Collected Goodness ☼
Wisdom, Wonders, and Ways
Collected monthly by Ethan Maurice
QUOTE:
UPDATE:
I’m Building a House for Human Flourishing
And so it begins… I bought a house!
After seven months of waiting for a place that fit the vision, some super specific requirements, and a long while wondering if I was being way too picky — sigh of relief — it surfaced.
I believe it to be my next big project: restoring this house to its former terracotta-colored glory, converting the detached garage into a casita, and crafting a little communal compound neighboring the Phoenix Mountain Preserve as a living experiment in human flourishing.
In need of some work, a house-flipper bought the place back in 2021. They replaced and painted every surface grey. Then, it was sold into a giant corporate investment real estate portfolio. So, some life will need to be breathed back into the space. But the build, layout, and location are superb. The purchase price left a good hunk of budget to breath life back into it. And after replacing the tile, the heart of the place will lie under but a single layer of Sherwin-Williams “Agreeable Grey” paint.
The intention is to build a place for deep community at the foot of my favorite Phoenix mountains and explore what "a house of human flourishing" means in our technological age. I aim to remove modern-day drags: TVs and couches, leaching plastics, bright white lights, too much stuff, etc. And include good ingredients: a wall of books, floor cushions, less-toxic materials, mood lighting, a rockin’ sound system, etc. The backyard will also be built for movement and renewal with a slackline, sauna, cold plunge, gymnastic rings, plenty of porch space, a shed for storing bikes, and desert life abound.
It should be financially self-sustaining as well: by renting out the casita and two bedrooms in the house, while personally living in the primary bedroom, I will be able to cover the mortgage with ease.
Most importantly, I aim to attract interesting and wholesome folks who are intrigued by the place — a kind of low-key, year-round WONDER WANDER if you will.
Back in 2022, I visited Ed Buryn, author of Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa, and slept the weekend in the attic of the “book barn” in his woodsy, multi-family compound crawling with cool characters in a mountain town in northern California. Since, I’ve been saving with the aim to build something similar.
Four years later, the vision is coming to fruition. Wish me luck! And if you’re in Phoenix, say, six months from now, onward — don’t be a stranger! I have vast karmic debts for all who’ve hosted and helped me wander the world and will have an extra small bedroom / shrine / meditation room (the current, possibly evolving idea), and you are more than welcome to crash a night or two.
DAILY RITUAL:
A Symbolic Choice
Every morning, as gather myself for the day, I open the top drawer of my dresser and intuitively grab one of two coins:
Memento mori or lucide vive (“remember death” or “live lucid”).
A symbol to remind that this too shall pass or to live with lucidity in the present. Depending on where I’m at, I seem to about equally choose.
The chosen coin goes in my left pocket — a symbol carried, felt, and randomly encountered throughout the day. A thousand days into the intuitive choice between opposing symbols, it still seems endlessly refreshing… I think I feel why the world works in polarities?
THROWBACK:
John “Jesus” Frusciante
I recently re-read my breakdown of John Frusciante on Creativity and found the wisdom per word utterly stupendous. Writing the article was an exercise in understanding. At the time, I was stretching to grasp such an expansive perspective, so I picked the most insightful parts from the talk and pieced them together:
Four years have passed since this was published. To my surprise, today, I find my experience, approach to life, and sense of identity often align with what I then could just barely grasp.
Rock n’ roll. It’s wild how things can soak into us over time.
BOOK QUOTES:
Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Here lies the story of Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. The real-life saga of a man dosed with acid by the US government, who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest while working security in the lab in which he was dosed, and ultimately “liberates” acid from the lab to culture at large. Kesey becomes a kind of psychedelic prophet, and his Merry Pranksters — pulling wild acts of acid-inspired profundity — become a founding force of the 1960’s hippie movement.
A symbolic reminder to zoom out and encounter the vast mystery that we’re all in this together on a tiny blue-green ball covered in life floating in the infinite void of space.
