"Adventure," then, is what might otherwise be called a hardship if it were attempted in a different spirit. Turning a difficult task or a perilous journey into an adventure is largely a matter of telling yourself the right story about it... (p.57)
Stories are what make heroes. You can only become a hero by participating in a story, and stories bestow meaning on what might otherwise look like raw suffering and waste.
This, of course, is not always a virtue. You can get people to do a lot of difficult, unpleasant, and dangerous things by convincing them that someday a golden story will be spun out of the straw of their mortal lives. (p.59)But where could I put these words so I could find them again, without having to dig up the book? (a book which by that time would probably have been lent to a friend, who would likely have forgotten to return it!) What I wanted was a space where I could gather and save the interesting ideas or beautifully phrased comments or cool web tidbits I come across from time to time—things that don't necessarily have anything to do with food or cooking, which is the topic of my other blog. In the past, these jewels have just gone into my handwritten journal, but that makes them very difficult to retrieve.
A new blog seemed the solution, and so here it is. A new experiment. No promise to post regularly or even to deliberately share this with anyone else. Just my personal collectanea—and occasional musings to help me remember why I thought these tidbits worth preserving.
