You know that feeling you get when you see, hear, or experience something profound?  

You want to pause there.  

Expand the moment.  

Linger.  

See what else comes up for you.  

Maybe you want to linger over a song you connect with, deeply and instantly, the way Snow Patrol's 16-minute story song connected with me.  

Here is but one piece of the poetry-lyric that stays and reverberates within me today, years after the first time I heard-felt-experienced it:

And in the middle of the flood I felt my worth
When you held onto me like I was your little life raft
Please know that you were mine as well

(To hear that bit, play from around 12:00; it is amazing, and linger-worthy!)

Your profound moment may also take the form of a breaktaking new vista, something you’ve not seen before.

This happened to me the first time I saw the Colorado Rockies rising up, with snow on the peaks — in July!

Or perhaps your profound moment arose during an exhibition that left you hungry for more, like this haunting sound exhibition I saw or, rather, heard, at the North Carolina Museum of Art.

This morning, I experienced another profound moment in a single, striking line of text in Show Your Work by Austin Kleon.

Just one small sentence, 18 words.

It set off a big reaction in me, something I knew I wanted to explore.

I did try to keep reading, but the sentence kept pulling me back; I kept returning to it.

Finally, I highlighted it, thinking I'd go back and play with it later.

But, apparently, my Muse wanted to play today, because I simply could not continue on with my morning until I wrote this blog post.

Okay … you may be thinking, “Get on with it, Renae! What is the sentence!”

(I’d be thinking that if I were you!)

Here it is:

Don’t think of your website as a self-promotion machine, think of it as a self-invention machine.

Wow.

I wish I had written that

Although, if I had, I would have said, "Don't think of your blog as a self-promotion machine; think of it as a self-invention machine."

I do think Kleon must have meant blog, as he’s talking about sharing yourself — as the title of his book says, showing your work. 

A website, although updated now and then, is primarily static.

A visitor who lands on your services page today will expect that those services will still be available next week.

A blog, on the other hand, is alive. 

Or at least it SHOULD be alive, with new stories being added regularly, if you keep it that way.

And — get this — this post I’m writing right now?

At this moment?

It’s me inventing myself.

It’s me being the blogger and writer I want to be.

My website, which has a blog on it, promotes me.

My blog though … it invents me, just as your blog can invent you, piece by colorful piece.