feed yourself beauty

I've been spending time with a writer who is writing a

substack called Everything is Amazing. The focus at the moment

is color and the way we perceive it and the way we interact with

it and whatever else seems interesting. The beauty is not

about the color, the beauty is about the nourishment of

thinking about the color. I'm told not everyone's brain works

like this. That some brains don't thrive on new and

interesting, intricate information that connects us to

the world around us. But a lot of us do. And even those of us

who don't generally or always thrive on it might thrive on it,

sometimes. We might. Worth finding out. There is, in fact,

wonder and beauty everywhere. And the thing about that wonder

and beauty is that it keeps me... it keeps me glad that I'm

making the world a better place to be. Keeps me glad that I'm

making the world a better place for every one; it keeps me glad

to be glad. And that is absolutely critical to good

leadership and good ethics because it demands so much of

us. It demands so much of us to be out front or beside or behind

or wherever you lead from. It demands so much of us, it asks

so much of us to make the right decision to be the good example.

Parents have no idea how much burden they're putting on their

children, when they tell them they have to set a good example

for someone else who might not be that far away from them and

is almost certainly poking their buttons. Also, parents are

terrible at setting good examples, unless they are very,

very conscious, because see, all of the leadership in our world

is subject to the same basic humanity that we are, we are all

basically human, we are all basically tempted by things that

would make life easier. At least in the moment,

at least a little bit of relief, at least a little bit of rest in

the chaos, in the stress in the desperate clawing of the world,

at our flesh.

And at the same time. And at the same time we have so much we

each have so much somehow we have wisdom or experience, we

have street credibility or we have college degrees or maybe

both. We know the rhythms of the place that we spend the most

time the rise and fall of the tide perhaps or the rise and

fall of the sun, the texture of grass or different concretes and

asphalts underfoot. The feeling of stepping on shards of glass

and pulling them incompletely loose. The different ways our

tires interact with the surfaces under us rolling around on dirt,

rolling around on a bed or a sheet or a meadow. staring at

the sky or staring at the ceiling or staring at a corner

or staring at a leaf or bird. I find solace in nature. I know

this is not true for everyone. But also I find solace in the

textures of silk and linen. texture of cotton, the

complicated story of cotton. Every one of these little things

is Beauty to me. Every one of these little things, if I

remember can be my nourishment can feed me, even if it's just

enough to get the pump going again, even if it's just enough

to prime it. There's this story that goes around periodically

that lives in several places on the internet. About a well. it's

in the middle of the desert. It's far from any other source

of water. sometimes it's in the mountains, far from any other

sources of water there. No streams nearby no oases. Just

this this one place and it is far, it is far from everything

else that could be water. It's a well and under the cover of the

well which is quietly marked there's a single cup with water

and a little card of instructions and the card of

instructions says if you drink This water, there won't be any

left for you or anyone else. But if you have trust in the way the

pumps work in these instructions and the people who have come

before you, in the possibilities in the magic of existing in this

world, that pour this cup of water down into the pump to

prime it, and then start pumping. And when you do, you

will have as much water as you need as much water as you can

drink. And the last thing you need to do before you leave, is

fill this cup again and leave it here under this cover. So the

next traveler can also prime the pump. Some people make this into

a big Christian allegory, but I don't think we need to. I think

it's complete just the way it is. We all have internal pumps,

things in us that allow us to bring ourselves into connection

with the things that will nourish us that will allow us to

continue to do the important work that we do, to run our

companies to engage with our families to live in the world to

exist. And all of us have moments, people places,

experiences, where we have to decide whether we're just going

to drink the water that's in our hand. It's warm, it's a little

brackish. But you know, it's wet. And it's here. Or whether

we're going to pour that cup down into the wall and start

pumping. And I tell you, every time I hang on to that cup,

staring at it, wondering what I should do, whether this is the

time that I need to drink this water, and hope that things are

different. Or whether I should pour it down the well every time

I hang on to that cup. Things get worse every single time. And

every time I take a deep breath, pour the water into the well.

Everything opens up. I don't know what that's about. It's

bigger than me. It's more complicated than me it is

physics. And also it is not physics. It is something else.

Because obviously, I'm not always talking not usually

talking not mostly talking about actual water in actual wells.

Although we do have an actual water problem in this world. And

we are going to have to come to terms with it. Basically

immediately. But if we're not talking about actual water, then

we're also not talking about the same kind of physics. We're

talking about a physics that most of us do not understand

cannot grasp. All we know is that when we pour a little bit

of ourselves into the world, not enough to kill us.

When we pour a little bit of ourselves into the world, and

then we pump we get water but a dry pump yields nothing. So feed

Feed yourself beauty, feed yourself pleasure. Do not be

yourself beauty.

afraid of the pleasure that you need to stay in the world.

Because you staying in the world, while it's not the only

way for things to get better, it is certainly one way for things

to get better for you and for everyone else. So feed yourself