Charming town of Lunenburg in Nova-Scotia, captured by 📸 @whitexcanvas thanks !
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Robert Harris’s novels are wonderfully tart confections of political conspiracy, opportunism, cynicism, and vainglory. He has found his material in ancient Rome, France of the Dreyfus Affair, Bletchley Park, a (counter-factual) victorious Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, a rogue hedge fund, and the so-called War on Terror. Conclave, his eleventh fictional engagement with high-stakes intrigue, goes straight for the mother lode: the Vatican.
It is 2018, and a pope who resembles the present one in humility, charity, and tolerance has died unexpectedly in his sleep. Cardinals from all over the world are assembling in Rome to choose his successor. The media are slavering, “reporters and photographers . . . calling out to the cardinals, like tourists at a zoo trying to persuade the animals to come closer.” Armed guards, snipers, and surface-to-air missiles have been deployed against the threat of terrorist attack. Carpenters and technicians are preparing the Sistine Chapel for the electoral proceedings, and a number of cardinals begin to position themselves to step into the papal shoes. Factions and coalitions emerge in different permutations: progressive and reactionary parties, combining and splitting with the Italian, Third World, and North American contingents. Beneath it all, churning relentlessly, are the forces of what we may call the deep Curia.
We see events through the eyes of the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Romeli, an old, modest, and sincerely devout man whose “guilty recreation” is, appropriately enough as it turns out, reading detective fiction. It is his duty to officiate over the conclave and assure that it runs smoothly — which I’m happy to say it does not. A speedy election is desired lest it appear that the Church is falling into terminal discord. But perhaps it is. Romeli learns that, toward the end of his life, the late pope had lost his faith in the Church and, along with that shocker, had made some exceedingly strange decisions. On the very day of his death, he had met privately with one powerhouse cardinal, an aspirant to the papacy, and removed him from all his offices — then died before making the decision effective. What was that all about? And will this last act come out in the conclave? Furthermore, the old pontiff had also appointed a new cardinal whose existence had not been suspected until he arrives on the scene. What’s going on here?
Before unleashing the answers to these crucial question, Harris gives us a few splendidly satirical pictures of the workings of the Vatican, not least in the matter of ecclesiastical pelf. There is the American cardinal “who might come from New York and look like a Wall Street banker” but is not at all up to the job of straightening out the financial management of his department. As one old Italian cardinal remarks to Romeli, he would “never have given the job to an American. They are so innocent: they have no idea how bribery works.” We are also introduced to a dead ringer for the real Cardinal Bertone, whom the actual Pope Francis has censured for his extravagance in knocking together two Vatican apartments to create a vast luxury pad for himself.
As politicking commences and picks up heat, secrets from the past erupt to bury the candidacies of a couple of cardinals. Harris, the writer, loves the maneuverings and machinations of power-mongers, but he is just as superb here in showing men of true faith wrestling with the legitimacy of their own wishes and trying to fathom God’s will as events unfold. He goes so far as to suggest the presence of the Holy Spirit when Romeli discards a prepared homily to deliver an impromptu one of a completely different tenor before the assembled cardinals. It is a speech that sets the conclave on a most unexpected path.
I know this is all rather obscure — that’s the Vatican for you — but I don’t wish to reveal the plot elements that keep the book going against the countervailing force of Harris’s unremitting attention to rules of order and the arcana of ceremonial habiliments and accessories. Just when the story is getting a good head of suspense going, some matter of procedural housekeeping is explained in detail, or our old friend Cardinal Romeli starts putting on or taking off his choir dress, a great assemblage that includes scarlet cassock with thirty-three buttons (“one button for each year in Christ’s life”), cincture with tassel hanging midway up the left calf, rochet, mozzetta, zuchetta, pectoral cross, skull cap, and biretta.
Well before the end of the novel, it becomes clear where things are heading — even if certain details are a bit of a surprise. All in all, Conclave is not one of Harris’s best works; still, the political aspects of papal selection, the pressure of the “news cycle,” and the wheeling and dealing and backstabbing are excellently realized and put forward with a good deal of sardonic wit. This is where Harris excels and why one waits so impatiently for his next offering.
The Barnes & Noble Review http://ift.tt/2gGzH3E
“People ask me how I make music. I tell them I just step into it. It’s like stepping into a river and joining the flow. Every moment in the river has its song.”
― Michael Jackson
Have you ever felt the feeling of being fully present and in the moment where everything just connected? That moment where the mind subsided and the activity felt pure and simply immense?
Flow is simply a state of heightened focus and immersion in activities such as art, play or work. It’s a state of being in which we become fully present, alert, focused, fully charged and ready to perform; those moments where it all simply comes together; that bit of inspiration where all our worries disappear and we become completely immersed in what we are doing.
