I’m sending this post out this Sunday morning (ET). If you’d like to talk about it together, I’ll log on today at 4 pm ET/1 pm PT/9 pm UK, for an impromptu Sunday Candlelight Chat, in writing. We can light our candles, and type to each other, via the comments section below. Of course, you can also leave a comment at any time, whether before or after the official Candlelight Chat.
And! Reminder that our next Sunday Candlelight Chat (on Zoom) will be a week from today, Sunday Jan 28, featuring my pal, the great psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman (one of the top 1% most cited scientists in the world). We’ll talk about Abraham Maslow’s vision of “cosmic sadness,” SBK’s journey from special education student to Ivy League professor, his current incarnation as a “wild introvert,” and more. Details to come.
Also - to read a prettier version of this and all posts, pls go to thequietlife.net, to read it there.
Dear You,
I know you’ve felt it before.
Maybe it was the time you heard your favorite song and your heart opened -- literally, you could feel your chest cavity expanding – and you realized you were communicating in another language: the musician’s soul speaking directly to yours, speaking to all the souls, and suddenly you loved everyone, and you had no fear.
Maybe it was the time a waterfall drowned out the other sounds of the woods, drowned out the voices in your head, and you forgot yourself for a moment of bliss whose memory stayed with you forever after.
Maybe it was the time, at the height of the romance, when you thought “I’m so happy I could die.”[1]
Did you ever wonder what those feelings were?
Maybe you thought they were a nice sensation, and wouldn’t it be great if you could have more of them, and if they could last a little longer. And then you went back to everyday life.
But that’s just the doorstep to the real question.