Making note of a few cool things

I love eRobin's great new makeover over at Factesque. Very fabuloso.

Tim at Assorted Stuff lets us know he's got a new article up at Tech Learning mag...except he didn't link to it. Well, Tim, I found it. If you ever want to introduce someone to blogging, here is the perfect piece for all newbies called How To: Start Your Own Blog.

Cyndy's post at mousemusings on listening stayed with me for a long time: Talk is Cheap and Listening is Rare.

Listening to ourselves, presence, living in the moment, possessing each moment as it occurs, fully absorbing through sensory input, gathering as it flows but not completely stopping to process it, are all exercises in non-judgmental attentiveness. While my intentions in writing these listening posts lean more toward an inner meditative form of listening, an inner presence if you will, I understand that people are expecting to find skills related to better listening and understanding others. Dave Pollard recently wrote about Sympathy, Compassion, Humility, all elements of empathy which for assorted reasons we seem to be lacking in. I think we have lost the skills and incentives to be empathetic.

I think it's easy for me to forget that active listening plays a huge role in effective communication.

Here's another post that has stayed with me: Dave Pollard at How To Save the World highlights the work of Derrick Jensen, who's written a book called Walking on Water. Dave, as always, pulls out the most thoughtful items. I'll end with this quote by Jensen:

The job of words is to direct us toward experience, to round out experience, to facilitate experience, and to give us ways to share at least pale shadows of that experience with those we love. And the job of words is to help us learn to be -- and act -- human.

I think this is the essence of blogging, at least for me.