What I’m Reading Today
Don’t you love those days when you just feel great? I sure do and I’ll take them any way I can get them too! This week I’ve got (at least) two new additions to my life helping me feel great.
One is going to be off-topic for most people…but if you happen to ever have Achilles tendon pain, you might want to check out this simple Achilles brace I bought on Amazon. It has done amazing things for me this week. (wow)
The other is a bit more universal… if you’re creative at all, and I know you are, you would really find some great stuff in the book I’m reading this week. Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
More accurately, I should say the book we’re reading because Tim and I are reading this one together. Ok, total honesty, he’s actually doing the reading and I’m sitting on my butt listening.
Yes, he’s reading to me out-loud like a two-year-old and it is wonderful!
I’m telling you we have loved it. Gilbert’s sense of humor and way of looking at the world is inspiring, mind-bending, and entertaining. We’ve laughed, we’ve cried (well, he cried), and we’ve just generally had our socks inspired right off with Big Magic.
Generally speaking the book is about living a creative life. It’s about being open to the ideas that come your way and presenting yourself humbly ready to help them become real and get them “out there” for people to benefit from. The author talks about how to overcome the common challenges that frequently stand in the way of living a life full of “Big Magic”. She breaks the book up into sections on Courage, Enchantment, Permission, Persistence, Trust and Divinity. (We haven’t made it to the last two parts yet!)
Here’s just a couple of the passages we’ve highlighted so far. (We have different color highlighters… one for what he wants to revisit and one for me… but we got mixed up who’s was who’s)
A creative life is an amplified life. It’s a bigger life, a happier life, an expanded life, and a hell of a lot more interesting life. Living in this manner — continually and stubbornly bringing forth the jewels that are hidden within you — is a fine art, in and of itself.
You can live a long life, making and doing really cool things the entire time. You might earn a living with your pursuits or you might not, but you can recognize that this is not really the point. And at the end of your days, you can thank creativity for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence. … Totally up to you!
All-in-all this book has been a great read so far. Very inspiring and entertaining at the same time. Even though Tim and I, who have been married since just after High School, have lived a very different kind of life than Elizabeth Gilbert, I find her views on creativity and inspiration very aligned with my own. And her concept of ideas as “entities” that sort of roam the earth sight-unseen just looking for a crafty human to make them happen is really an amazing concept that feels intriguingly right to me.
You should check it out. I ordered the hard-copy on Amazon (here’s a link) and I’ve enjoyed having this book in a physical form. We’ve done a whole lot of stopping, talking, flipping back, and highlighting.
Have you read Big Magic? What did you think? I’d love to talk about it with you in the comments!
~ Kim
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Irony…next to me is Gilbert’s book “The Signarture of all Things” which is obviously very different from what you are describing. I will add yours to my list of must reads!
I can’t thank you enough for recommending this book. I loved it! It spoke to my soul and made me cry. She got me! It’s like she totally understands me. Thank you again for the great recommendation.
Hi Hedi!
Thanks so much for letting me know! I understand exactly what you mean, and I keep going back and reading parts I highlighted. It’s the kind of book I want to know by heart. 🙂
~Kim