We have all experienced flow in areas of our life. It can be as simple as playing with your kids, training in a sport, or performing a task at work. It’s an optimal state of consciousness; a peak state where we perform at our highest and feel at our best.
We see flow regularly performed by elite athletes. It’s that bit of magic that takes your breath away, whether it was a Michael Jordan three-pointer, a Tiger Woods hole in one, a Murray backhand, a Conor McGregor knockout or that David Beckham free kick.
Flow enhances the energy in the performer. It’s an encompassing energy that can be picked up by the audience, your teammates or your family. It brings connection, not only through skill and performance but a connection through spirit, dedication, and application.
Having a clear framework will really help you build flow into your daily life. If we can begin to create more automation in our life, we can then begin to actively add flow into points in our day. Let’s start with some key factors that help increase flow. Once you nail the basics we can look at adding it to your day-to-day routines.
1) You have a clear set of goals
2) The challenge needs to be ‘in the gap’ of boredom and anxiety, therefore the task is not so hard that your fear levels go through the roof, but also is not too dull: as attention falls, your engagement deteriorates
3) You are fully focused on what you doing, completely present
4) You can get some direct feedback, whether through a teacher/coach or the environment
5) You enjoy a sense of control
6) You experience deep involvement in what you are doing: the everyday stress of life seems to vanish
7) Your sense of self disappears, but paradoxically your sense of self emerges stronger
8) Your sense of time disappears
9) Time flies – during the activity, time seems to move quickly as you are enjoying the process
See Also: 4 Sure-Fire Ways to Motivate Yourself to Reach Your Goals
1) Engaging environment: an environment that is rich with novelty, complexity and unpredictability can increase flow. You are forced to use your tools and skills in that moment, e.g asking someone on a date, finding the right environment to meet new people, etc
2) Relationships: relationships are so important to any successful endeavour so here are a few key points to optimize flow within them
3) You are the average of the five people you associate with the most, so choose your relationships wisely
4) Listening: a huge skill to cultivate in any team. Creating a flowing culture and having top communication can massively impact confidence and decision making. Seek first to understand others, delegate and build a proactive team/culture
5) Familiarity: keeping everyone on the same page once the goals are set and keeping members engaged and fulfilled is the key to success
6) Equal contribution (skill level): when everyone is on the same page and contributing equally, we create a gateway to flow
7) Group flow: there is no group flow without the risk of failure. Simply changing the group’s relation to risk and fear can increase flow. We can always have a contingency plan in place, but by simply addressing the fact that there is no creativity without failure. Creativity, innovation, failure and risk go hand-in-hand.
See Also: Solving Workplace Problems with a Culture of Creativity – 10 Strategies
If the environment has high-risk consequences, flow can be triggered very quickly as it’s a do-or-die situation. This is at the extreme end of performance and includes activities like skydiving, surfing, motocross etc. This type of environment will drive your focus levels through the roof. There is little time to think and you are forced to focus, as diverting your attention away from the activity could end in injury.
We are all creative. Simply put, we all have the ability to unleash our creative endeavours. If we combine both pattern recognition (the ability to link and learn new ideas) and our level of risk, we raise our level of flow.
These rules can be used as a guide to help you get started. Can you apply any of these to a sport you are currently training in, a work role, your workout routine, writing or another daily ritual? Start with one area of your life, then you can begin to add it to other areas.
Remember, always start small. Begin by adding one rule/trigger at a time. This could be simply starting something brand new like learning a language, instrument or martial art; something that allows you to use these rules and triggers.
You could start with a dream you have, a routine, your diary, anything! Take the first step and always remember, it’s taking actionable steps into it which will propel you forward.
2. Set some clear goals within that activity
3. Find an environment that will enhance this like a new gym or new class
4. Get feedback
Step into flow today and discover the secret to high performance and happiness!
The post Flow: Discovering The Secret to High Performance and Happiness appeared first on Dumb Little Man.
From the architect. The commission is from two young surfer brothers with the need to build a house for each in an area where the sea views are favored for both houses.
The idea is to generate narrow volumes to open views of the neighboring sites behind and each other.
Seeking height to see the wave from the inside, the houses rise from the ground level with a wooden structure with stilts in an area, and a concrete base in another.
Sliding partitions allow to separate or join the master bedroom with the living-dining area, achieving greater breadth to the spaces.
A terrace on the roof takes advantage of the view of the waves.
The views to the north and south are closed, to achieve privacy within the spaces.
A simple materiality was considered (wood, forest area) and local labor (very cheap). The structure is made of black pinewood. The interior finishes of the walls and ceilings are 1″x8″ natural color pine, and floors in 1″x2″ tongue and groove pine also natural color, with vitrification. The wood deck terraces are made of vitrified cypress. The completion of the exterior 1″x8″ pine wood walls is impregnated and dark oak color.
