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Sunday Letters

Sunday Letters

By Larry G. Maguire

225712 Sunday Letters is the weekly audio newsletter on life, work, & the pursuit of happiness. Content follows the written newsletter which goes out to subscribers every Sunday. Topics include psychology, philosophy, society and culture. Using these as a foundation, I explore the meaning and purpose of life and daily work; why we do it, and what would we do without it. In Sunday Letters, I go deep and long, and if that’s your bag, then I think you’ll enjoy the material.
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TDL127 Ambition, Success & Opinions Of Others

Sunday LettersMar 28, 2018

00:00
20:55
214 Jung on The Human Condition
Jan 09, 202222:40
Conversations About Work

Conversations About Work

This episode is a merging of two separate conversations about work I had in the summer of 2021. The first is with a friend, Tony, and we were sitting at a bench outside a pub in a rural area of west Donegal drinking pints of porter. The second is a conversation I had with Dr. Jonathan Murphy but no pints on that occasion. I hope you enjoy this member-only episode.

If you'd like access to this and other members-only audio, become a subscriber.

Nov 30, 202148:31
213 New Capitalism & The Conflict of Interests
Sep 12, 202119:17
212 Inauthentic Leadership & The Centrality of The Entrepreneurial Image

212 Inauthentic Leadership & The Centrality of The Entrepreneurial Image

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Welcome to the penultimate essay in the Sunday Letters Leadership Series. Over the course of the series, I have brought you thoughts on the paradox of success, Machiavellianism, inauthentic leadership, and this week I’m taking a look at the centrality of the entrepreneurial image. These essays previously lived on The Lead, a publication I started on a whim a few months ago that is now moving here, with some edits, to Sunday Letters. I hope you’ll enjoy these essays and the perspectives they represent. They are, in large part, my personal philosophy on how to live and work successfully with others while holding true to values that align with our sense of humanity.

Prelude | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Aug 29, 202127:12
211 A Leadership Lesson From An Older Generation

211 A Leadership Lesson From An Older Generation

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This week on Sunday Letters, I’m bringing you the fourth in a series of essays on the art of ethical leadership. Over the course of the series, we’ll cover the paradox of success, Machiavellianism, inauthentic leadership, and new Capitalism, amongst other topics, in an effort to show an all too prominent flaw in the human character. These essays previously lived on The Lead, a publication that I started on a whim a few months ago that is now moving here to Sunday Letters. I hope you’ll enjoy these essays and the perspectives they represent. They are, in large part, my personal philosophy on how to live and work successfully with others. I hope you enjoy them.

Read the full essay

Aug 15, 202125:25
210 The Leadership Paradox

210 The Leadership Paradox

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This week on Sunday Letters, I’m bringing you the second in a series of essays on the art of ethical leadership. Over the course of the series, we’ll cover the paradox of success, Machiavellianism, inauthentic leadership, and new Capitalism, amongst other topics in an effort to show an all too prominent flaw in the human character. These essays previously lived on The Lead, a publication that I started on a whim a few months ago that is now moving here to Sunday Letters. I hope you’ll enjoy these essays and the perspectives they represent. They are, in large part, my personal philosophy on how to live and work successfully with others.

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Jul 18, 202124:07
209 The Essence of Leadership

209 The Essence of Leadership

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This week in Sunday Letters begins a series on leadership. Over the next six weeks, I’ll be bringing you essays on the paradox of success, Machiavellianism, inauthentic leadership, and new Capitalism amongst other topics. These essays previously lived on a minuscule publication (The Lead) that I started on a whim a few months ago that is moving here to Sunday Letters. I hope you enjoy these essays and the perspectives they represent. After all, they represent in large part my personal philosophy on how to work successfully with others.

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Jul 11, 202119:46
208 Moral Responsibility: Could You Have Done Otherwise?

208 Moral Responsibility: Could You Have Done Otherwise?

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One dominant premise we hold is that we can always choose to do or not to do something. However, as Dennett points out in his 1984 essay “I Could not have Done Otherwise-So What?”, most often, the question of choice and responsibility for our actions comes about when results are unfavourable. We want someone to accept blame for a given outcome. The legal system is founded on the idea that we are responsible for our actions, and when we break the social and legal code, we should pay the price. It assumes that given we are compos mentis, we always have a choice of how to act. However, when the outcome is favourable, Dennett points out that we don’t question so much in the slightest whether or not the individual could have chosen differently. We accept their assertion that “ah, sure it was nothing” and hardly bring into question their disavowment of responsibility. An interesting point on its own, Dennet suggests, is that when others do well by us, we never question their opportunity to have done otherwise and presents an inconsistency in how we apply it.

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Jul 07, 202123:14
207 Are We Bound To Self-Destruct?

207 Are We Bound To Self-Destruct?

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Taking an ethical position in life and work is essential for us to have some framework for healthy behaviour, which promotes individual and collective well-being, mutual appreciation, and respect. Take, for example, a company board of directors that holds firm to a sterile and materialistic ideal that ends justify means; they will stop at little to achieve the corporate goal, which is to make money. From a superficial and materialistic position, human beings and the environment are simply obstacles to be overcome. And it’s easy to see in our technological age as machines and AI become commonplace, that we have, and still do despite clever marketing initiatives, run riot over the natural world and one another in pursuit of profit or a basic living.

Take the oil sands in Canada, the destruction of the rainforest in South America, damage to the seabed by commercial fishing fleets, or any war throughout human history; they all stand as primary examples of our willingness to put aside moral and ethical principles for the sake of material gain, power and control. And it’s not solely corporations to blame. Ordinary people are also quick to drop their moral principles for the sake of profit or, indeed, a living.

