Commonplace of Life

The very commonplaces of life are components of its eternal mystery.

Gertrude Atherton

Commonplace books were compilations of numerous articles.  Started in the 13th century, they flourished in the 15th century as paper became less expensive.  They were like scrapbooks of knowledge that aided the user/writer.

Jean Miélot preparing his compilations

Today’s blogs are like commonplace books but accessible to anyone with access to the internet.

Time was when readers kept commonplace books. Whenever they came across a pithy passage, they copied it into a notebook under an appropriate heading, adding observations made in the course of daily life. Erasmus instructed them how to do it; and if they did not have access to his popular De Copia, they consulted printed models or the local schoolmaster. The practice spread everywhere in early modern England, among ordinary readers as well as famous writers like Francis Bacon, Ben Jonson, John Milton, and John Locke. It involved a special way of taking in the printed word. Unlike modern readers, who follow the flow of a narrative from beginning to end, early modern Englishmen read in fits and starts and jumped from book to book. They broke texts into fragments and assembled them into new patterns by transcribing them in different sections of their notebooks. Then they reread the copies and rearranged the patterns while adding more excerpts. Reading and writing were therefore inseparable activities. They belonged to a continuous effort to make sense of things, for the world was full of signs: you could read your way through it; and by keeping an account of your readings, you made a book of your own, one stamped with your personality.

Robert Darnton

I'll say this for adversity: people seem to be able to stand it, and that's more than I can say for prosperity. 

Kin Hubbard

IQ, EQ, SQ…DQ

Adversity Quotient, or AQ, is the science of human resilience. People who successfully apply AQ perform optimally in the face of adversity.  the challenges, big and small, that confront us each day. In fact, they not only learn from these challenges, but they also respond to them better and faster. For
businesses and other organizations, a high-AQ workforce translates to increased capacity, productivity, and innovation, as well as lower attrition and higher morale.

http://www.peaklearning.com/

If we study the lives of great men and women carefully and unemotionally we find that, invariably, greatness was developed, tested and revealed through the darker periods of their lives. One of the largest tributaries of the River of Greatness is always the Stream of Adversity.

Cavett Robert