Nothing Is Ordinary
Nothing Is Ordinary Podcast
About Discipline
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About Discipline

And how not being disciplined is also important

I share a little story of my dinner a few nights ago with my friends Philip Houtekier, a photographer, and Meinke Flesseman, a painter, ceramicist, and gallery owner.

I had presented a talk on Art, Wine, and Story focusing on my book, The Shaman’s Wife, at a local wine shop and bar owned by a woman I know in my town. After the presentation, Philip, Meinke, and I went out for dinner. After several glasses of wine and some delicious food, Meinke astounded us with this line:

“It is a discipline in itself to be undisciplined.”

Listen to how this came about and why it resonated so deeply with us! Maybe you can relate, too? Let me know in the comments.


A few photos of my presentation at Berdissimo Wine Shop and Bar.

Berdissimo Wine Shop and Bar Presentation

Here are some of the quotes I shared that evening.

On Being Authentic in Your Art

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.

This may sound easy. It isn’t.

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.

To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

e.e. cummings

“Living life as an artist is a practice.
You are either engaging in the practice
or you’re not.

It makes no sense to say you’re not good at it.
It’s like saying, “I’m not good at being a monk.”
You are either living as a monk or you’re not.

We tend to think of the artist’s work as the output.

The real work of the artist
is a way of being in the world.”
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

On Storytelling

“I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories... water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.”
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves

“Story, as it turns out, was crucial to our evolution -- more so than opposable thumbs. Opposable thumbs let us hang on; story told us what to hang on to.”

- Lisa Cron, Wired for Story

"You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built in the human plan. We come with it.”

- Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale

“Whether you know it or not, your desire to write comes from the urge to not just be “creative,” it’s a need (one every human being on earth has) to help others. A well-told Story is a gift to the reader/listener/viewer because it teaches them how to confront their own discomforts.”

- Shawn Coyne, The Story Grid

On Winemaking as Art and Story

“Making good wine is a skill; making fine wine is an art.”

Robert Mondavi

"Where there is no wine there is no love."

- Euripides.

"Language is wine upon the lips."

- Virginia Woolf

"Wine is the only artwork you can drink."

- Luis Fernando Olaverri.

Discussion about this podcast

Nothing Is Ordinary
Nothing Is Ordinary Podcast
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