Let’s Take a Journey – PFTR

I started one morning last week, as I do almost every other morning, with a cup of hot dark flavorful coffee and a quick (well sometimes not so quick) review of emails and a surf of the internet for interesting topics to ponder. As you know, I am a firm believer in continuous learning, keeping ideas fresh and trying to renew myself compatible with this stage of my life. I am not much on routine, unless of course it promotes those things just mentioned. This hyperlinking journey, I am about to take you on, sparked my interest for quite some time and I hope you too will dig a little deeper into some of the information I discovered.

The journey started with some financial advice in an email, moved on to some thoughts about minimalism, entered a very good discussion on the topic of renewal and ended with sound advice and beautiful illustrations in a children’s book. I have, by the way, already ordered a copy of this book for Addie. She is still a bit young to appreciate its teachings, so I will have to digest it for awhile before passing it on. I might even have to order a second copy so I can keep one and read it to Judy. Come along with me and we will retrace my journey.

First, was a link to the source of the email where I this journey started at the caniretireyet.com website. I am a regular reader of this website because I find most of the information provided very useful.  A post on that website highlighted a topic I very much live by and that is being my own person and not trying to portray what I think others want me to be. You can read the article here on the collaborativefund.com website when you search for a post entitled, “Not caring: a unique and powerful skill”.

I love this quote from the post “if you can remain dispassionate about what people think of you while you’re trying to get that outcome, or about the noise around you during the process, you have an advantage that I doubt one in a hundred thousand has”  How many people do you know that spend more time thinking about what others will think than they do about their own desires? Better yet, how many people don’t even know their own desires because they are trying to live someone else’s?  As for the noise, one of the best things I have done is greatly limiting TV viewing time and to things are are entertaining and not propaganda.

When I find an interesting post, I usually see what other topics the author has explored.  If I still like what I am reading, than I try to learn a bit more about the author. And, from their website, I usually find myself hyperlinking to another person’s website. Eventually, I am so far from where I started, I can’t remember how I got to where I am presently reading. This is what happened on this journey, but I did save enough bookmarks to retrace the key discoveries from the trip.

At this point the journey got a bit fuzzy. I don’t remember it I kept going forward or if I doubled back but I ended up on the retiredbeforedad.com website and a post entitled “The life long burden of material objects”.

And the quote that caught my eye read as follows: “Every material object must be looked upon as a lifelong burden. – MMM”. How true is that especially for those of use that have a hard time parting with things. So remember, if you never bought it, you don’t have to figure out what to do with it in the coming days, months or even years. By the way, this doesn’t apply to food steamers!

Next, my journey took another twist and I ended up on the brainpicking.org website and read a post entitled “The art of self-renewal. How many of you have ever heard of John W. Gardner?  I never did but I read enough in this post to know that I wanted to learn more about what he had to say. The mentioned book was not available at our library so I check Amazon and, sure enough, I could get a copy for the kindle and it was only $2.99. You sure can’t beat that price and here is the link if you are interested  https://amzn.to/2UnAh9b

I have started reading this book and it hits very close to home. I have experienced first hand the rigidity and inflexibility in the work environment that Mr. Gardner speak too. Environments that do not celebrate true differences or foster individual creativity but instead are more concerned with developing clones and prompting their own artificial image. Being retired is a truly a blessing because I can now be as creative and as different as I wish. I can assure you there ain’t no cookie cutter personalities in this home!

As I continued through this post, I was taken by the illustrations. There was just something about them I had to explore further. I think they reminded me of drawing from my childhood. I clicked on the first illustration and it took me to this post, also on the brainpaickings.org website.

Search for a post entitled “Tove Jansson’s Rare Vintage Illustrations for Alice in Wonderland”

Wow, these were great drawings and I had to see more. The children’s book that I mentioned at the beginning of this post is entitled A Velocity of Being. It is an illustrated collection of original letters to the children about why we read and what books do for the human spirit. They were composed by many talented authors and each is illustrated a creative artist. What a wonderful project and so timely. It seems good inspirational writing has been replaced by mindless chatting on a phone and other electronic time wasters. Amazon had the book and I didn’t think twice about ordering a copy.

Even better, take the time and explore it with them.  

Our journey is over for now. I hope you found something here worthy of further consideration. If I take another interesting hyperlinked journey in the future, I will be sure to take you along for the ride.  Until then, keep reading, thinking and changing for the better.