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Jul 04, 202120:38
206 Suicide (Declan Was A Friend of Mine)

206 Suicide (Declan Was A Friend of Mine)

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Declan was a friend of mine. He was a good looking bloke, tall with dark skin and dark hair – the kind that girls noticed. He was loud too, and when he got going, everyone knew he was there. He was the quintessential extrovert. In contrast, I was quiet, reserved, pretty ordinary in the looks department as far as I was concerned, and had little confidence around the opposite sex. I was better one to one than in groups, so I kept mostly to myself in the early weeks at the training centre. I wasn’t a showman like Deco. He oozed confidence and had a laugh that made people turn around. For some, he was too much, but we got on well. We were a good fit. As the memory of him enters my thoughts these days, I think that maybe he wanted to be more like me, and I wanted to be more like him than we both cared to admit. Maybe life experience had made both of us fragile, and we merely developed different means of coping. I think that coping mechanisms constitute a large portion of what we call personality.

We both lived close by, so it was easy for us to become friends. We’d meet on Willow Park Road in the mornings and walk to Cedarwood, through the gate at Popintree Park, diagonally across the soccer pitches and over the railings to the centre. Then home again in the evenings. On Fridays, training courses finished early, so we’d take our merge allowance, buy a few smokes, drifter bars and cans of Coke, and head for the snooker hall in Finglas for a few hours. He was a soccer head, and I played Gaelic Football, so we’d slag each other’s respective games. He’d say Gaelic was a stupid game and had no skill. “Sure, you can kick a ball over the bar from anywhere all day,” he’d say, “there’s no skill in that.” Then laugh his head off at me. No matter what I said, I could never convince him otherwise. I enjoyed those days.

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Jun 27, 202126:36
205 Join Me On Discord
Jun 25, 202108:42
[Excerpt] Motivation To Work with Dmitri Belikov
Jun 21, 202111:31
204 Time & Space

204 Time & Space

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Time and space are important in creative work or, in fact, any work. Any work worth doing can be a creative outlet, but whatever it is, it needs time and space. We like to admire great works of art, and we believe there is something special about the people who create these things. Something special over and above ourselves. We couldn’t possibly come up with something as unique and beautiful as that. We’re inclined to keep moving, keep making whatever it was they taught us, and keep taking their dollar for our trouble. We’re too busy, you see, being something else to someone else and rarely anything ourselves. We have jobs to do, people to see, deadlines to meet and bills to pay. How can we possibly make the time and space we need to do great work? Being busy is more important, and any time we do make for ourselves, we spend it on frivolous things that lack complexity and stimulation.

On art, David Lynch quotes Bushnell Keeler, artist and father of a friend; “If you want to get one hour of good painting in, you have to have four hours of uninterrupted time.” That’s basically true, Lynch says. “You don’t just start painting. You have to kind of sit for a while and get some kind of mental idea in order to go and make the right moves… Then it’s a matter of studying it and studying it, and studying it; and suddenly, you find you’re leaping up out of your chair and going in and doing the next thing.”

I was glad when I read that because it gave me a licence to take my time. I mean, I knew it already, but a part of me questioned it. The thought comes in; you should be doing something, c’mon, you should use your limited time productively. But when I write, I need hours and hours. I can’t just jump into it and write something I consider good. There has to be a lead-in. Like Lynch says, “if you know you’ve got to be somewhere in half an hour, there’s no way you can achieve that.” There needs to be space for the idea to propagate. That means we’ve got to be on our own without distraction to allow the self to show us something.

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Jun 21, 202116:43
203 Fear & Work

203 Fear & Work

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I think the challenge is to be easy about it rather than forceful. I was forceful with my people the whole time. I pushed hard and watched their every move. It’s stifling under that kind of scrutiny. Of course, there have to be standards, and the industry is filled with people with bad habits and poor training who don’t want to improve, to keep higher standards. But that’s the problem when you operate in a game where others decide what your work should look like–you don’t get to be truly creative and so there’s a certain resentment. In a game where the rules are set and people’s creativity is taken from them, they lose their power if indeed they even felt it in the first place. They become disenfranchised and demotivated. There’s no incentive to apply themselves. Ok, there might be a pay packet at the end of the week, but people aren’t motivated by money, not really.

The game is rigged. Humans are robots in the machine of production and consumption. Ever since Frederick Taylor made scientific management a thing, people’s creativity and intuition have been dampened, even removed completely. You could argue that this change came about through industrialisation. Today, instead of being able to think for oneself, to be creative and self-expressive, work has become a measurable and quantifiable exercise where your merit and reward is linked to how many widgets you can make in a minute, an hour, a day, a week. It’s the same in services'; you’ve got to be representative of what the company deems appropriate. Whatever happens, you certainly cannot be yourself.

Read the full article; https://sundayletters.larrygmaguire.com/p/the-gnomic-fear-and-work

Jun 09, 202116:09
202 Is There Anybody Out There?

202 Is There Anybody Out There?

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I started writing things down on paper late at night about fifteen years ago. Sitting on my sofa, half-drunk if I remember correctly, the mot in bed, I wrote my first few words. I was someone else for a period. It’s not who you think I am; it’s someone very different. That’s the thing you see…the one we present is not the same as the one who sits alone on the couch or in the bed at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning contemplating its own existence, trying to figure out where it fits, if indeed it fits at all. This is the nature of our reality that many, I feel, don’t address, can’t address, don’t even see it to address it. Then there are those of us who feel it, the deep dark cavern of confusion and isolation, and ignore it. We keep ourselves busy with things that don’t really matter, convincing ourselves to the contrary for fear of having to face our own unsubstantial reality–knowledge of the one that knows we’re not who we think we are.

I’ve got a little black book with me poems in just like Waters. Maybe I subconsciously selected that colour book because the lyrics meant so much to me as a fifteen-year-old nobody who struggled to fit in. Meant to be, perhaps, his words resonating with my felt experience. Big hands, too, at night, while I drifted in and out of waking consciousness. Hands so big that they were bigger than me. Then there was a beast, a demon with no face and no name, that lurked ominously. There was a small house like the one in Hansel and Gretel. It had a white fence, and there was a girl, and she was in danger. Who was I in all of this? Maybe I was all of it. A psychotherapist and lecturer of mine told me this is always so. It repeated itself for several years, not so much now that I’m older.

