Halftime Speeches (vol. 1, no. 6)

July 1, 2021 Shawn Humphrey

Here are five bolts of inspiration I’m sharing this month:

1. Brett Dennen on inter-generational patience:

2. James Baldwin on living your life:

“You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.” (ht Brainpickings)

3. W. S. Merwin on not knowing if what you do is any good but doing it anyway:

I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can’t

you can’t you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write

4. Catherine Andrews on the questions she asks to interrogate her fears:

Where is this situation reflecting some hurt inside of me, and how can I tend to that hurt?
Where am I feeling this in my body? What wisdom does that sensation have to tell me?
If nobody was watching or judging me, what decision would I make?

5. Encore blog from me on being authentic:

“When I am not posturing, posing, dissembling, or signaling, when I am not comparing, contrasting, or measuring and juxtaposing myself against others, when I am being truly authentic, when I am being who I was meant to be, I can feel a slight vibration in the core of my being.” (Blue)

That’s it. Have a great day. And, go start something! – shawn