Steven Pressfield

An excerpt from an interview between Goodread and Steven Pressfield :

GR: Describe a typical day spent writing. Do you have any unusual writing habits?

SP: I fiddle around for a long time, all morning usually, before I finally overcome Resistance and get down to work. I try to be as stupid as possible. I just let it rip and try not to censor anything. My goal is just to get something down, good or bad, and K.B.O., Keep Buggering On. I'm very superstitious. I collect pennies. I have a little cannon on my desk that I point at me, to fire inspiration into me. That's only the beginning. They say there's no such thing as writing, only rewriting. I'd divide the activity into two. Yes, there's writing. You have to be fearless and keep grinding, day after day, month after month. Then there's rewriting. That's almost as hard but not as scary. I try to stay as dumb as possible. Don't think about it, do it.

To read the whole interview visit:

http://www.goodreads.com/interviews/steven_pressfield?utm_medium=email&utm_source=June_newsletter

A Big Heart

Great video! The heart gets smaller when the people don't receive her love, it gets big again and restores her faith when she meets someone who is willing to receive her love.

Randy Pausch

Randy Pausch passed away on 25th July 2008 after battling pancreatic cancer. His speech 'The Last Lecture' about Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, spread through the internet with 10 million views. The following is a reprise of his last lecture on Oprah.

Sweden's Ice Hotel

An ice hotel is a temporary hotel made up entirely of snow and sculpted blocks of ice. They are promoted by their sponsors and have special features for travelers who are interested in novelties and unusual environments, and thus are in the class of destination hotels. Their lobbies are often filled with ice sculptures, and food and beverages are specially chosen for the circumstances.

All of the ice hotels are reconstructed every year, and are dependent upon constant sub-zero temperatures during construction and operation. The walls, fixtures, and fittings are made entirely of ice, and are held together using a substance known as snice, which takes the place of mortar in a traditional brick built hotel.



The ice hotel near the village of Jukkasjärvi, Kiruna, Sweden was the world's first ice hotel. In 1989, Japanese ice artists visited the area and created an exhibition of ice art. In Spring 1990, French artist Jannot Derid held an exhibition in a cylinder-shaped igloo in the area. One night there were no rooms available in the town, so some of the visitors asked for permission to spend the night in the exhibition hall. They slept in sleeping bags on top of reindeer skin - the first guests of the "hotel."

The entire hotel is made completely out of ice blocks taken from the Torne River - even the glasses in the bar are made of ice. The hotel has more than 80 rooms and suites, a bar, reception area and church. The hotel only exists between December and April. Each room is unique and the architecture of the hotel is changed each year, as it is rebuilt from scratch.

Jeff Skoll: Making movies that make change

'Betting on good people doing good things'

Live life like you were dying

The Butterfly Effect

As I drove my daughter to school this morning I got stuck in a pile up on a side road with cars trying to inch their way through in both directions. There was honking, some drivers just sat there without knowing what actually the problem was. I sat for a couple of minutes and then knew I had to do something , otherwise we would be there forever since no one was trying to figure out what was happening. I moved my car an inch which made the car opposite me move an inch and then the car in front of me moved an inch and sudenly all the cars started moving an inch. I moved another inch, the other cars followed and hey presto we were all moving again. The power of the butterfly effect, I thought to myself.

The Butterfly Effect
Oasis - Stop Crying Your Heart Out

Hold up hold on don't be scared
You'll never change what's been and gone

May your smile. Shine on. Don't be scared
Your destiny may keep you warm.

Cos all of the stars are fading away
Just try not to worry you'll see them some day
Take what you need and be on your way
And stop crying your heart out

Get up. Come on why you scared
You'll never change what been and gone

Its never too late

Did you know that the illustrator William Steig , who created the character Shrek was 82 years old when he created the grouchy yet gentle Shrek for a children's book in 1990 ? Eleven years later, the movie Shrek became an international hit and won the2002 Oscar for best animated film.

Therefore its never too late to fulfil that dream, or its never too late to love or as George Eliot said its never too late to be what you wanted to be.

Live your life the best you can and if you want to do something in your life 'its never too late'.

The following song by Hedley expresses it nicely.

Mindfulness

Jon Kabat-Zinn talks to Google about mindfulness.