Notes for Radical Living by Tilda Swinton

Notes for Radical Living by Tilda Swinton

Make friends with chaos
Hold a calm mind
Let things shake
Forgive human frailty
Champion second chances
Defy kindness
Reverence fellowship
Listen to the quiet
Respect the young
Seek growth
Trust in change
Treasure learning
Inspire faith in evolution
Reach beyond the binary
Be wary of the doubtless
Honor the bright headed
Grow plants
Attend to the weather
Be electric
Cherish language
Celebrate silence
Dance daily
Bless the handmade
Sing into pain
Challenge assumptions
Follow the wind
Look upwards
Swoon under clouds
Feel your courage
Face forward
Read history
Open your ears
Drop your shoulders
Bend your knees
Raise the roof
Keep breathing
Be trustworthy
Take care of yourself
Believe in goodness
Head for the light

--from Tilda Swinton’s 2025 book “Ongoing”

https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780847860517/

How Much Heart

“The only calibration that counts is how much heart people invest, how much they ignore their fears of being hurt or caught out or humiliated. And the only thing people regret is that they didn't live boldly enough, that they didn't invest enough heart, didn't love enough. Nothing else really counts at all.”
--Ted Hughes, from LETTERS OF TED HUGHES

Just a reminder: there are consequences...

"3:45" by Alisha Liu

CalArts animation student Alisha Liu created a gentle, optimistic short film called "3:45." I will say that I do what the young character in this film does, but instead of seeing one side or the other, I usually see both...at the same time...macro and micro...welcome to my head...

https://alishaliu.com/

The Experience

“You will never be able to experience everything. So, please, do poetical justice to your soul and simply experience yourself.”
--Albert Camus

“In Zen, we don’t find the answers; we lose the questions.”
--Zen saying

Wading Through Time

“The years teach what the days never know.”
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There comes a time when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertow- that, in short, we are all going.”
--John Green, in his book LOOKING FOR ALASKA

"All We Do" by Oh Wonder

This special song, "All We Do" by Oh Wonder (Anthony West and Josephine Vander Gucht) also has a very special video.

https://www.ohwondermusic.com/

Be

Marks Of Life In Death

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.”
--Michael Ondaatje (previously here), from his novel THE ENGLISH PATIENT

In The Mirror, In The Mind

“We always feel younger than we are. I carry inside myself my earlier faces, as a tree contains its rings. The sum of them is me. The mirror sees only my latest face, while I know all my previous ones.”
--Tomas Tranströmer, Swedish poet