But the songs still speak to me, perhaps, even more, today as I come more into the realisation of what I’m not. As I fight to hold onto the idea that I must be something, something to myself and everyone else when in fact, I feel no particular urgency to be anything. Is there anybody out there? I wonder. Who’s asking? Hard to tell.

Read the full essay

Jun 06, 202123:38
201 We're Made For More Than Disturbing Dirt

201 We're Made For More Than Disturbing Dirt

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As I consider the variety of work I do on a daily and weekly basis–work for which I receive payment and not, work I do for pure enjoyment, and work I’d rather not do–it strikes me that most of what feels off about it all, comes from having to do it. It is the sensation that someone or something is looking over my shoulder with a critical eye waiting impatiently for me to fulfil some prior commitment or other. And as this sensation of external pressure weighs on my consciousness, I wonder was it always this way. It seems to me, and I’ve written on this many times before, that with the advent of industrialisation came the widespread imperative to work under command. Although, I will accept that work may have always involved a relatively flush party and another willing to work for some of that gold. With that in mind, perhaps regular joe soap workers have never been free to direct their own work.

Being somewhat obsessed with the nature and value of daily work as I am, and why we seem to have such a dichotomous relationship with it, I bought a few books on the history of work. One is The Oxford Book of Work1, an anthology that draws upon a range of views and experiences of work across the centuries from writers, poets, scientists, clergy, journalists, and laypeople. It’s an account of work over the entire spectrum of life from youth through to retirement contrasting, as the author says, the delights of occupation and the harshness of compulsory labour. Some accounts suggest the glory and honour of work. Others, such as Oscar Wilde, suggest work is mentally and morally injurious.

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May 23, 202126:57
200 A Traumatised Species

200 A Traumatised Species

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I spend a lot of my time observing people. I ask myself, why does this or that person behave as they do? Why do I behave as I do? The reactions are responses to conditions both in and out of our control. In that sense, Skinner was right, but in favour of a reductionist version of reality, he missed the underlying root cause. These conditions could be the most insignificant everyday occurrences, like bumping into someone when you weren’t looking or the choice of whether or not to let someone into your line of traffic. Or they could be catastrophic, like a car accident or the loss of a loved one. In all of these incidents, we show ourselves. And that self we show can be measured and pre-meditated, or it can be unguarded and reactionary. But in all of that, there is the traumatised individual. It is ultimately unavoidable and forms what Jung referred to as the shadow.

Every one of us is traumatised to varying degrees, and it stays with us throughout our lives. We hide it. Some of us hide it very well, and others not so well. Then it explodes in a fit of rage or implodes in a depressive episode and perhaps a suicide attempt. In the homeless drug addict, for example, or the dysfunctional teenager, it may be obvious. It’s easy to see on reality TV; My 600lb Life, Love Island, or any one of the hundreds of reality shows that serve only to commoditise and glorify the most acute manifestations of trauma. We don’t see it in the face of the forty-something mother of three until one afternoon she takes the lives of her three children to save them the pain of her perceived reality. We don’t see it in the everyday actions of the farmer until he kills his lover then burns her on a bonfire of tyres because she was going to leave him. Nor do we see it in the self-employed architect who drops his kids to school every morning, or indeed, in our own compulsive behaviour behind closed doors.

As Freud said, “He that has eyes to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his fingertips; betrayal oozes out of him at every pore.”

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May 19, 202116:05
199 Solving The Self-employment Paradox

199 Solving The Self-employment Paradox

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The guy was an asshole. His only ambition as far as I was concerned was to make me understand the extent of his importance and authority over me. Ever since the day I went against his explicit yet sub-optimal instructions, he was gunning for me. He would show me who was boss, why his shitty ideas were better than mine, and it made my working life miserable.

I put up with the arrangement for about twelve months until I couldn’t take it any more. I handed in my notice, and on my final day on the job, I punched him in the face, pinned him to the ground, and beat the living shit out of him for a good eight minutes… ok, I didn’t. But I wanted to. Such was the extent of the pressure and intimidation I felt from his presence. The horrible, miserable, useless can of piss that he was. He reminds me of Mr Huph in The Invincibles cartoon movie, only his skin was paler, his hair thinner, and his eyes beadier.

That’s the nature of the hierarchical workplace and the power of position to hide personal insecurity and fester narcissistic tendencies. We’re all narcissistic to some extent. We all want to be seen, to be noticed and acknowledged for our work. But sometimes, for some people, that need for external recognition can feel threatening when they’re upstaged. Hierarchically based workplaces tend to allow nasty little bastards like Mr Huph to propagate unchallenged. So we either punch their lights out, or we leave. I left. But maybe Mr Huph did me a favour.

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May 16, 202125:20
198 The Space To Think

198 The Space To Think

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There’s a quote I read recently on the student debt situation in the US attributed to Noam Chomsky that goes like this…

“Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can’t afford the time to think. Tuition fee increases are a “disciplinary technique,” and, by the time students graduate, they are not only loaded with debt, but have also internalized the “disciplinarian culture.” This makes them efficient components of the consumer economy.”

As I sit at my desk this morning feeling the mild yet important sense of urgency to get invoices issued, allocate client payments, and generally get my business affairs in order after a lengthy pause, I realise that this quote applies to us all and in all circumstances. Pressure to fulfil certain obligations focuses the mind, ignoring all other demands for our attention. Where those obligations are financial, and given that money or the lack thereof is often the difference between living and dying, it tends to keep us from matters that are arguably more important to our survival.

The social and cultural imperative to earn and contribute weighs heavy. The idea is so utterly ingrained in our psyche that not to follow the pre-written script for a successful life leads us to believe any alternative to the current system inconceivable. Not to have a degree, for example, is to consign oneself to flipping burgers or sweeping the street and low if that’s the career we want for ourselves or our children. Arguably, an undergraduate degree is not worth the paper it’s written on, given the number of people that hold one. A Masters is hardly even enough to distinguish you from your competition these days.

