{"id":745,"date":"2015-07-26T09:19:42","date_gmt":"2015-07-26T14:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=745"},"modified":"2015-07-26T09:19:42","modified_gmt":"2015-07-26T14:19:42","slug":"leaping-forward-into-the-quiet-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=745","title":{"rendered":"Leaping forward… into the quiet center"},"content":{"rendered":"

I haven’t fully worked out what I want to say here, but I wanted to get something typed out so that I don’t forget that I want to write about it.<\/em><\/p>\n

I spend a lot of time online. Twitter, Google Plus, even Facebook. I see a lot of posts by people encouraging everyone to seize the day, start their small business, travel to exotic places, write their book… and I’m sure that’s all great advice. Really! I probably will try to write a book someday, and even though I’m not cut out to be an entrepreneur, if you<\/em> are, then you probably owe it to yourself to give it a real shot.<\/p>\n

But not all of us need to be world travelers, even if we can afford to, which (obviously) most people cannot. Some of us like going home at the end of the workday and leaving work at work… people who start their own businesses probably need to be thinking about their business pretty much all the time, or that’s what I hear. And so far, I haven’t thought of a single story or non-fiction book idea that’s just burning up in me, trying to get out to the world.<\/p>\n

My resistance to the “rah rah rah” cheerleader crowd goes deeper than that, though. I think it has to do with a feeling that the go out and burn your mark on the world<\/em> idea is hooked to an assumption that fast movement, outward-facing action, loud & forceful speaking, and shaking things up are the only ways to be “a success.” As if the only right mold is the one that produces extroverts. I think, too, that it’s aligned with the “growth = success” model that sees wilderness as “undeveloped” and not gorgeous and complete in itself, that sees efficiency and productivity as the only modes of action, and counts speed and size as sole measures of value.<\/p>\n

To be honest, none of that appeals to me. I need to think that way at work a lot, because they pay me to get lots of work done. But when I come home, I want to be,<\/em> not produce.<\/p>\n

I seem to be attracted to things that are not quick. I am one year into training in Aikido, where (at my dojo at least) I am not likely to reach the first level of black belt for at least eight to ten years. In my free time I’m likely to be reading, knitting, or learning to weave.<\/p>\n

I think there’s a place in the world for taking time, for not rushing to a goal, for learning the subtle aspects of something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t fully worked out what I want to say here, but I wanted to get something typed out so that I don’t forget that I want to write about it. I spend a lot of time online. Twitter, Google Plus, even Facebook. I see a lot of posts by people encouraging everyone to seize … Continue reading “Leaping forward… into the quiet center”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophizing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgY3e-c1","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1000,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1000","url_meta":{"origin":745,"position":0},"title":"After 17 months off…","author":"Jorah","date":"December 12, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"...on a night that promises to be really windy and cold (especially for South Carolina!), here I am writing a knitting blog post again. I need to do this. I can feel the pressure to write something building up. Why did I stop posting for so long? One reason is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":95,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=95","url_meta":{"origin":745,"position":1},"title":"One of the true Good People… In Memorium","author":"Jorah","date":"September 30, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Alison Harlow - Her Stories If you knew Alison, please take a moment to write about it on this lovely site in her memory.","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1014,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=1014","url_meta":{"origin":745,"position":2},"title":"Nearly derailed but still limping along…","author":"Jorah","date":"January 4, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"...meaning my plans to write a post or two over breakfast this morning. I didn't get that done, but here I am writing anyway, so it seems I'll write a short post today after all. Naturally, it will be about what distracted me! I read an email from the Wordpress\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Knitting"","block_context":{"text":"Knitting","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=85"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":29,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=29","url_meta":{"origin":745,"position":3},"title":"Obligatory circular reference… Blogger.com is updated","author":"Jorah","date":"May 12, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I use Blogger to write this page. The auto-archiving and neat-o templates made it my choice over doing the HTML manually (although, I admit to tweaking the templates ever so slightly). At any rate, I recommend the Blogger system, and wanted to note that the Blogger site has gotten a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=30","url_meta":{"origin":745,"position":4},"title":"Email-to-blog…","author":"Jorah","date":"May 12, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I never thought much about it, but with the increasingly tight networksecurity at work, and my seeming inability to actually get around tovisiting the Blogger site to write new posts, this (new?) featureseems good; while exploring the updated Blogger site, I found thatthey now allow you to post to your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39,"url":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?p=39","url_meta":{"origin":745,"position":5},"title":"R.I.P. Larry Lavin","author":"Jorah","date":"April 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been away from my computer for over 10 days as I traveled to visit my father as he was dying, and then to return to Massachusetts for his funeral. I haven't been able to do any knitting or writing, but am going to post the text of my comments\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Post"","block_context":{"text":"Post","link":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/?cat=30"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=745"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":749,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/745\/revisions\/749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madstone.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}