Marlow's Musings 3/24/24
Insights, adventures and fun stuff from this week.
Audio narration by David Marlow
In January of 2022, I selected a focus word for the year. The word I chose was…
💥 Create
create (v.) "to bring into being," from Latin creatus, "to make, bring forth, produce, procreate, beget, cause, to grow." Related: Created; creating.
It supercharged my creative actions that year. I wrote more, worked on double the creative projects with my grandkids, and so on.
When you dive into the distinctions of a word, it reveals deeper meaning and understanding. The distinction to 'bring forth' spoke to me.
🌀 Focusing on bringing forth creativity is what prompted me to take the leap and create this newsletter two years ago this week.
It started as a creative experiment, writing a daily Ikigai thought. It became so much more.
The ‘more’ was born from the countless messages I received from you.
Messages that shared:
🌱 Moments of joy and pain.
🌱 Stories of receiving or needing hope.
🌱 Of something missing in their lives.
🌱 A search for meaning and purpose.
Three questions echoed between the lines of every message… 🌀
Who am I? 🌀
Why am I here? 🌀
What should I do? 🌀
Answering these three questions is at the heart of living out your Ikigai.
That is why ‘Your Daily Ikigai’ grew to be the focal point of my pursuit of sharing Ikigai…Ikiquest.
Now, this Moai, this Ikigai family of 3,000 subscribers, has read over 700 articles nearly a million times.
I’ve embarked on a new creative writing endeavor that I couldn’t have even believed possible two years ago. Writing Ikiquest has prepared me for it, and when the time was right, the opportunity presented itself.
It is nothing I planned or even had in mind. While excited and eager to share, I still can’t share completely. My intention is not to ‘tease’ anything; rather, I want to inspire you to do something you’ve wanted to do for a long time but were afraid to attempt.
Start small, put your heart into it, and be open to where it leads.
Like me, you will learn about yourself and develop new skills that might take you where you’ve always wanted to be.
That’s what has happened to me.
Word of the Week
Perspicacity (n)
/pur-spi-kas-i-tee/
1: keenness of mental perception and understanding, discernment
An earlier version of the word was perspicience meaning an ability to see all things, infinite vision.
In case you missed it…
This week, there were two Ikigai Thoughts for Today.
The first was pondering enough…
The second was on the value of letting your ideas percolate…
Ikiquest+
This week’s Coffee Contemplation for Ikiquest+ subscribers was Opportunity Has a Deadline
Plus subscribers can listen to it in audio narration or read the transcription.
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Comment of the Week:
The comment of the week comes from Kelly on the Ikigai Thought for Today: Let Your Idea Percolate.
I love the "percolate" image David it helps to slow down the pace, which isn't always something I take the time to do. That word is now on a mental post-it stuck to my brain!
This one resonated with many, and several commenters like the simplicity of the admonition….
📌 Be impatient to take action.
📌 Be patient with results.
This aligns well with the kaizen principle. Do something small, but by all means, do something. Then, give yourself time to grow.
Quote I’m Pondering
This thought is derived from Nassim Nicholas Taleb…
To see if a book is real, ask 10 people of different backgrounds & professions to summarize it. If the summaries are similar, the book will not survive as it can be shortened to a journal article. The more the summaries diverge, the higher the dimensionality of the book.
This aligns well with the way Ikiquest has grown. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shared an article, and it meant something valuable yet different to nearly everyone who read it. That speaks to the dimensionality of the conversation we have created here.
Final Thoughts
It’s been said that the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.
Permit me to add a third day.
The day you remove everything that distracts you from that purpose.
That is when life begins for real.
And the Quest for Ikigai can truly commence.
Quest well.
Great message as usual David
Blessed Palm Sunday