And perhaps that’s the problem. We’ve entered a game, the only game in town, it seems, that can possibly bring about a life worth living, but it has the opposite effect to the one it promises. It’s almost unquestionable that young people should do anything other than enter college. Machines make furniture and build houses, so manual work is all but gone. And what’s left is so below the required cultural status, it’s not even considered. To do so is to go against the grain and pre-written script of education.

Stephanie Kelton on David McWilliams Podcast

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May 09, 202123:07
197 Racism

197 Racism

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What does it mean to be white, what does it mean to be black, what about all the shades in between, and since when has discrimination be so easy to spot?

Twitter seems to know, so I asked for clarification… I thought the Twitter police would string me up, or worse still, the racism police, but I didn’t get a single response, probably because I’m largely anonymous there.

Social Psychology defines Racism as prejudice and discrimination against people based on their ethnicity or race. Prejudice is an unfavourable attitude toward a particular social group and its members. And Discrimination is the behavioural expression of that prejudice. According to Gordon Allport’s The Nature of Prejudice, prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory behaviour consist of three components;

  1. Cognitive - One’s beliefs about a group
  2. Affective - strong negative feelings about that group and the qualities it is believed to possess.
  3. Conative - Intentions to behave in certain ways towards that group.

Some scholars don’t accept this model. Rupert Brown suggests the following definition;

“…the holding of derogatory attitudes or beliefs, the expression of negative affect, or the display of hostile or discriminatory behaviour towards members of a group.”

I remember when I was a kid in the scouts in the 1980s. We went to an international scouting event in the UK, and my friends and I found ourselves isolated and on the receiving end of a tirade of abuse from an English scout leader. As far as he was concerned, everyone from Ireland at that time was a terrorist. We got an apology, but that didn’t remove the experience of being singled out simply because of where we came from. That was mild compared to what Irish people living in the UK at the time had to endure. The IRA had active units operating in London at the time, and I suppose we could forgive people’s general response. But discrimination against children? Discrimination at all? Maybe not.

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May 03, 202110:56
196 Trading Images of The Self

196 Trading Images of The Self

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We are obsessed with our self-image. Even for most of us who play a very minor role in the grand stage show we call life, there is a desire to be seen in a particular light. Depending on the situation, we may be a leader or follower, the boss or the employee, the parent or the child, the inflictor or the afflicted, the sadist or the masochist. My go-to humanist socialist, Erich Fromm, wrote on this phenomenon extensively1. So too did his predecessor, Sigmund Freud. Both acknowledge the thinness and destructiveness of the surface level self formed through a relationship with its environment.

When we stare into the mirror, we see a reflection. It is a representation of us that serves to reinforce the ideas and concepts we hold of ourselves. We dress up to fulfil that image, and when what we see staring back meets the ideal, we are ready to go out into the world. But weaknesses exist–unacknowledged in large part–and are concealed by a nice haircut, skinny jeans, and new shoes. The image we have borrowed from the world of other people holds a central role in all our affairs and exchanges and protects us from those weaknesses.

Who are we really? We don’t know, but the image will do just fine for now. Kicking the true self further down the road, if indeed it exists, we delay self-realisation and the opportunity to connect with a genuine and authentic version of ourselves. In this sense, the world in all its wonder and depravity is a reflection of all that we perceive ourselves to be. We are a microcosm of the macrocosm.

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May 03, 202121:46
195 Humanity Is A Lipsticked Pig

195 Humanity Is A Lipsticked Pig

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I’m in conflict. I’m always in conflict; it’s the nature of my reality. It’s the nature of your reality too. To wear the blue or the red jumper, have chicken, beef, or a bag of lettuce for dinner, addressing your own mortality, or trying to solve The Collatz Conjecture - we live in a state of questioning. Life is an unsolvable puzzle, a paradox. Like an infinite Russian Doll scenario, it seems there’s no answer to be found. For if there were, what would be the point to life?

I buy into the premise held by Eastern philosophy that says for every dark there is a light, up there is a down, yang there is a yin, and so on. Duality seems to be a fundamental property of what we call reality. Right now, however, in the affairs of human beings, there seems to be a decidedly lengthy period of darkness. We could argue that it’s several thousand years old, and only in the recent one hundred years or so it has become more pronounced.

Technological advancement has brought about many improvements to our lives, but is it really all that wonderful? We’ve got iPhones and the internet, MRI machines and the Mars Rover mission. You can turn the heating on from your mobile phone and video chat with loved ones on the other side of the world. It looks and feels great on the surface, but we get the sense that there’s something funny going on. We’re amused and entertained to such an extent that we can’t see we may have been duped. Look a bit closer, and society takes on the attributes of a lipsticked pig.

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May 03, 202111:52
194 Protecting Your Privacy

194 Protecting Your Privacy

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Over the past twelve months, I have felt an increasing need to protect my internet activity and private data from misappropriation and misuse. An apparent “compromise” of my password information held by Google pretty much made up my mind. I needed to take greater care of my online information and be less reliant on one provider; Google. Not only that, I needed to keep my info to myself rather than give it away for free. However, my attempts to shield myself may be in vain. Here’s what Cnet said recently on Google’s privacy policies;

For example, Google has admitted to scanning your Gmail messages to compile a list of your purchases in spite of publicly declaring in a 2018 press release, "To be absolutely clear: no one at Google reads your Gmail, except in very specific cases where you ask us to and give consent, or where we need to for security purposes, such as investigating a bug or abuse." Perhaps by "no one" Google meant "no human," but in an age of increasingly powerful AI, such a distinction is moot.

Every email you write, and every email you receive via Google’s email servers tells them something about the way you live and work. Google Drive saves your files in a convenient way allowing collaboration with others across the globe, and it’s all free. Brilliant, right? The Google Maps application tells them where you’re going, where you’ve been, and for how long. The search terms you use when looking for garden hose parts, or cake ingredients, might give you the answer you were looking for, but it also tells them who you are.

