Best Of David Whyte's "Crossing the Unknown Sea"

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work as a Pilgrimage of Identity by David Whyte

Painting above:  The Threatened Swan c. 1650 by Jan Asselyn

On Attention as Identity:

I had come to the conclusion that our personal identity, 

which we think is based upon our beliefs and opinions, 

is actually more of a function of our ability to pay attention to the world around us. 

If we had very little in the way of attention for the world, 

then we actually had little in the way of real existence. 

The deeper we could look into all those phenomena 

which seemed to be other than ourselves 

the more a discreet identity we could call a self 

seemed to appear on life’s radar screen.

p.75

The depth of our identity is dependent upon the depth of our attention. 

Real attention to our work opens up all the births and deaths 

constantly attendant on its doing and undoing. 

p.115

Just as seriously, we begin to leave behind the parts 

of our own selves that limp a little, 

the vulnerabilities that actually give us colour and character. 

We forget that our sanity is dependent on a relationship 

with longer, more patient cycles extending beyond 

the urgencies and madness of the office.

p.118

Besides, there is a deeper, older human intuition at play 

that knows any real step forward comes through our pains and vulnerabilities, 

which is the reason we began to busy ourselves in the first place, 

so that we could stay well away from them. 

If we stopped, we would have to sojourn in areas 

that have nothing to do with getting things done 

but everything to do with being done to ourselves.

p.128

Real, undying loyalty in work can never be legislated or coerced; 

it is based on a courageous vulnerability 

that invites others by our example to a frontier conversation 

whose outcome is yet in doubt.

p.129

Whyte quotes his friend, Brother David here:

“The antidote to exhaustion is wholeheartedness […] 

You are so tired through and through 

because a good half of what you do here in this organization 

has nothing to do with your true powers, 

or the place you have reached in your life. 

You are only half here, 

and half here will kill you after a while. 

You need something to which you can give your full powers.”

p.132

I had an intuition that when you really annunciate 

what you want in the world you will always be greeted, 

in the first place, with some species of silence.

p.136

Whyte is quoting an unnamed lady friend here:

“The moment we claim the happiness to which we have long aspired, 

large parts of us are immediately out of a job. 

All the parts of you that believed it wasn't possible are about to be let go. 

What is left is a simplified version of what you were before. 

If you do not recognize this simplified essence, you feel like a stranger to yourself

p. 141

There is a certain kind of heaviness and insulation that we can grow used to. 

The body can feel strange when it inhabits the world in a lighter way, 

when it encounters a form of happiness or fulfillment
for which it has had no apprenticeship.

p.142

In order to live happily within outer laws, 

we must have a part of us that goes its own way, 

that is blessedly outlaw 

no matter the outward conditions or rewards. 

A part of us that belongs to a larger world 

than that define by our career goals 

or our retirement accounts.

p.156

The outlaw is the radical, the once close to the roots of existence. 

The one who refuses to forget their humanity and in remembering, 

helps everyone else to remember, too […] With a healthy outlaw approach, 

we are outside the laws of predictable cause and effect 

and inside the intensity of creative originality.

p.172

There is no mercy in this world if at least once in our lives 

we do not feel the privilege of being wanted 

where we also want to be wanted.

p.195

Life is too short and our work difficult enough 

without at least a little sense of possibility 

to allow the day to breathe.

p.200

Sometime over the next fifty years or so, 

the word manager will disappear from our understanding of leadership, 

and thankfully so. 

Another word will emerge, more alive with possibility, more helpful, 

hopefully not decided upon by a committee, 

which will describe the new role of leadership now emerging. 

An image of leadership which embraces the attentive, open-minded,
conversationally based, people-minded person 

who has not given up on her intellect 

and can still act quickly when needed.

p.240-241