I’m reconnecting with my ‘Gems’ series with this post and I hope it becomes more than an occasional feature now as I settle back into more regular blogging.
Like many bloggers, I find it valuable to gather together and share inspiring links, visuals and reads. These are also some of my most enjoyable blog reads of the week as I see what others have discovered and are reading, and wander off into cyberspace following their tracks.
Some of my favourite inspirations are:
Corbae Cafe’s ‘This Week’s Enthusiasms’
Susannah Conway’s ‘Something for the weekend’
Tammy Strobel’s ‘Inspiring Links’
Most of the weekly round-ups I read tend to be whatever is inspiring or of interest; everyone has their unique flavour which I love. My ‘Gems’ have evolved to focus on a theme. I tend to find themes popping up and collecting together as I read the net and elsewhere through the week. My associative mind tends to group them and make connections and I have found this a useful way to write about them, bringing different threads together.
Here is a round-up of the previous ‘Gems’ posts and their focus:
Gems #12 Planning and productivity
Gems #9 Shining light on yourself
Gems #7 On creativity and solitude
Gems #6 Encouragement, kindness and resilience
Gems #5 Facts, inspiration and story
Gems #4 Putting yourself out there
Gems #3 Untitled – the earlier ones are a bit less connected; this post features Chris Guillebeau’s great ‘Free Advice’ post, self-publishing and memoir writing
Gems #2 Untitled as above – Susannah Conway’s book announcement and Stephen Cummings’ lyric
The theme surrounding me at present is ‘Travelling Light’. This is about having less belongings, less clutter and moving about with less stuff generally in the world. It’s also about travelling a little lighter here in ‘Transcending’ from time to time and not feeling like every post has to be huge, crafted and heavy. There’s an opportunity to free things up with more visuals, less words, less structure and interspersing the more fully developed posts with lighter ones.
The reading that has influenced my thinking most this week has been ‘Go Small, Be Happy‘ by Tammy Strobel in the Huffington Post. This is such a beautifully written piece; as Victoria Smith says, Tammy’s ‘clear, clean writing is always such a breath of fresh air.’ Documenting the journey on simplifying her life, living in a mobile home, getting rid of many belongings and reducing debt, Tammy shows how all this change over time has made her more flexible, happy and able to focus more on the people in her life.
Susannah Conway has also written about the experiences of travelling light on her recent book tour in ‘ The carry-on experiment’, Susannah shares her experiences of the freedom of moving around more lightly and efficiently in her travels as well as some of the practicalities of this. Others also writing about lighter packing this week include Leo and Eva Babauta at zenhabits in16 essential trips for travelling with a family and Eva’s list: Travelling light for women.
I’m about to enter a period with a fair amount of travel and moving around for work so will be reading more closely to see if I can make this time less hassled and more productive and streamlined. I have a lot to learn, I can tell you! Light packing is not a current strong point of mine.
Finally, I am thinking about how I can travel lighter here in my blogging. My tendency is towards intensive, crafted posts that are focused on my main love of writing. I will still keep the writing focus, but also keen to see how I can mix this up with lighter, more visual posts. I’ve signed up for ‘The August Break 2012‘ to help me do this. Fortunately as with all of Susannah Conway’s creative ventures, there are few or no rules, but a cleverly constructed framework for engagement with visuals and other creative people, seeing how this can give you inspiration as well as a lighter touch in the blogging world.
I’m looking forward to this as an opportunity to reduce my reliance on the written word, develop the visual side of ‘Transcending’ and also reconnect with my love of photography. I’ll be out and about a bit more, so a good time to be seeing new things and documenting them in different ways. It will still probably be mostly iphone and instagram pics but I’ve also charged up the Nikon battery and plan to read about polaroids as well through Susannah’s ‘Instant Love‘. So all in all, a perfect time to travel with the light of photography here.
So this week’s thoughts are all about rethinking attachment to belongings, how much I need to carry with me and how I can move more lightly about the world and here in my blog space.
How are you travelling, or seeking to travel, light?
Hope you enjoy the August break.
I tend to carry a lot of baggage. I am finding that I am able to toss out more books as I get older (though I still have lots more than usual).
Thanks Evan! Books will always be my Achilles heel as I love them so.