Words of Wonder: Gathering our resources and making sense of things

As I looked back at the words that had given me cause for pause recently and considered what to share with you for this edition of Words of Wonder, I was reminded of how important it is to surround ourselves with people and voices that nourish and nurture our sense of spirit, whereby words can breathe life (i.e. spirit) into our days.

It's so easy to get swept up in the rush and the scroll, with information and entertainment vying for our attention at every turn. Have you ever noticed how you feel and how your mind is after a moment of getting sucked into the whirlpool? Versus how it feels when you actively choose, select and opt out of the externally-driven momentum?

I'm writing this after having filed another article for The Week Junior, whose Wellbeing pages I regularly contribute to, this time, on the subject of how to have a good day by choosing where we direct our attention.

The late great world champion boxer Muhammad Ali was one example of a positive role model that I offered to the young readers, because he was aptly famous for saying: “What you are thinking about, you are becoming.”

I have always gathered such words by way of fuelling myself with thought-provoking words of writers, thinkers, musicians, artists of all kinds, who remind me of my "why", why art matters, why our lives matter, why it matters to live with an open heart and mind, with curiosity and awe. They also remind me to contemplate and act upon my intentions and aspirations - mainly to live, honour and offer something of value via my own words.

For many years, and still, I'll sit with a select passage, meditate upon it, contemplate the meaning of it, and consider how I can apply it. Because that, I think, is where the "value" of any teaching, wisdom or insight lies - in the practical application of it. Else it just becomes self-serving pretentious intellectualism.

All of which is to say, it's not what we know, but what we do with what we know and how that knowledge helps us to show up in life.

This is what the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche describes as "contemplative reflection" in his book, In Love with the World (more on that below), which he defines as "thinking more with the heart than the mind".

With that, let's dive in...

Books as medicine

Sharing really is caring. I was glad to be alerted to these words from the writer Umberto Eco by a fellow writer and friend, who came upon them via Akala, who shared them on his Instagram page.

Here, Eco is speaking to the idea of an "anti-library", a term coined by another writer, Nasim Talib. Eco apparently had a library of more than 50,000 books! Something I used to dream of. I was headed in that direction (or a fraction towards it) until I gave a load away. And now, naturally, I am slowly and gladly accruing more - because it's comforting to know that at any point, I can turn to books unread as much as read, and be surprised by what I find.

Eco had this to say: