My friend, Jade, came to my home to spend the weekend. It is an annual event. As part of the visit, she asked to return to my town’s fabulous used bookstore. Being an extremely rainforest-minded human, she was happily in her element. I could have left her there for hours, days maybe.
When I saw the pile of books she selected, I couldn’t help but gasp, smile knowingly, sigh, snort, ask the most important question of all: Can I write about you on my blog?
Jade had selected books on a number of wide-ranging topics:
Botanical Art Techniques, The Nile, Pre-Colombian Art, Archtypal Patterns in Poetry, William Blake, Ghost Towns in the West, Mycotopia, The 99% Invisible City, and an Octavia Butler novel.
This is rainforest-minded multipotentialite-ness at its bookiest.
I would have gathered my own set of deliciousness but I had just received a stack from Powells bookstore so I restrained myself. Well, except for the three books Jade mentioned were great for kids. I had said I was looking to see what I might find for my niece and nephew’s young kids. These books by Julia Rothman were so pretty I couldn’t resist.
You know what I’m talking about. Right?
I wrote about it in my last post. How books and therapies can contribute to soothing your existential angst. How books and therapies can help you understand and embrace your beautifully rainforest-y ways and guide you toward your meaningful, authentic life. How it is normal for you to be passionate about learning (not necessarily schooling) which often includes massive, some might say obsessive, amounts of reading and/or research.
In other posts, I have written about multipotentiality. This is the trait that can be misinterpreted as jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none or you-never-finish-anything or why-can’t-you-pick-one-thing-and-stay-with-it-forever or why-don’t-you-have-a-real-job.
Sound familiar?
Jade is a good example of this. She was an art/poetry major in college and graduated with a degree in chemistry. She worked in the chemistry field for a while but then became interested in gifted/2e kids and opened her own micro-school (and is writing a book about it). She closed the school recently and is now developing a tarot reading business on Instagram (you can follow her) along with creating a small literary zine online. In her spare time, she is enrolled in a doctoral program in cognitive diversity where she is an academic advisor. (To find out more from her on education and cognitive diversity, follow her on Twitter.) She has two cats, a husband, a weight lifting hobby, and a burning desire to visit every ghost town in N. America. She is 42. This is just the beginning.
And you? If you are a gifted multipotentialite booknerd like Jade, and, I admit, like me, you are not alone! My advice? Find your local independent bookstore and geek out. Find other passionate readers in your town and join them at a Silent Book Club. Explain to skeptics how your multi-dimensional career paths make total sense and how they will spark your creativity and benefit their nieces and nephews in unexpected ways.
And, if you know of any cool ghost towns anywhere in the world, let me know about them. I will tell Jade.
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To my bloggEEs: Are you a book lover? Do you have multipotentiality? Tell us about it. We love hearing from you. And thanks to Jade for sharing so much of herself here and with me in our sweet friendship. Love to you all.
(Note: I have started reading the books I mentioned in my last post. I would definitely recommend the Nicholas book on climate, the Moorjani book on sensitivity, and the Menakem book on racism.)
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