“It is amazing, and also a little strange, how many things we accumulate in a lifetime.” ~ Margareta Magnusson, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning It all started with a mouse. Up early, I was sitting in the dark, quietly sipping coffee and pondering life when I heard a scurrying under my […]
Atlanta, 1892. Pharmacist John Pemberton just wanted to cure headaches. He combined coca leaves and cola nuts, but the bitter after-taste was almost worse than having a headache. So he added a flavored syrup to sweeten the deal. In the process of trying to find the perfect ratio of these three ingredients, he accidentally spilled […]
“Reality often is inaccurate.” ~Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy In 1995, a 29-year old construction worker in England jumped off of some scaffolding and onto a plank on a building site, landing on a 7-inch nail. The nail pierced his boot, punching through the sole and fully out the top of […]
“The opposite of play is not work – the opposite of play is depression.” ~Dr. Stuart Brown Last week I learned two things that I simply cannot stop thinking about. Fact One: The word fun comes from the Middle English fon, meaning to act the fool. Henry VII thought that fun was, […]
Is the universe a friendly place? Albert Einstein thought that this was the most important question facing humanity. Is the universe a friendly place? The answer is different for all, but it arises from the same place. What we think of existence – is it good or bad, right or wrong? – is directly correlated […]
“How many moments are there in fifteen minutes, or five, or ten, or forty-five? It turns out we have plenty of time, if we are willing to hold any moments at all in awareness.” ~Jon Kabat Zinn Izzie was at the sewing machine, altering a shirt for me. I was standing in my […]
