The Fertile Void.

Suzanne Braun Levine writes in Inventing the Rest of Our Lives: Women in Second Adulthood about the fertile void, a bewildering but necessary hiatus.

It's a place of change where women feel stuck.

The typical reaction for Type As is to do more. Women end up spinning their wheels. When, of course, the cure for "stuck" is "still."  Saying no and letting go.

Businesses have fertile voids, too.

I know because I am working with a client who is constantly aflutter with the buzz of recreation. She is pushing quickly for a logo, a tagline, web content, seminars, flyers.

She wants to communicate--now.

Yet I have counseled her to to slow down.  To observe. To dream.  To be patient. To listen.

She's smart and spiritual, so she gets it.

The words can wait a couple of weeks until the message is clearer.  And she is more settled.

The fertile void doesn't last.  But it must be acknowledged and honored, both personally and professionally.

Indeed, the Sum is Greater Than Its Parts.

It's slim in size and each story is a sliver: two pages or less. But the impact is mighty. 

Truly, the Sum is greater than its parts.

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by neurologist David Eagleman, is so clever, so thought-provoking, so audacious, I wanted more. 

In some tales of life after death, God is a She.  In others, you get to be all ages simultaneously. In the aftterlife, he imagines we are all part of a cast, be in Congress, a play or a company.

And then there are the Death Switches that use passwords to help us communicate from beyond the grave.

Far from grim, often witty, this is a wonderfully imagined collection of wistful tales at the intersection of death, hope, love and technology.

http://www.amazon.com/Sum-Forty-Tales-Afterlives-Vintage/dp/0307389936/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315503725&sr=8-1

Some Days You Sweat It.

I don't usually use this space to write personal missives.  I'm on Facebook for that.

But this past week was consumed with buying a car.  In 115 degree heat. 

I don't advise this. Especially if you are OCD.

After consulting friends and doing all the Internet research, I drove seven SUVs. I paid attention to TV ads.  I scoured parking lots for like vehicles. I weighed options, I crunched numbers.

Finally, I made a decision and began negotiating.

I wish I could say I enjoyed the experience, but honestly, I found it mostly tedious, often aggravating and once, infuriating.

Now that the process is in the rearview mirror, so to speak, I am taking my new Forester to The Grand Canyon.

I think the heat and the frustration will fade when Arizona's beauty unfolds in my windshield.

And all the sweat will have been worth it.

   

Are You Real?

Authenticity is an experience:  http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/joseph_pine_on_what_consumers_want.html 

Buy This Magazine.

Found this brillantly written quarterly from the editors of The Economist last month in the Frankfurt airport ...still reading it.

http://moreintelligentlife.com/

Four Words to Kick-Start Your Week.

Riposte
Snarl
Preen
Muster

Details are in the Dump Truck.

Economic, but colorful.

In the August issue of Men's Journal, Josh Eels delivers a spot-on physical description of musician Jamey Johnson:

"Johnson is the antithesis of a polished pop star.  He has a body like a dump truck and the facial hair of a Himalayan yak." 

Tell me you can't picture that. 

http://www.zinio.com/article/article.jsp?popularityExcerptId=791000