L O G S
Fishing my fleeting thoughts for ideas worth writing
2024 Logs
March
March 31 Are you telling me it's a coincidence that the resurrection of Jesus happened at the very beginning of Spring? How ultimately fitting — seems kind of pagan to me.
March 30 The lyrics to Hozier's "Sedated" are a perfect summary of how substances aid the cycle of self-delusion and serve as refuge for the self-important, fragile ego.
Just a little rush, babe / To feel dizzy, to derail the mind of me / Just a little hush, babe / Our veins are busy, but my heart's in atrophy.
Any way to distract and sedate / Adding shadows to the walls of the cave.
You and I, nursing on / A poison that never stung / Our teeth and lungs are lined / With the scum of it.
Somewhere for this, death and guns / We are deaf. We are numb. / Free and young, and we can feel none of it.
Trying to control your future is like playing sudoku with a pen. You're making life unnecessarily harder on yourself. Give yourself an eraser; allow yourself to pivot.
I agree (etymologically) that we are sinful, insofar as we "miss the mark," but I disagree that it's a problem. Sin is a gift. If we always hit the mark, we would stop striving, and without striving, life would be sapped of all meaning. We would not long or love or wish or dream. We would be stagnant creatures devoid of life, even if we were immortal. Adam and Eve were not human until they became sinful. And I say, thank God for that.
Somehow the smell of celery is more intense than its taste.
Life is rich. Work is work.
March 28 Tree skiing is a metaphor for life.
March 27 On a personality test, I'm a 95th-percentile extrovert, but I spend hours of my weekends alone to write or read or play video games. No extreme is the right way. Find harmony among both extremes.
[[Live in the Third]]
March 26 For most people, the night provides cover and makes it easier to hide from yourself. It's the ego's respite, its native arena. But if you have a spiritual dream practice, the night becomes a time to face yourself, and you deny the ego of any refuge from the clear mind of your formless self. Persistent lucidity — throughout all modes of consciousness — leads to the most possible self-knowledge and the least possible attachment to the self.
March 23 This lyric from the White Stripes frames Kansas as a refuge from the materialistic, urban mindset: "I'm go'n to Wichita // Far from this opera of forever more." I never noticed that, and it's pretty profound. Over the past year or two, I have become swept up in "the opera of forever more." It's simply not healthy. I miss seeing sunsets over flat plains, rather than trying to catch a glimpse of them between skyscrapers.
Masculine energy is in the world. Feminine energy is of the world.
We remain in samsara because we are afraid of the dark. We run away from it, toward artificial lights, and away from ourselves. We cling to ignorance of what's within for an unconscious fear of what we might learn if we looked.
Lucidity is the ability to see in the dark, because you kindle the spark of awareness within you. And why would you ever be afraid of what you can see? Without ignorance, there is no fear. Without fear, there is no mindless avoidance of the dark. To practice lucidity, practice sitting in darkness and paying attention to what you see.
The reason you can feel so lonely in New York with surrounded by so many people is because none of the people acknowledge each other. To their credit, if they did, it would be all they do all day, every day — nodding at passer-bys. You can feel lonely in the midst of the crowd if you feel like the crowd would be the exact same size and spirit without you.
March 22 Witnessing the Aurora Borealis is like shining a blue-light to reveal the Sun's airborne thermonuclear ejaculate.
March 21 In the West, we err on the side of rationality and fail by forgetting to feel. In the East, feeling leads at the expense of clear answers and systems.
The greatest danger of Western thought is in thinking that you know the answer, that you have discovered the truth, whether through science or careful, analytic philosophy.
The greatest danger of Eastern thought is in thinking that you must deny yourself worldly achievement to live spiritually.
The best way is the middle, where you search for answers, knowing you will never fully know, and where you achieve in the world without forgetting what truly matters.
One thing we definitely need to overcome in the West is our tendency to see things as just one or two. Our thinking lacks nuance, which leads us further from the nature of reality. We search for the "one true" God/answer, and situate ourselves on one side of a dichotomy in opposition to the other extreme. In reality, everything is a duality: Yin and Yang, One and Two — Three.
