All of Joshua Becker’s thoughts here on writing are great, but this was the one that stuck out most to me:

“Writing has prompted intentionality. Writing requires observation. And observation almost always leads to intentionality.

“Once I began writing about life and the thoughts that shape it, I began to think more intentionally about who I was becoming—and whether that was consistent with what I desired most.”

–Becoming Minimalist

This from Stephen Marche on the facelessness of trolls on the Internet was fantastic:

“For the great French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, the encounter with another’s face was the origin of identity — the reality of the other preceding the formation of the self.

“The face is the substance, not just the reflection, of the infinity of another person. And from the infinity of the face comes the sense of inevitable obligation, the possibility of discourse, the origin of the ethical impulse.”

–NYT

I’ve always thought it’s difficult to truly dislike (or even hate) anyone you come in contact with and this gives a “why” behind that notion.

Why to journal — I started doing this again recently and was looking for reasons why to do it.

The point of the daily diary exercise is not to record what you already know about what happened to you in the last 24 hours. Instead, it’s an invitation to the back of your mind to come forward and reveal to you the perishable images about the day you didn’t notice you noticed at all.

-Lynda Barry (via Austin Kleon)

“There are so many graces that can only be pricked into us by the puncture of suffering, and so many lessons that can only be learned through tears, that when God leaves a Christian without any trials, He really leaves him to a terrible danger. His heart, unplowed by discipline, will be very apt to run to the tares of selfishness and worldliness and pride.”

-Theodore Cuyler (via Challies)

There exists within me two wills — that of wanting to be laid low by afflictions so that I might know Christ’s might. And the one that desires comfort for the sake of self.

I heard this at church today and thought it was immense.

“Here are two kinds of ground: fallow ground and ground that has been broken up by the plow.

“The fallow field is smug, contented, protected from the shock of the plow and the agitation of the harrow. Such a field, as it lies year after year, becomes a familiar landmark to the crow and the blue jay.

“Had it intelligence, it might take a lot of satisfaction in its reputation: it has stability; nature has adopted it; it can be counted upon to remain always the same, while the fields around it change from brown to green and back to brown again. Safe and undisturbed, it sprawls lazily in the sunshine, the picture of sleepy contentment.

“But it is paying a terrible price for its tranquility; never does it feel the motions of mounting life, nor see the wonders of bursting seed, nor the beauty of ripening grain. Fruit it can never know, because it is afraid of the plow and the harrow.

“In direct opposite to this, the cultivated field has yielded itself to the adventure of living. The protecting fence has opened to admit the plow, and the plow has come as plows always come, practical, cruel, business-like and in a hurry. Peace has been shattered by the shouting farmer and the rattle of machinery. The field has felt the travail of change; it has been upset, turned over, bruised and broken.

“But its rewards come hard upon its labors. The seed shoots up into the daylight its miracle of life, curious, exploring the new world above it. All over the field, the hand of God is at work in the age-old and ever renewed service of creation. New things are born, to grow, mature, and consumate the grand prophecy latent in the seed when it entered the ground. Nature’s wonders follow the plow.”

-AW Tozer

David Feherty is golf’s funniest man and a former pro himself. He said when he was growing up he just decided one day in school that he wanted to play golf for a living.

Here’s what his dad told him:

“Well, if it gives you goosebumps you better do it. Otherwise you might end up in a job you don’t like.”

–Sports Illustrated

I love nearly everything about this video, including the passion this guy has for pencils and keyboards, but mostly I loved this quote about typing.

“It unlocks the iterative joy of writing. The ability to race along — to sketch an idea — to go back and change it, to move back and forth. That’s what helps you as you try to get an idea out.”

The idea that you should move back and forth between the tools you use for various circumstances — handwriting for consumption and keyboards and computers for production — is excellent.

h/t Austin Kleon

C.S. Lewis defines joy, strangely, I might add, and then wonders why anyone would ever have another desire in this lifetime. So to him, joy is…

“an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and Pleasure.”

“Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again… I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is.”

–Good Reads

I’m among those who have thought “wait, will ‘forever’ even be something I desire when it comes to the afterlife?” The answer is a definitive “yes.” Here’s why:

“Because God is infinite, he can be infinitely enjoyed.”

–TGC