March 2012
2 posts
5 tags
“Do what you love, the money will follow.” Bullshit. It’s true only if what you love happens to be an activity that creates economic value that someone, somewhere will pay for. Nowhere is this clearer than in the arts. Every year, thousands of people move home from LA, NY, Nashville, Paris, etc., their hopes and spirits crushed, because they couldn’t be...
4 tags
2 tags
February 2012
46 posts
3 tags
6 tags
If you want to succeed, you can’t wait for the world to give you attention the way a cripple waits for food stamps to arrive in the mail. You have to be a warrior. You have to attack with the madness of a mother whose child is surrounded by an army of predators.
Because, let’s face it, your ideas are your children. Their future is as tender and delicate as that of any newborn.
You can’t just...
5 tags
3 tags
“When I look at the challenges that Gandhi had, or the various leaders through history, our challenges pale in comparison to this,” he said. “Over the last 10 years, I’ve read a ton about Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln. I’ve worked very hard, but my life’s always been fun. It’s not been the Civil War of 1862. That was dark, and how you hold things together at a time like that is completely...
5 tags
4 tags
In a sense, living alone represents the self let loose. In the absence of what Mr. Klinenberg calls “surveilling eyes,” the solo dweller is free to indulge his or her odder habits — what is sometimes referred to as Secret Single Behavior. Feel like standing naked in your kitchen at 2 a.m., eating peanut butter from the jar? Who’s to know?
What emerges over time is an at-home self that is markedly...
3 tags
5 tags
Most cues and rewards, in fact, happen so quickly and are so slight that we are hardly aware of them at all. But our neural systems notice and use them to build automatic behaviors.
Habits aren’t destiny — they can be ignored, changed or replaced. But it’s also true that once the loop is established and a habit emerges, your brain stops fully participating in decision-making. So unless you...
4 tags
20. Everyone can change, but almost no one ever does
Be an exception. Become a student of life and a student of change. Journal. Take notes. Analyze what you do that achieves what you want, and what you do that doesn’t, and figure out how to change the latter into the former.
You only get one life. Make it count.
21 Lessons Learned from 16 Years of Hustling
4 tags
4 tags
“The problem today, as it was then, is something else. The problem today is the...”
– The Book of Jobs
4 tags
3 tags
5 tags
“She came so close to losing it all in Egypt. I find it amazing that she can...”
– Lara Logan, Safe at Home
4 tags
4 tags
5 tags
WatchUh oh. Bon Iver put himself to sleep.
3 tags
It might seem like “pursuing your definition of a remarkable life” is quite similar to “following your passion,” but for most people, it’s not. A vision for a life well-lived tends to be broad and ambiguous — touching on major distinctions in lifestyle not specific industries or types of work. These are statements of values not commitments to economic sectors.
The following, for example, fit...
4 tags
3 tags
2 tags
9 tags
Really like the last two sentences:
Mr. Shadid was a deep-thinking journalist who was not afraid to butt heads with his editors to protect a phrase, scene or quotation that he considered essential to making his point.
His final article for The Times, which ran on Feb. 9, was a behind-the-scenes look at the tumultuous situation in Libya, where rival militias had replaced the government of...
5 tags
7 tags
Expose yourself: Read books, travel, talk to people. Take in information and new experiences. Be in a mindset that allows your deepest assumptions to be challenged.
Take Advantage of It: You need to seize the moment. If you randomly meet someone interesting, follow up. If you discover a wonderful nook in Barcelona and want to postpone your trek to Madrid, do it, and explore. If someone invites...
7 tags
You can tell a lot about a couple by the way they cross the street.
After all, relationships are made of little crosswalks. They are unpredictable. They are risky. You never know if, in the face of adversity, the person you’re with is going to look out for you or leave you behind.
Happy Valentine’s Day, friends.
6 tags
6 tags
4 tags
3 tags
“Whenever anyone with Houston’s kind of gift seems to be falling apart, we have a...”
– Whitney Houston and the Burden of Perfection
4 tags
In other words: Do it anyway.
We don’t have to do anything else first. We don’t need to cure our neuroses, conquer our fears, overcome our bad habits. We don’t have to be sane; we don’t have to be solvent. We can be totally screwed up. None of these real-world troubles has anything to do with our creative selves.
The part of our psyches that we write from, or paint from, or conceive new...
4 tags
3 tags
3 tags
4 tags
“The urge to publish is a hunger. The drive to write and the drive to publish are...”
– Stephen Elliot, Why I Write
5 tags
4 tags
7 tags
4 tags
“The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and...”
– Neil Gaiman
8 tags
7 tags
Don’t think you are a photographer just because you use Instagram.
It’s one of those things people say to make things that aren’t quite so clear, well, clear. As if imposing boundaries on the boundless adds certainty. As if the world were black and white. As if everything needs its own place, its cubby, its designated compartment. This way, the world makes sense.
Which does help explain some...
4 tags
3 tags
5 tags
“I hate the franchise. I think it is bad for America and little girls. You...”
– Baratunde Thurston hate-tweets Twilight. Here’s why. (via nprfreshair)
7 tags
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not;...”
– Calvin Coolidge
January 2012
33 posts
4 tags
8 tags
“You should never read just for ‘enjoyment.’ Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick ‘hard books.’ Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for god’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say, ‘I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the...