Sometimes we engage in peripheral conversations exactly in order to turn away from what really needs our attention..

David Whyte

Humor tells us that whatever context you have arranged for yourself, there’s always another context that makes yours absurd.

David Whyte

And one of the great disciplines is not to be brought to a smaller context because someone is refusing to move with you to a larger one.

David Whyte

And if you are stressed by a situation, it is often because you have actually compromised yourself in order to make the negotiation.

David Whyte

Do I attempt to project upon reality?

The essential dynamics of the conversational nature of reality is, whatever you as an individual would like to happen in the world will not happen exactly as you would like it. But equally whatever the world ... the people you serve in life, want you to do will also not occur. You will not comply exactly as they would like you to comply. And what occurs is a third frontier, a conversational reality. The ability to actually create an identity where you can live at that frontier... It will take a different form of identity than simply the strategic part of your mind, which sees yourself as ammunition in which you are going to fire at your target.
David Whyte