Positively Wyrd
Positively Wyrd
Harnessing the chaos in your life
About the Book
This is a personal development book with a difference - quite literally a weird one. Starting with a new way of looking at an old word, it merges chaos theory with transpersonal psychology to create something that's highly practical and that gives new power and new direction to the everyday confusions of life.
In Nordic tradition, the word 'wyrd' - or 'weird' - meant much the same as 'fate'. Like fate, it describes the fabric of our lives; yet whilst we always have the choice, there's always a twist which changes each one into something we don't expect. It's those twists that give our wyrd its weirdness; yet the real weirdness is that these 'messages from the wyrd' are always there to help us. We can ignore them, and wait passively - fatalistically - for life to change: which it probably never will. We can fight against them, try to wrest control of our life from the Fates: only to discover that control itself is nothing more than a myth. Or we can learn to work with life's weirdnesses - and use their help to weave the fabric of fate into a new form of our choosing. That's our choice; yet there's always that twist...
It might seem a weird way of working with the world, but unlike so many others it's one that does work. With commonsense and clarity, with humour and humanity, and with a strong emphasis on practice and personal experience, this book shows how to develop an affinity for the natural weirdness of life - and to make life positively wyrd.
The sequel to this book - Wyrd Allies: Harnessing the chaos in your relationships - is also available here on Leanpub.
About the Author
Table of Contents
-
Preface
- Acknowledgements
-
Introduction
- Using this book
-
1 Living in the dark
- “There’s a whole in my bucket…”
-
2 A weird kind of fate
- In the hands of fate
- A subtle hint of weirdness
- Weaving a different world
-
3 The senses taker
- Choosing not to choose
- Avoiding emotion
- Beliefs, feelings, senses
- A habit of choice
-
4 Everyone is to blame
- “You can’t get there from here”
- Tyrant and victim
- Who’s to blame?
- No-one is to blame
-
5 I am what I am
- Whose life is it, anyway?
- The ‘silliness barrier’
- The ‘tall poppy’ syndrome
- Strengths and weaknesses
-
6 Affirmative action
- The curse of belief
- An affirmative habit
- Into action
-
7 Wants and needs
- What do you want?
- We all want more money
- What do you need?
- What do you want from me?
- What do you need from you?
- “I’m a substitute for another guy…”
- Take aim…
-
8 Control and other myths
- Fear is a four-letter word
- I want to be powerful
- A different kind of power
- New Age, new illusions?
- A time to trust
-
9 Time to let go
- Non-attachment, non-detachment
- “Nobody’s perffect”
- Let go of knowing
- An end to suffering
-
10 All the fun of the fair
- Riding the roller-coaster
- The hall of mirrors
- Walking the tightrope
- Bring on the clowns!
-
11 One step at a time
- A state of survival
- Facing frustration
- Panics and priorities
- Re-accepting self
- The process of change
-
12 Weaving the threads of wyrd
- A web of connections
- The ordinariness of wyrd
- Do what you will
- …but be sure that you will it!
-
13 My word is my bond
- Choosing our words
- A question of commitment
- Doubt and discipline
- The role of religion
-
14 It’s all imaginary
- Real or imaginary?
- Invisible images
- Watch the details
- Real imagination
- Inventing the real world
-
15 Divine coincidence
- Cause and coincidence
- Everyday weirdness
- As above, so below
- Prediction and paradox
-
16 Dancing with our selves
- Stance and dance
- A dramatic gesture
- The flow of the dance
-
17 The art of empowerment
- As the muse takes us
- The art of listening
- Drawing our visions
- Words on the wind
-
18 We’re busy doing no-thing
- Allowing ourselves to notice
- When less is more
- Time to slow down
- Do it consciously
-
19 Which ‘I’ is me?
- What – or where – is ‘I’?
- Caught in the web
- A choice of boundaries
-
20 Stretching the boundaries
- Reclaiming the balance
- The export of blame
- Facing fear
- A world without walls
-
21 Self and others
- The sound of silence
- Being selfish
- Being self-reliant
- A web of choices
-
22 Relating
- Soulmates and cellmates
- Happy families?