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May 03, 202117:43
193 Knowing The Pattern

193 Knowing The Pattern

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The English Grand National was on last Saturday and I usually have a punt on a rank outsider. I’m not otherwise into betting, but the Grand National is a bit of a spectacle so it’s fun to have a stake with the rest of the family. Although my wife holds an entirely counter view, you could take the entire horse racing industry and send it to the moon for all I really care.

Pundits talk about odds, and it’s supposed to be an accurate assessment of the horse’s chance of winning, but it’s really “just” the bookies’ opinion. Sure, there is the matter of recent form, the trainer’s expertise, and the skill of the jockey, but bookies sometimes get it wrong. They just need to get it right more often than not and they win. And bookies always win over the long run, just like the house always wins in Vegas, otherwise, they wouldn’t be there.

So when they talk about odds, what they’re really talking about is the pattern. They are up close to the phenomenon and they are familiar with how the pattern plays out. As such, they know how prominent aspects replicate over time. They can’t know the entire pattern, no more than the rest of us can, but they are so close to it, so attentive to it, that they see more than the rest of us. There are aspects they cannot see, and there are aspects that don’t grab their attention for very long because they don’t replicate as often as others. And it is here that our winning of the bet lies.

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May 03, 202113:56
192 Finding A New Way To Work

192 Finding A New Way To Work

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Yesterday I was on to something, but then I lost it. It happens like that; an idea lands, and it writes itself in my head as I brush my teeth or make dinner. If I don’t get it down on paper, I lose it. It disappears back from wherever it appeared like the flame on a dying match. No problem though, there’s always another. That’s what happens when we’ve been doing something for a long time; it produces itself, and we’re merely there to facilitate it. Sunday Letters is on the go since 2015, and before that, I had been using writing as a marketing tool for my work. After over ten years of writing, it has become something more than a means to get what I want. It is a conversation with myself, an attempt to understand what’s going on, to understand myself. I had to learn the hard way how this process works, however. I used to think we could make it happen, you know, success or whatever you want to call it. The material reflection needed to follow. Otherwise, what I was doing wouldn’t work and, therefore, not worth the effort. That’s the measure of it you see. But in that frame of mind, we miss way too much, and we can get lost.

In another location here on Substack, I’ve been writing about leadership as it applies mostly to business, but it’s also applicable to other areas. In particular, I’ve been writing on the essence of the personality type associated with success, with material success. Thus far, I have figured out that if we’re not tuned to the mode of being necessary for success, then we fail. Because, sticking with the business arena for a moment, that world is by its nature highly competitive. That’s the nature of the beast, and if we’re going to enter it, we’ve got to be willing to kill or be killed. In that process, we must take advantage wherever we can get it, and if that means manipulation, deceit, coercion and so on, then so be it. The only thing stopping us is the voice of our own integrity whispering in our ear. But then again, if you listen to that, you’ll likely be eaten.

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May 03, 202123:38
191 Have We Misunderstood The Metaphor?

191 Have We Misunderstood The Metaphor?

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I don’t assign myself to any religion. If anything, I am agnostic as far as God goes. I prefer to think for myself thanks very much. I go inside when I have a problem, and lo and behold! I usually find the answers I need, eventually. I don’t seek solace from the discomfort of my life in any other man’s ideology. And it is an ideology of men, not women. Although women in the Church have been equally guilty of vile abuse of their fellow human beings, it has been power-hungry men at its centre. Our will to respect one another, live in harmony and acknowledge a higher order of reality is merely a convenience that allows bullish narcissistic men to take control.

It’s not only religion that has been guilty. Political ideologies have been just as destructive to society. Of course, they all start out with an apparent great idea and the best intentions, but their dogmatic idealism invariably leaves certain people out. Some pretend to be secular and inclusive, but it’s not long before cracks start to appear and the original idea becomes outdone by an individual and collective sense of importance. The institution now becomes the point of focus rather than the premise on which it was founded, and in that mode of mind, abuse of power usually follows.

If worshipping idols, be they virtual or actual, is your bag, then fire away. It’s not my intent to convince you otherwise. I just don’t understand how any human being in their right mind can bow to an organisation that is so obviously rotten to the core as the Catholic Church. I don’t know why any human being in their right mind does not see the deity in themselves, in fact. Unlike Narcissus, who fell in love with his own image, the self-deity I’m speaking of doesn’t have an image. We’ve got to get behind the veil of the self-image if we are to see it. That’s the tricky bit, and what religion does is present another layer, so instead of becoming clearer, things become more clouded.

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May 03, 202118:37
190 The Degradation of Freedom

190 The Degradation of Freedom

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This week, I’m examining freedom or the absence thereof. The subject is current and apt, given that protests seem commonplace in every major city of the industrialised world these days. Whether it’s outrage at the unlawful death of black Americans, support for an outgoing narcissistic president, riots against the threat to Hong Kong democracy, or demonstrations against Covid restrictions, populations globally are up in arms over infringements to their civil liberty and sense of freedom.

Regarding Covid, the majority seem accepting, albeit reluctantly, of restrictions to free movement and are toeing the line. But many are not. Much to the consternation of the political classes and the conformist middle ground, there is dissent. What is it about this group of people that takes them to the streets in protest in the middle of a pandemic? Are they prepared to risk their lives for their voice to be heard? Is the pandemic a hoax, or are they simply misinformed? (I’m not going to try to answer that one today). Perhaps they are already marginalised, frustrated and ordinarily at odds with the society in which they live, and now Covid has broken their will to patience.

What about the rest of us occupying the middle ground? Maybe we’ve become too soft, too docile, manipulated by media organisations and political actors and pacified by consumerism so much that we can’t see the prison bars. Maybe our comfort has not yet been disrupted to sufficient extents to take us to the streets. What if you were on the bread line and have been there all your life; would you think differently about what’s going on? What’s true is that if we are unwilling to challenge official lines and accept the actions of those who do as fulfilling an important purpose, then we are at risk of becoming what Erich Fromm called “automatised people.” Maybe we are already.

