my witness is an empty sky

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

[precious-silly-thing-deactivate]

Anu Tuominen

[kosmogrl]

[wovi]

*

marie howe, what the living do

[weltenwellen]

Czeslaw Milosz, New and Collected Poems: 1931-2001

[asmybreathkissesthewindow]

[luthienne]

“…and though I knew / I had believed something probably not true, / yet it was wonderful / to have believed it.”

— Mary Oliver, from Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver; “Coyotes in the Dark, Coyotes Remembered”

[lifeinpoetry]

“i’ve seen finer gods than you, child. / & i’ve swallowed them whole—”

— George Abraham, from “self-portrait as melting clock,” al youm: for yesterday & her inherited traumas

[happyheidi]

[nssrnv-deactivated20230626]

“I am under no obligation to make sense to you.”

— Neil DeGrasse Tyson

[jareckiworld]

Hideo Tanaka — I’m Here  (acrylic on canvas, 2020)

[trashyayo]

matchbox

[happyheidi]

[rumiensze]

50x60cm

[weltenwellen]

Franz Kafka, Letters to Friends, Family, and Editors

[nevver]

Mixed messages, Julia Soboleva

[stuckinapril]

“what’s your five year plan” bro i wake up every day confused by the fact that i’m even alive

[deaths-accountant]

to increase steel production 300%

[vajracchedika]

☝️

[lazyyogi]

Self-work will sometimes feel like you are going out of your way and dealing with your own shit just so you can treat others better than they treat you. Many people won’t even meet you halfway and so you will have to drop everything in their lap just to make peace with them.

Some part of you will whisper, “Why bother doing all of this when they won’t even do a percent of it for me?”

That voice is the ego, trying to rob you of your power. Trying to make you think that doing any of this is a bother rather than a privilege. Get over yourself. You are nothing short of heroic and that means cultivating the heart of a hero.

How? Heroes do self-work.