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Anton's avatar

This was beautiful, Danielle. Your honesty really hit home—especially the part about feeling like slowing down means falling behind. I’ve lived so much of my life in “go mode,” convinced that pausing would cost me progress. But lately I’ve been learning what you so eloquently wrote: that there’s power in presence, and that beauty often whispers when we finally stop sprinting. Thank you for reminding me to breathe, to trust, and to cherish the quiet.

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Danielle Dragona's avatar

Thank you so much, Anton. I appreciate your comments, and that my writing touched you in the way it did. I'm still trying to teach myself to slow down. This is all still a learning curve for me. I'm programmed to sprint, but this week, I reminded myself it's okay not to constantly do, and I gave myself permission to just be. It was definitely freeing. I hope I get to the point where I don't have to remind myself to be gentle with myself and that it just happens naturally. Thanks for reading!

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Andrew Lynch's avatar

Chaos is something I rejected for a long time. Order was the thing. It’s beaten into us. Be a good boy. Good worker, be a good man. And now I see that everything comes from chaos

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Danielle Dragona's avatar

Very insightful comment, indeed! Same with me. My mother was always hypercritical with me growing up so I never wanted to go against the grain with anything. It's a highly stifling and unfulfilling way to live. I try to do better by my own son now that I'm a parent, and realize my words hold tremendous weight

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Andrew Lynch's avatar

I love words but I don’t think they hold as much weight as our actions, our example, our lack of action and our fear.

I heard a study were people sniffed the sweaty t-shirts of skydivers and people who worked out in the gym. The blind test subjects who smelled the sweat of the skydiver felt immediate fear. The people who smelled the sweat of someone who exercised in the gym felt nothing. Not only is fear contagious, so is anxiety and so is presence.

That’s more powerful than any word. And that’s why I’m obsessed with intuition and all related subjects.

Words are thoughts, concepts. Intuition is thought and emotion. Concepts are powerful, as you said (words), but real influence comes from emotion, because people change their minds, but they’re aligned with their emotions whether they like it or not. That’s real and immediate power - governments and news organizations know it, and we know it

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Danielle Dragona's avatar

I never thought of it that way. That's very interesting!

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