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May 03, 202122:42
189 Watching Someone You Love Pass Away

189 Watching Someone You Love Pass Away

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I was at home at about 9 pm when the phone rang. The hospice called earlier, my sister said. They got a cancer care nurse to assist in the final few days. She had arrived at the house, and it was, in fact, only a matter of hours. I had been over earlier that day, and I knew time was short, but I didn’t think it would be as quick. How could I? It was happening for a while, maybe a year or more before she was diagnosed, but something in me didn’t want to acknowledge. I knew, but I didn’t know. In retrospect, the dots became joined, and her behaviour made sense. I had never experienced someone this close to me die before, and now here I was, about to watch her slip away. Joanne overheard my conversation and suggested I get over there without delay. She’s a hospice nurse and all too familiar with how ends play out.

I was filled with questions, and driving in the dark I felt that any effort to find answers was futile. Our instinct, it seems, is to try to save the ones we love. Just sitting by and watching them deteriorate is counter-intuitive. So we search for something, anything, to keep them here. Second opinions, experimental drugs, alternative treatments, prayers, we do whatever we can, no matter how ultimately useless and dire the situation, to save them. But there was something about her illness that made all of that pointless to me, even naive. Instead, it all simply collapsed into fact, like I was watching from the outside. I was in it, suspended in an alternate universe over which I had no control, like watching a car crash in slow motion and my mother in the driving seat. My role, it seemed, was to offer consolation. I had little else.

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May 03, 202121:25
188 Selling Our Personality

188 Selling Our Personality

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Who are you at work? What persona do you adopt? Is it even fair to assume, or to realise, a separate self to the one that you ordinarily call you? More importantly, perhaps, how does taking on that identity make you feel? It is the you that “feels” to which I refer rather than the name tag and photo on your ID card. Do you know the difference? Often we don’t, and we find ourselves at odds with our daily work. It becomes an exhausting means to an end existence where we run the daily gauntlet of managing our emotions and demands of the job. It takes many of us to the emotional and physical edge.

Youthful, we leave the relative safety of home wide-eyed and full of beans, naive and enthusiastic for our emerging working life. We enter the workplace expecting it to fulfil our material, emotional, psychological needs, and creative needs. Assuming, that is, we’ve followed our curiosity and interest rather than the broadly accepted imperative to make money for money’s sake. Should the latter be the case, we might be happier in our work, knowing that it is a bastard and expecting nothing less than what it has to offer. I’ve met and worked with people that hold this idea. They say, “so what, it’s just a job,” or “nothing personal, it’s only business.” For these actors, the workplace is a volatile, ambiguous, and antagonistic arrangement between parties that are our for gain at the expense of others and indeed themselves. And it takes its toll because, in such arrangements, we are compelled to forgo our sense of humanity.

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May 02, 202120:48
187 Back From The Dead

187 Back From The Dead

I've been considering bringing this bad boy back to life, and while the break has been long, it seems to make sense. I've been writing Sunday Letters since 2015, and while I occasioned to narrate some issues, or at least talk on the particular week's topic, renaming the podcast in line with the newsletter never occurred to me until recently. I launched a new podcast for Sunday Letters but to an empty room and I figured why not just get this show back on track and rename it. So that's what's happening... The Larb is becoming Sunday Letters.

Every Sunday you can get a new edition of Sunday Letters plus an audio version right here. The subject matter will be centred around work, and the happiness and fulfilment we all pursue through it but rarely experience. I think that experience should be different and so each week I write about it. Using the lenses of psychology and philosophy, I examine what work means, why we do it, how we feel about it, and what we'd do if money was not a concern.

Anyway, there's a new episode out on Sunday, and a shorter one on Wednesday. Get on it here.

May 01, 202117:03
EP186 The Final Episode 🙁
Jan 28, 202005:19
EP185 A Question of Free Will

EP185 A Question of Free Will

Read more here; https://larrygmaguire.com/illusion-of-free-will

Support the podcast here; https://www.patreon.com/join/larrygmaguire?

Myself and the big Russian, Dmitri Belikov hooked up last week for the first of a joint discussion on a chosen topic. This week it was Free Will. Do we have free will or are our lives determined by external forces? Are we in control, are we not? It's difficult to form a consistent and long standing answer because there are valid arguments for both free will and determinism. However, we give it a go.

Later in the week I got some of my own thoughts on free will down. Here's and extract; Everyday events seem to be under my control. For example; I can decide that I want to see a band, meet friends and have a few pints, and in that way broadly determine how my Sunday afternoon will play out. But next week, next month, next year and so on, I cannot dictate. I cannot dictate the day that I die or how that eventuality will play out, although I do accept that I seem to have a certain degree of influence over it. In the space between my birth and death, I can influence my general health by making good food and exercise choices, for example. But that too appears of little consequence given the nature of this lottery we often regard life to be.

There seem to be far too many moving parts, most of which I am not aware, influencing the direction of my actions and life experience. My degree of control seems limited. When I make plans for holidays, socialising, attending classes, training and so on, there seems to be ease, a naturalness. There's no forcing myself to do what I need to do. Other times, for other larger "goals" there seems to be a different feeling. Writing this article, for example, is difficult but there's a feeling that it must be done nonetheless. So I do what I need to do, and although not always as efficiently as I'd like, it still gets done. Am I making that decision to do the work or is it being made for me? I can't tell.

