an instance of motivating.

2. Desire to do; interest or drive.

3. Incentive or inducement.

4. The process that arouses, sustains and regulates human and animal behavior.

Teresa Amabile is a professor and director of research at Harvard Business School, and coauthor of The Progress Principle. A psychologist, Teresa studies how everyday work life can influence people and their performance. Her research encompasses creativity, productivity, innovation, and inner work life—the confluence of emotions, perceptions, and motivation that people experience as they react to events at work.

Watch this video:

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

161 ~on books

SKETCHBOOK

Sketchbook by Jenni Sparks.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Monday, December 17, 2012

160 ~on writers

THE DAILY ROUTINE OF JOAN DIDION

Photo Credit: Lux Lotus

“I need an hour alone before dinner, with a drink, to go over what I’ve done that day. I can’t do it late in the afternoon because I’m too close to it. Also, the drink helps. It removes me from the pages. So I spend this hour taking things out and putting other things in. Then I start the next day by redoing all of what I did the day before, following these evening notes. When I’m really working I don’t like to go out or have anybody to dinner, because then I lose the hour. If I don’t have the hour, and start the next day with just some bad pages and nowhere to go, I’m in low spirits. Another thing I need to do, when I’m near the end of the book, is sleep in the same room with it. That’s one reason I go home to Sacramento to finish things. Somehow the book doesn’t leave you when you’re asleep right next to it. In Sacramento nobody cares if I appear or not. I can just get up and start typing.”

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Friday, December 14, 2012

159 ~on stories

THE SHAPES OF STORIES

“But there’s a reason we recognize Hamlet as a masterpiece: It’s that Shakespeare told us the truth, and people so rarely tell us the truth in this rise and fall here. The Truth is, we know so little aobut life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is.

And if I die—God forbid—I would like to go to heaven to ask somebody in charge up there, ‘Hey, what was the good news and what was the bad news?’”

—A man without a country, Kurt Vonnegut.

Watch the video:

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

158 ~book news

THURSDAY LINKS: BEST BOOKS OF 2012.

2012 Books: Slate Staff Picks. Reading Between the lines. Slate.

The Best Books of 2012. Esquire.

100 Notable Books of 2012. Sunday Book Review. The NYTimes.

2 Amazing Paperback Books of 2012. Amazon.

Happy Reading!

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

157 ~on writers & writing

WRITING IS SELF-HYPNOSIS

“The book is not the important part. The book is the delivery system. The important part is the story and the talent.”

—Stephen King.

Watch this video:

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

156 ~on creative thinking

THE AGE OF OUTROSPECTION

“Empathy isn’t just something that expands your moral universe. Empathy is something that can make you a more creative thinker, improve your relationships, can create the human bonds that make life worth living. But, more than that, empathy is also about social change—radical social change.”

-How to Find Fulfilling Work (School of Life), Roman Krznaric.

Watch the video:

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Monday, December 10, 2012

155 ~on happiness

HAPPINESS IS NOT A DESTINATION

An idea is not a design,

But it is an invitation to a journey.

A design is not a prototype,

But it is a plan for moving forward.

A prototype is not a program,

But it is a test for your assumptions.

A program is not a product,

But it is a milestone towards progress.

A product is not a business,

But it is the first fruit of an idea.

A business is not profits,

But it is a team behind your back.

Profits is not an exit,

But it is validation of your work.

And an exit is not happiness,

But happiness is not a destination.

Happiness is a journey.

Happiness is not a destination, by Tony Chu.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Friday, December 7, 2012

144 ~zen story

MOVING TO A CITY

A man goes to a Zen master and says, “I would like to move to this city. What do you think of the people here?”

And the Zen Master says, “What were the people like in your old city?”

The man says, “They were awful, mean, spiteful.”

The Zen Master says, “They are the same here. You shouldn’t move here.”

Then another person goes to the Zen master and says, “I’d like to move to your city. What do you think of the people here?”

And the Zen master says, “What were the people like in your old city?”

And the man says, “They were very nice people. Very smart. I enjoyed being around them.”

The Zen master says, “They are the same here. You will enjoy it here.”

—Zen Story.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

143 ~book news

THURSDAY LINKS: LET’S MAKE IT SHORTER

Goodbye, Frustration: Pen Put Aside, Roth Talks. TheNYTimes.

Our Twitter Fiction Festival Reviews. Book Blogs. TheGuardian.

The Twitter Fiction Festival: Making the most of 140 characters. Jacket Copy. LATimes.

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

142 ~on risk-taking

YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IN YOURSELF

RISK-TAKING

1. Knowing exposure to the chance of loss.

2. Making a leap into the great unknown.

Watch this video: Craig Costello interview:

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

141 ~on writing

THE WISDOM OF THE HEART

Photo Credit: Amazon

“Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become the path itself.”

“I began in absolute chaos and darkness, in a bog or swamp of ideas and emotions and experiences. Even now I do not consider myself a writer in the ordinary sense of the word. I am a man telling the story of his life, a process which appears more and more inexhaustible as I go on.”

—Wisdom of the Heart (New Directions Paperbook) Henry Miller

*****

Click to order I say Who, What, and Where!

an inspirational novel about the courage to be oneself freely.

Click to order Deconstructing INFATUATION,

a thought-provoking novel about infatuation.