The Return of Myth America A Mythic Radio Show I spent the better part of four years wandering into a delightfully dilapidated radio broadcast studio every Tuesday morning to talk about the intersections of myth, imagination, and the American psyche on an NPR affiliate community radio station. I loved every minute of it. But the [...]
Taming a Wild Idea, Step One One of the most challenging aspects to taming a wild idea is moving it from the ever-so-tasty place where you can love it from a distance to diving in to make it real. There's something truly delicious about allowing grand ideas to stay wild. They're always perfect when they [...]
A Herd of Words One of the wild ideas I'm working on is shaping a section of my doctoral dissertation. I wrote on frivolity, and the point of pointlessness (because, dissertation in mythology!). My dissertation was a wild idea itself, in many ways. I was both embracing and whacking away at the ideas of academic [...]
Friends Help Bring Wild Ideas to Life The Solitude of Our Imaginations We dream big, wild, wonderful ideas in the solitude of our own imaginations. (Most of the time, at least.) It's a pretty glorious thing to ride what philosopher Gaston Bachelard calls 'the voyage into the land of the infinite.' The seas can be [...]
"Je sais aussi, dit Candide, qu'il faut cultiver notre jardin." - Voltaire, Candide Cultivating My Own Garden Last week, I wrote about the power of getting to those pesky tasks that can bog us down fast, when we think of them, to get them out of the way. This week, because I am [...]
When You Think of a Task, Do It When you think of a task, do it as it occurs to you. Here’s the logic behind this thought. There are going to be more things that you are going to need to do per day by a factor of a number with more zeroes than I [...]
"We have so many allies in this world, including just the color blue in the sky." - David Whyte When Aloneness Sucks There are moments when you're going after a wild idea when it feels as if you are slogging it alone. After all, most of the time, when we're gripped by the energy [...]
On the Power of Symbols: Notre Dame The Fire at Notre Dame Like millions of people, I am viscerally feeling the loss of the Notre Dame fire. I felt that throb in the solar plexus of a heart hurt, a soul hurt, when I saw the first pictures of the spire engulfed. I stand at [...]
Fear and Sailing into Infinity You’re Going to Feel Fear One of the big rules of going after your wild idea? Fear. You’re going to be scared to death. You’re going to not sleep at night. You going to either – or maybe even both – stop eating all together or eat so much that [...]
Break the Stick: Rules and Wild Ideas In the course of creating Spillian, I’ve found myself regularly chanting particular ideas like a mantra - an idea about whatever it was we were trying to make happen at that time and how to handle its complexities. These burbled up from somewhere, maybe from my toes, maybe from [...]