Jul 04, 201952:45
EP184 Work

EP184 Work

Read the article; larrygmaguire.com/why-do-we-work/
Support the podcast; Patreon.com/larrygmaguire
Why do we work? What is the purpose of work apart from providing us with money to buy stuff we don’t need and pay bills? Is it possible to be happy and fulfilled in our daily work or are we destined to despise, yet endure its demands on our lives? Sure, we need money in our pockets to function within the societal system, but most of us it seems, are dissatisfied and disengaged 1. We have become robots, and work has become transactional – a binary arrangement. I’ll give you hours if you give me money is our modus operandi. There’s little love in it even for those of us who see our work as vocational. But surely a life worth living has to be built on something more substantial than the prospect of a two week holiday in the sun, a smart home control system, or the future freedom gained from paying off a mortgage. There’s got to be something more to life
Jun 27, 201931:59
EP183 Analogical Thinking: A Method For Solving Problems

EP183 Analogical Thinking: A Method For Solving Problems

Read the article here

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The ability to solve problems is an essential skill for our survival and growth in the fast-paced, moment to moment shifting of modern society. No matter what the domain of expertise or work, challenges present themselves at an ever-increasing rate. And so it should be, for what is a life worth living if we never have problems to solve? We must accept that challenges are inherent in life, and so we must use our imagination and ingenuity to find solutions. Creativity and high performance require it. Although solving problems is never as simple as following a linear process, using lateral thinking processes for generating solutions is a skill we can cultivate, and in this week’s article, I’m taking a look at a couple of examples of analogical thinking in practice. However, take into account that often switching off entirely from the problem can be the best route to the solution you need.

May 23, 201932:52
EP182 The 22 Self Disciplines of Buckminster Fuller

EP182 The 22 Self Disciplines of Buckminster Fuller

Read the article here; https://larrygmaguire.com/self-disciplines-buckminster-fuller/

Support the show here; https://patreon.com/larrygmaguire/

In 1927, Buckminster Fuller found himself in financial ruin and personal turmoil. His first child had died five years earlier, and his business had recently failed, leaving him broke with family and friends who invested in him, at a loss. He drank heavily, was depressed and contemplated suicide, then something changed. As he considered drowning himself in Lake Michigan, he had an epiphany and began to redesign his life. The 22 self disciplines he subsequently established were to become the foundation of a successful career as an inventor, design architect and philosopher. Despite the absence of any third level degree, he lectured at universities and became a sign

May 06, 201935:52
EP181 Narrow And Deep

EP181 Narrow And Deep

Read it here; https://larrygmaguire.com/narrow-and-deep/

Support the show; https://patreon.com/larrygmaguire

In today’s article, I want to get into the subject of going narrow and deep versus going broad and shallow. Some advice suggests we should diversify, be skilled in many areas – broad and shallow in other words. Contrary advice says we should focus intently on one area and become expert at that – narrow and deep. After much inner deliberation, and consideration of my views on the merits in the narrow approach, where creative work is concerned, I find there is a balance that must be met.

Get help with marketing; https://larrygmaguire.com/hire-larry

Feb 03, 201915:21
EP180 Ray Heffernan Creativity & Success

EP180 Ray Heffernan Creativity & Success

Watch it here; https://www.patreon.com/posts/larb-live-with-24176541

Every Friday I take The Larb Podcast Live on Patreon with a guest to discuss creativity and work. Friday 25th Jan, my friend, singer-songwriter Ray Heffernan joined me to discuss the idea that to be truly happy and fulfilled in our work, we must change our transactional relationship with it, develop our creative skills and form true meaning from our work rather than treat it simply as a means to an end. We discuss the pursuit of success, trying to find yourself in the applause of others, and how it ultimately destroys the creative spirit.

Join me and guests LIVE every Friday 18:00 GMT for chats on Patreon

https://www.patreon.com/larrygmaguire


Jan 30, 201953:57
EP179 How Success Happens + Sunday Letters New Format

EP179 How Success Happens + Sunday Letters New Format

Read me here; https://larrygmaguire.com/sunday-letters-new-format/

Support the show; https://patreon.com/larrygmaguire

Sunday Letters has been on the go about 18 months or so and over the 77 odd issues, the format has been pretty much one dimensional and simple: an article. But now it’s time for change.

When I started writing again I decided to forget about monetising and just write about things that interested me. That’s how it needed to be. I was tired of trying too hard, and in the tune of The Artist’s Manifesto, I began to write without much care for anything other than writing.

And that continues, but there feels as though there must be some kind of evolution in the nature of what I write.

For you folks who have been reading me for this long, you deserve more.

So comes a new format.

Jan 27, 201933:22
EP178 Creativity with Johnny Helleland

EP178 Creativity with Johnny Helleland

Read Larry here; https://larrygmaguire.com

Support the show; https://patreon.com/larrygmaguire

The Larb Podcast and all articles on the blog are accessible for free. It takes a lot of time to produce but do it because I like to. If you'd like to support the show, head over to Patreon.com/larrygmaguire and buy me a pint 🍺.

In this midweek episode, you can check out chats I had last Friday on The Larb Livestream with Johnny Helleland https://www.motion-effect.com . We discussed creativity and work, what it means to fly your own kite. Check it out 👆

Jan 17, 201947:50
EP177 Letting It Happen

EP177 Letting It Happen

Read it here; https://larrygmaguire.com/letting-it-happen/

Support the show; https://patreon.com/larrygmaguire

Today’s Sunday Letters article is an extract from The Artist’s Manifesto chapter three and looks at the contrast between letting it happen versus making it happen. The popular advice and resultant often unchallenged perceptions are that if something is to materialise in our experience then we’ve got to make it happen. It’s as if our precise detailing and planning are paramount and without them, we fail. But this is a false idea. Often, it is our allowing things to happen on their own, our detachment from the result is what brings us to those experiences we crave. 

Jan 13, 201924:05
EP176 Too Much Data

EP176 Too Much Data

Read me here; https://larrygmaguire.com/too-much-data/

Support the show; https://www.patreon.com/larrygmaguire

Is it that there is too much data vying for our attention or is it perhaps that there’s too much of our attention competing for all that data?

It’s an interesting consideration because you see, certain populist commentary can lead us to believe that everything out there is the problem – there are too many advertisers, marketers and media outlets who want to sell us on their idea or product.

And to a certain extent that is true.

Everywhere we look someone is trying to sell us something.

All it takes it seems is a motor company or financial institution to flash a bright shiny idea of a better life for us to get sucked in.

