⚡️ Enlightening Bolts

🔋 The Power of Energizing Hobbies: In a world that’s driven by achievement + output, allowing yourself space to create - just because, even if you’re “bad” at it - is almost revolutionary. Watch it here.

❤️ 100 Couples Share Their Secrets to a Successful Relationship: Love is not just an emotion; it is a skill. It has to be worked on; sharpened regularly. Read it here.

💤 I’m A Lucid Dream Researcher: Here’s how to train your brain to do it. Read it here.

🎇 Image of The Week

“Winning nature’s lottery with seeing the most beautiful King penguin and being able to take pictures! While unpacking our rubberboats merely after landing on a remote beach on the island of South-Georgia, this leucistic King penguin walked up straight to our direction in the middle of a chaos full of Sea elephants and Antarctic fur seals, and thousands of other King penguins. How lucky could I be!” Taken by Yves Adams.

📹 Time Travel Via Video​

After my grandmother died, I spent time sifting through old videotapes to see if I could come across any footage of her. I found some when I was a very young child and it instantly stirred up a cocktail of grief and gratitude.​

Watching these old videos felt like a form of non-participatory time travel. I was trapped behind a glass window so I couldn't interact or interferre with what was unfolding but I was able to witness it all over again.

I was able to revisit these mundane moments that at the time held no special significance. Because cameras have become so ubiquitous I think we've grown a bit too accustomed to their magic.

They are reality freezing machines allowing us to teleport back to a moment or a series of moments in time. The footage remains the same but the eyes viewing it change because the significance of what was captured transforms as life proceeds and things are lost.​

So I'd offer you a reminder that today is a good time to anticipate endings and goodbyes. Not to increase worry but to enhance appreciation. Find a random moment in the day with the people you love and capture it on video.

Things will not always be this way and someday having the option to travel back into a small segment of what's here now could mean the world to you.

❤️‍🔥 Passion & Addiction

Digest this clarifying sentiment from psychologist Gabor Mate:

“The difference between passion and addiction is that between a divine spark and a flame that incinerates. Passion is divine fire: it enlivens and makes holy; it gives light and yields inspiration. Passion is generous because it's not ego-driven; addiction is self-centered. Passion gives and enriches; addiction is a thief. Passion is a source of truth and enlightenment; addictive behaviors lead you into darkness. You're more alive when you are passionate, and you triumph whether or not you attain your goal. But an addiction requires a specific outcome that feeds the ego; without that outcome, the ego feels empty and deprived."

🤓 Learn This Word

Abditory: A place into which you can disappear; a hiding place

⏳ From The Archives

A hand-picked classic HighExistence article.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go With Books! An Homage To The Magic of Scratches and Scribbles on Dried Leaves

By Martijn Schirp

I grew up in a little village in the north of the Netherlands, a picturesque Dutch fishermen’s place carrying around 10,000 inhabitants. My grandfather worked on a boat. He went out every day to try and catch some of those slippery sea-animals. My mother, she lived next to the harbor of Medemblik. In her world, memories of salty air, stormy nights, and the sound of the whacking ropes against masts still linger.

I grew up a little more inland, closer to farmland than farmsea. I always liked to play outside, climb trees, and build huts. And thus I was lucky we could call the house on the corner our home, as it had the biggest garden in the street. Our garden had nice patch of grass, some bushes and trees, and always a few cats dozing off, letting their cute little cat-dreams carried off by sunbeams.

I remember one thing in particular. I was around six or seven years old at the time. Not old enough to watch the grown up’s television programs, I was often told to go to bed early. Unable to sleep, I lay there, listening to the organic orchestra of birds, carefree, too young to fully grasp the mortal nature of existence.

The language of the birds put a spell on me. The warm summer breeze was carrying the laughter of playing children. Time slowed down to a halt, seconds stretched into hours, even days. It was if the world was holding its breath. I could not fathom I would ever grow old. It was as if gravity was momentarily suspended. I felt empty, fully there, letting the world flow into every corner of my being.

[Continue Reading]