title | Arsène Hodali

The Constant Struggles Of Our Lives And Why I’m Begging You To Keep Going

“Not being racist is not some default starting position. You don’t simply get to say you’re not a racist; not being racist — or a sexist or a homophobe — is a constant, arduous process of unlearning, of being uncomfortable, of eating crow and being humbled and re-evaluating.” ~ G.D. of Postbourgie

You know what’s hard? Being good.

Doing the right thing and choosing the ‘right’ path is extremely hard. And it doesn’t get any easier with time (sorry to disappoint).

The only thing that changes with time is your reaction to the struggles in your life. Overtime, as you continue to pick the right, but difficult, choice it’ll become a habit. You’ll come to realize that the choice in which you struggle the most is most likely the best one. Sure, now and again you’ll pick the one with the least amount of struggling on your end – but you usually realize that you chose wrong (I know I have). Moving on from that in itself is a struggle. (Ask any ex-smoker, each slip up made it that much harder to quit, but they had to continue trying to quit.)

Unbeknownst to most is that we’re actually faced with tons of choices every day that require us to make a choice between the path of least resistance (struggle) and the path of most: Continue Reading →

The Good Life Playlist: A Pep Talk In Text Form

A while back I ran across a post by Frank Chimero in which he described how he kept a text playlist:

“[O]ne made of the best writing on the web I come across. I take this list and revisit and reread it every 4 to 8 weeks. You could almost consider it a playlist of text: it’s very select (I artificially limit it to 10-15 articles), I typically read them all in one sitting, and the order and pacing is very purposeful. Most revolve around what it’s like to be making things in 2010, and a lot of the people that I respect the most have pieces in it. It’s almost a pep talk in text form. I visit it when I’m down, when I’m lazy, when I’m feeling the inertia take over.”

Wow, I was at a lose for words. A pep talk in text form – so brilliantly simple!

Not one to stand still when something catches my interest, I feverishly spent the next couple of hours rounding up all of my favorite writings, talks, poems, and speeches, etc.. And from that I picked my top 5 (which was most difficult to do) in order to make it a list that I could review in full once a month quickly (in an hour or less) without loosing any of the ‘pep talk’ effect.

I should have talked about this earlier, but I didn’t want to talk about my “Good Life Playlist” until I had spent at least two months finding out for myself how well it worked. And boy, does it work.

This short playlist consisting of poetry, talks, writing, and photography has for the past two months helped me in ways I couldn’t begin to describe. It’s helped me remember over and over why I chose to be different, why I chose to make my own future rather than hand it to someone else, and why I am on this path even when the easiest (conforming to the status quo) was the most pleasant path in most situations. My playlist reminds me of why I do what I do; in order to lead a good life.

My “Good Life Playlist” currently consists of:

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10 Things Dance Taught Me About Life (Part 2)

As I said in Part 1, dance is synonymous with life. And thus, one can learn countless things about life by examining dance. For the first five life lessons learnt through dance check part one of this two part series. For now, I’m going to jump straight to where I left off.

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10 Things Dance Taught Me About Life (Part 1)

If you haven’t heard, I’m a dancer. In the literal sense, and in the sense of a dancer being someone who enjoys the movement of life in an artistic sort of way.

I never started dancing thinking I would learn any big life lessons (it was just something cool at the time). Yet here I am, writing about what dance taught me about life. Why?

Well, because dance and life are synonymous in a lot of ways. They both consist of movement and motion, of trying to grasp something beyond yourself (this can be spiritual, artistic, etc.- anything that makes you feel alive, outer-body, and lifted), and of enjoying yourself in the process of grasping that which is bigger than yourself.

And since there aren’t many bloggers out there who dance professionally and write about improving the self at the same time, I might as well do so since I find myself overqualified in both areas. So… let’s begin.

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Do Less – Do It Better.

Do less and do better.

There are countless things you could be doing with your time. Some things deserve your attention, and some things don’t. Your family deserves your attention. Reality television doesn’t. Your health deserves your attention. Your neighbors income doesn’t. Continue Reading →

The Fall Of The “How To” And The Rise Of The “Why To”

Search for eHow online and you’ll be bombarded with tons of How To’s and a thriving website. But try that with eWhy and you get a practically non-existent website.

How come there are no Why To’s on the web? And yet so many How To’s?

I do get it from a certain mindset – the world is a scary place and it’s getting more and more complicated by the day. How To’s make it easier for us to do the things we want to do.

We want to bake a cake for our soon to arrive guests yet we don’t know how, we search “How to bake a cake”; we want to pick our own locks because we’re trapped outside with no key, we search “How to pick a lock”; we want to make money online because our jobs suck, we search “How to make money online”; And on, and on, and on. (Surprisingly one of the top hits for “How to” is “How to shower”.) How To’s help us in a moment of crisis, How To’s help us learn things we weren’t taught in school, and How To’s help us help ourselves.

But isn’t WHY as, if not more, important as how?

Shouldn’t we slow down a little and ask ourselves why we’re doing so and so? Why am I baking this cake? Why am I picking my own lock? Why am I working at a job I hate? Continue Reading →

Stock And Flow: The Hard Part’s The Switch

Stock and flow is something you learn about in economics.

To simplify it all there are two kinds of quantities in the world; stock and flow. Stock is a static value (the in-rest value): the money in your bank, and the houses on a block. Flow is the rate of change (the in-movement value): the money you make per month, or how many hairs you lose as you get older.

Economics should in no way interest you (it interests me, but I’m weird), but what should interest you is how Robin Sloan applied it to media.

In his own words:

Flow is the feed. It’s the posts and the tweets. It’s the stream of daily and sub-daily updates that remind people that you exist.

Stock is the durable stuff. It’s the content you produce that’s as interesting in two months (or two years) as it is today. It’s what people discover via search. It’s what spreads slowly but surely, building fans over time.

Robin goes on to talk about how with the ever growing ease of communication we have with one another (thank you technology) the more we focus on flow and neglect stock. Robin emphasis a balance between the two. That we do both.

And I agree with Robin. Stock and flow are both necessities. We need to stop, hide in our caves for a bit, and build the truly great things while remembering to come out once in a while to connect with people and let them know we’re still alive.

Yet why do so many of us focus on only one and not on both at the same time? Is it because we haven’t become aware of stock and flow yet? I don’t think so.
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Why You’re 100% Selfish

Yesterday, as I sat down for one of my thinking sessions, I came to a realization that, for lack of a better word, astounded me. That realization was that we are all selfish. And not just at a minimum; entirely selfish.

None of us are selfless.

This doesn’t have to be a downer though (I’m not saying this just to ruin your day), there are many positives that come out of us being selfish. First of, the good news is that we are not intentionally selfish (which is a good thing); We are selfish as a by-product.

We are selfish as a by-product of us having feelings.

I’ll start from there.

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I’m Scared Of Being My Parents

For the FearTales series that I have running, I’ve been asking a couple of friends of mine to talk about something that they were scared of and how they overcame it. These were very personal stories, so each one I recieved I handled with the utmost care. It means a lot to be trusted with someone’s personal story.

So, even if I haven’t truly conquered it yet, I find it only fitting that I (finally) share my own.

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The Power Of A Question, Questioned

Questions, questions, questions… Where do I begin? How about with a question?

How important are questions in your life?

Do you recognize the great importance of them? Do you acknowledge that the right question surpasses the right answer? Do you realize that the right question can change a person’s life?

But, let’s back up a bit.

What is a question?

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My “Good Life Playlist” currently consists of:

Do less and do better.

What is a question?