Jan 07, 201918:05
EP175 The Anthesis Of Goal Setting

EP175 The Anthesis Of Goal Setting

Read me here: https://larrygmaguire.com

Watch the rerun here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/podcast-live-of-23639595

In this the first live episode of The Larb, I'm discussing the antithesis of goal setting. The overwhelming thrust of success advice being carried on the digital airwaves this time of year leans heavily towards goal setting and New-Year New-You Resolutions. It's where gurus and "influencers" attempt to convince you to take a generally fruitless and self defeating route to a future better version of you, as if one exists. Here I present you with perhaps a not so radical alternative...

Dec 31, 201833:59
EP174 Reading: Preface The Artist's Manifesto

EP174 Reading: Preface The Artist's Manifesto

Download the new FREE version of The Artist's Manifesto; https://larrygmaguire.com

Today's episode is the second from final episode of 2018 and I'm reading from the preface to the book due for release in January '19. It was late. Joanne and the kids were asleep. As I sat at the kitchen table, at odds with myself and the work I was in, I began to write the first words of what I would later call The Artist’s Manifesto. I had recently taken a project management role with an engineering firm as a short-term solution to a difficult financial situation. Previous to that, a business I had spent 15 years building had failed. I needed to find my place again. The content I was writing had occupied my mind in fragmented chunks for a long time, and late in the silence, as the clock clunked on the wall, it began to come together.

Dec 27, 201821:02
EP173 Creative Isolation (Oh, and Happy Christmas!)

EP173 Creative Isolation (Oh, and Happy Christmas!)

I've been off the airwaves for about 10 weeks or so - taking a break and considering the direction of the show. So before 2018 expires I wanted to get one more show out and share some stuff happening in 2019. Read the article here; https://larrygmaguire.com/creative-isolation/

Dec 24, 201817:02
EP172 Political Cybernetic Organisms

EP172 Political Cybernetic Organisms

Read Larry here; larrygmaguire.com
Support the show here; patreon.com/larrygmaguire

I flicked on Twitter this morning and I watched a short video of a US politician running for election to the House of Representatives being interviewed about a comment she made about something or other. It was controversial and the reporter latched on to it. He pressed her for an answer but she maintained a robotic political response and it made me think. Political responses allow us to align with the bureaucracy of institutional thought, blocking out intuitive ideas and connection to other human beings. It is forebrain linear thinking at its most dangerous, allowing us to justify all kinds of insane behaviour. It's predominant and I think its getting worse. People are worried about AI, and maybe rightly so, but perhaps it's still human beings, incapable of understanding who they are at a deeper level of existence that is the real danger.
Oct 16, 201821:35
EP171 React On Impulse Or Keep Your Mouth Shut?

EP171 React On Impulse Or Keep Your Mouth Shut?

I want to talk to you; goo.gl/forms/zp1ir9G7uERtGmuE2
This week on the show I'd like to tell you a little about a new series I'm starting in January 2019. For the next 8 or 9 weeks, I'll be hooking up with people like you, people engaged in work that engages them and featuring these discussions on the podcast. So if you'd like to get involved just fill out the Google Form at the link above.

Also this week, I'm discussing the rights and wrongs of reacting on impulse. Should you fly off the cuff when someone pisses you off, or should you swallow how you feel and move on?
Oct 14, 201837:41
EP170 What Is An Artist?

EP170 What Is An Artist?

Read the article; larrygmaguire.com/what-is-an-artist
Support the show; patreon.com/larrygmaguire

What is an artist? What is art? How is an artist defined and who exactly gets to set the definition? Is everyone an artist like Picasso said or is it that creative genius is reserved for those fortunate enough to be blessed with talent at birth as the ancient Greeks and Romans believed?

Some ideas of what constitutes art, and as a consequence, the artist, are narrow and elitist. Some, such as this manifesto, are open and all-inclusive, suggesting that everyone is an artist albeit perhaps lying in wait.

In this opening chapter, we will explore the possible answers to these questions and the nature of what it means to be an artist. We will look at what recent history says about art and seek to dispel some of the popular conventions we have established relating to art and work.
Oct 07, 201820:36
EP169 The Iron Skillet

EP169 The Iron Skillet

Read me here; larrygmaguire.com
Support the show here; patreon.com/larrygmaguire
About 4 years ago I bought an iron skillet. It's heavy and solid and it cooks food something great, especially steaks. As I looked at the iron skillet earlier today, it reminded me of something important that I think is usually lost on most of us. I want to share that with you now.
Oct 02, 201825:11
EP168 How To Create Order From Chaos

EP168 How To Create Order From Chaos

Read the article here; larrygmaguire.com/order-from-chaos/
Support the show here; patreon.com/larrygmaguire
In today’s Sunday Letters, I’m taking a look at how we can create order from chaos. I’m staying with The Artist’s Manifesto until publication on October 15th, and This article is part two of chapter eight, titled; The Creative Self. Many of us in western industrialised society do not believe ourselves to be creative. We assign creativity to those we see as having natural talent, assuming that the expression of creative or artistic ability is inherent in some but not in all. We believe that we were not bestowed the gift and therefore shouldn’t waste our time. Besides, in the practical world of things to pursue the creative life is risky and can never pay the bills.
Oct 01, 201834:26
EP167 The Creative Self: Who's Doing The Making?

EP167 The Creative Self: Who's Doing The Making?

📖 Read it here; larrygmaguire.com/creative-self
🍺 Buy me a pint here; patreon.com/larrygmaguire
Do know who you are? Are you consistent and steady in your daily creative endeavours, confident in the face of the sometimes harsh responses to your work? Or maybe there is silence, nobody pays attention. How does that affect you, the you that you think you are? In this chapter, we will explore the nature of the self from the perspective of creativity. We will look at influences to our self-identity and self-concept and explore why these can sometimes have a negative impact on success in our chosen domain. We will also examine the relationship between that which we conceive ourselves to be and the source of creative inspiration.
Sep 25, 201832:24