Marlow's Musings 8/27/23
Insights, adventures and fun stuff from this week.
Audio narration by David Marlow
Sweat poured into my eyes. The sting of the salt made it almost impossible to see.
A towel and air conditioning were a welcome reward for finishing my run on Wednesday.
Even though I left the house early in the morning, the heat still caught up with me. Plans for a six-mile run quickly were changed to three as the temperature and humidity shot up.
I can’t think straight for a while after completing a run. I call it runner’s brain. My wife and I have an agreement that she doesn’t tell me anything she wants me to retain for at least 20 minutes after my run.
As soon as she sensed I was ‘back,’ she mentioned our daughter Helaina had something she wanted me to watch.
It was an episode of Bluey.
If you aren’t familiar, Bluey is a marvelous cartoon that follows the adventures of a lovable and inexhaustible six-year-old Blue Heeler puppy who lives with her dad, mum, and four-year-old little sister, Bingo.
This particular episode is about the Grandpa who has been sick and needs to rest.
Mum and the two girls, Bluey and Bingo, come for a visit, and instead of resting, he takes off with the girls on an adventure in the woods.
Hilarity ensues as Mum chases them, eventually catching Grandpa and the girls.
Mum and Grandpa sit on the dock and talk while the girls play in the lake nearby.
Grandpa, exhausted from running with the girls, realizes he needs to rest. Mum chastizes him momentarily and then confesses he needs to rest because she still needs her dad around.
When my daughter was just five or six, she was playing in the yard while I worked in the garden. I put some dry fertilizer down and warned her and her older brothers not to go into the garden, explaining that the dust from the fertilizer could be bad for them to breathe.
After finishing with the fertilizer, I went into the garage to get something, and her ball rolled into the garden. Without thinking, she ran in to get it. By the time I came back out, she was in the yard playing again.
That night, she wrote a will because she thought I said the fertilizer would kill her, and she was sure she was going to die.
So afraid of upsetting us, she didn’t say a word all evening and went to bed, thinking we’d find her lifeless body grasping the will in the morning.
She didn’t die, of course, and shared that story with us only a few years ago. It is no small irony that she is an estate planning attorney today.
I watched the episode and then sent Helaina this message.
As promised, I didn’t run the next day, which, as it turned out, was the hottest on record for an August day in Wisconsin.
My daughter is happily married, has a fabulous career, a beautiful daughter, and will soon welcome her second child, a boy, into the world.
Earlier in the week, I had pondered out loud to my wife whether my little girl still needed her dad.
I guess I got my answer.
Word of the Week
Nefelibata: (n)
nef·e·li·ba·ta /ˌnefəˈlibətə/
A cloud walker. One who lives in the clouds of their imagination or dreams.
One who does not obey conventions of society, literature, or art.
Nefelibata is of Portuguese origin and is derived from nephele, which means cloud, and batha (a place where you can walk). This term can be used as an adjective and as a noun.
In the pursuit of understanding words that encapsulate purpose, we stumble upon gems that have the power to transform our perspectives and journeys. Nefelibata is such a gem, inviting us to explore the realm of imagination and aspiration, particularly within the context of our Ikigai journey.
In case you missed it…
As part of the Ikigai Lexicon, I’m sharing posts about the 47 Big Bold Beautiful Benefits of Ikigai.
I'm excited about sharing another facet of 'Autonomy Matters.'
This week, it’s something a little different: two videos that recount events on my personal journey with career autonomy.
These videos were initially shared on LinkedIn. I understand that videos aren't always everyone's cup of tea (or coffee), and that's perfectly okay.
For those who do enjoy videos or are curious to see these stories in motion, I've included them below.
A snippet of the 'World’s Largest Desk' story can be found in Nefelibata. For the full story and more insights, you can check out the video.
How Unconventional Thinking Led Me to Own The World’s Largest Desk
3 Surprising Steps to Career Autonomy
Ikiquest+
This week in Ikiquest+…I created these Coffee Meditations for Plus subscribers.
This first one was a little different in that it was a reflection as well as a share of something I’m currently personally engaged in—a minimalism challenge.
It has forced me to face some things I never thought I’d have to face around possessions and, just-in-case ‘saving’ of items.
The other is one of my favorite ways to mono-task or focus on only one thing. I shared this with the Ikiquest+ subscribers and another version with all subscribers to give them a taste of the meditations.
Quote I’m Pondering
“Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment
and saying: Let’s not forget this.”
Dave Eggers
Comment of the Week:
The comment this week is the one I meant to share last week and had one of those ‘what was I going to do?’ moments we all have. We do all have those, don’t we?
This is from Angela about the post on Hiraeth…
“Wow. This hits hard today. I'm not only getting married next month, but after two years with my current employer, I recently accepted a position in a different industry that I'll begin after my honeymoon in October. Lots of big feelings accompanying big decisions!
This reflection reminds me of a favorite song from my childhood: "Sunrises, night falls, sometimes the sky calls. Is that a song there and do I belong there? I've never been there, but I know the way. I'm going to go back there someday."
Fun Thing I Saw This Week
Lolly Lolly Ceramics is a local business that “focuses on objects that are functional, unique, and handmade to last.”
My wife was watching a new home improvement show set in Milwaukee, and the host was learning how they make coffee mugs by hand at Lolly Lolly. She called me over, and I was totally taken in by the unique designs.
What really caught my eye were the mugs from the creative experiment of what the owner, Lalese Stamps, termed the 100 Day Project, where she made 100 mugs with 100 different handles for 100 Days.
Final Thoughts
More than a few people reached out to let me know the story about my granddaughter’s drawing in Friday’s post, had prompted them to consider drawing again as well.
We give up so much of our sense of play, fun, and art as we get older. Even as I am working to keep these from being extinguished in the lives of my grandchildren, I’m trying to reignite them in my own.
That’s part of why I’ve been creating images like the Bluey characters at the top for all the posts recently. Buckminster Fuller said, "Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them."
I’m not sure I’ve been re-geniused yet, though I am trying.
🌀Quest well
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