- Friends and other allies
-
23 Working in a weird world
- A world of connections
- A world of confusions
- A world at work
-
24 It isn’t easy being green?
- A sense of value
- A sense of place
- A sense of healing
- A sense of trust
- 25 A wyrd way of life
-
Further reading
- Wyrd
- Self-exploration
- Philosophical perspectives
- Fiction
The Leanpub 60-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$11,841,865writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers) and EPUB (for phones, tablets and Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
- #1
The Hitchhiker's Guide to DFIR: Experiences From Beginners and Experts
Barry Grundy, Tristram, John Haynes, ApexPredator, Andrew Rathbun, Kevin Pagano, Victor Heiland, Nisarg Suthar, Guus Beckers, and Jason WilkinsA first of its kind crowdsourced DFIR book written on GitHub by the members of the Digital Forensics Discord Server to share knowledge!
- #2
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
- #3
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
- #4
R Programming for Data Science
Roger D. PengThis book brings the fundamentals of R programming to you, using the same material developed as part of the industry-leading Johns Hopkins Data Science Specialization. The skills taught in this book will lay the foundation for you to begin your journey learning data science. Printed copies of this book are available through Lulu.
- #5
Maîtriser Apache JMeter
Philippe Mouawad, Bruno Demion (Milamber), and Antonio Gomes RodriguesToute la puissance d'Apache JMeter expliquée par ses commiteurs et utilisateurs experts. De l'intégration continue en passant par le Cloud, vous découvrirez comment intégrer JMeter à vos processus "Agile" et Devops.
If you're looking for the newer english version of this book, go to Master JMeter : From load testing to DevOps
- #6
Software Architecture for Developers
Simon BrownA developer-friendly, practical and pragmatic guide to lightweight software architecture, technical leadership and the balance with agility.
- #7
Introduction to Data Science
Rafael A IrizarryThe demand for skilled data science practitioners in industry, academia, and government is rapidly growing. This book introduces concepts from probability, statistical inference, linear regression and machine learning and R programming skills. Throughout the book we demonstrate how these can help you tackle real-world data analysis challenges.
- #8
Concurrency with Modern C++
Rainer GrimmC++11 is the first C++ standard that deals with concurrency. The story goes on with C++17, C++20, and will continue with C++23.
I'll give you a detailed insight into the current and the upcoming concurrency in C++. This insight includes the theory and a lot of practice.
- #9
Optics By Example
Chris PennerA comprehensive example-driven guide to optics. Examples in Haskell, but adaptable to other languages.
Become a data-manipulation wizard using optics to manipulate data!
This book takes you from beginner to advanced using Lenses, Traversals, Prisms, and more!
- #10
Functional Event-Driven Architecture
Gabriel VolpeExplore the event-driven architecture (EDA) in a purely functional way. Learn to design and develop distributed systems that scale. Identify common design patterns in such systems.
Take your functional programming skills to the next level by joining me in developing a distributed system powered by Apache Pulsar and Fs2 streams, all in Scala 3!
Top Bundles
- #1
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #2
Practical FP in Scala + Functional event-driven architecture
2 Books
Practical FP in Scala (A hands-on approach) & Functional event-driven architecture, aka FEDA, (Powered by Scala 3), together as a bundle! The content of PFP in Scala is a requirement to understand FEDA so why not take advantage of this bundle!? - #3
Software Architecture
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #4
Modern C++ Collection
3 Books
Get All about Modern C++C++ Standard Library, including C++20Concurrency with Modern C++, including C++20C++20Each book has about 200 complete code examples. Updates are included. When I update one of the books, you immediately get the updated bundle. You can expect significant updates to each new C++ standard (C++23, C++26, .. ) and also... - #5
Pattern-Oriented Memory Forensics and Malware Detection
2 Books
This training bundle for security engineers and researchers, malware and memory forensics analysts includes two accelerated training courses for Windows memory dump analysis using WinDbg. It is also useful for technical support and escalation engineers who analyze memory dumps from complex software environments and need to check for possible... - #6
All the Books of The Medical Futurist
6 Books
We put together the most popular books from The Medical Futurist to provide a clear picture about the major trends shaping the future of medicine and healthcare. Digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the future of 20 medical specialties, big pharma, data privacy, digital health investments and how technology giants such as Amazon... - #9
Learn Git, Bash, and Terraform the Hard Way
3 Books
Learn Git, Bash and Terraform using the Hard Way method.These technologies are essential tools in the DevOps armoury. These books walk you through their features and subtleties in a simple, gradual way that reinforces learning rather than baffling you with theory. - #10
Static Analysis and Automated Refactoring
2 Books
As PHP developers we are living in the "Age of Static Analysis". We can use a tool like PHPStan to learn about potential bugs before we ship our code to production, and we can enforce our team's programming standards using custom PHPStan rules. Recipes for Decoupling by Matthias Noback teaches you in great detail how to do this, while also...