[[Live in the Third]]
The One is female, the Two male, for order can only come after chaos. Three arrises from the movement between One and Two, from their harmony. And from Three comes the ten thousand things.
(The One is the inhale, Two the exhale. And Three is the breath. The breath powers life.)
This is a different view than the Chinese Yin/Yang separation, though. Sometimes the Yang is chaotic. The Yang is anything that is strong, bright, that comes from the Sun. The Yin is dark and mysterious, like the Moon. According to Taoism, a forest fire would be yang and a blizzard yin, but Yin is the female. I would call the forest fire female (Yin) and the blizzard male (Yang), because the first is chaotic and the second ordered, structured.
The blizzard is predictable and doesn't come from the unknown. It limits possibility, slows change. The fire engenders possibility through destruction, which is often required for new life. Any sort of rebirth is the female, the Yin.
[[Live in the Third]]
On the origin of Yin/Yang and its relationship to the Tao (Britanica):
"The Daoist treatise Huainanzi (book of “Master Huainan”) describes how the one “Primordial Breath” (yuanqi) split into the light ethereal yang breath, which formed heaven; and the heavier, cruder yin breath, which formed earth. The diversifications and interactions of yin and yang produced the Ten Thousand Things."
The warm breath of yang accumulated to produce fire, the essence of which formed the sun. The cold breath of yin accumulated to produce water, the essence of which became the moon.
The Tao is Yin and Yang moving in harmony.
Also, this TED-Ed video is great.
March 20 We dread the feeling of being caught in the middle, suspended in air, so we try to escape it. We fall to one side or the other so that we can stand on solid ground. But that's a fallacy. The middle comprises all that is real. Everything rests on uncertainty; everything is suspended in air. The best path through life is one in keeping with reality. The best mindset is one without the self-delusions of being on one side or the other. You are always somewhere among the abundance of what could be.
[[Live in the Third]]
Most of life — and everything that matters in life — is immaterial. It's not in the world but within yourself. If you chase numbers and possessions and surface pleasures, you will get lost. You will fall away from yourself.
I thought a key to maintaining work-life balance would be to separate my professional and personal to-do lists, but the unexpected result is that I only ever look at my tasks for work and, therefore, only ever check those off.
Volcanoes are feminine. Glaciers are masculine. Volcanos create in chaos, bringing up a river of formless material from the unknown depths of the Earth. Glaciers shape what comes into being and give it form, applying order and structure as best they can. Both volcanoes and glaciers are unstoppable forces and immovable objects. Together, they exhibit the primordial duality of Nature.
Or, maybe volcanoes and glaciers are both masculine and feminine. Maybe the part of the volcano that you can't see is feminine (the womb) and the flowing lava is masculine. Maybe the rigid, static ice on top of the glacier is masculine and the dark, flowing underbelly of the glacier is feminine.
[[Feeling Fire and Ice]]
Tell the story of why/how we lost to Houton my freshman year (a team much worse than us). Use it as a microcosm of not taking something seriously when you think you're guaranteed success. The best way to guarantee failure is to expect easy success.
Good opening group discussion prompt for a popcorn-style icebreaker: What's something you love about life?
Introspection repels self-delusion.
March 19 Three out of every 10 hatchlings never make it into the sea (study). And only one in 1000 sea turtles grows to adulthood. Predation is ruthless, and so many ancient species have lossy reproduction. They spray and pray that some survive.
The danger of loving your job is that you might make it your top priority in life.
You are always choosing among, never between. Any decision that seems to have only two options is an illusion. You may think, "No, I either choose to do a thing or I don't — two options." To that, I say, what about the myriad ways you could do or not do the thing? More than anything, you are deciding how to do the thing you know you want to do, or that you feel you ought to do. It's rare that you know exactly what to do and are only deciding whether to do it.
March 18 Oversimplification and generalization of a broad cultural dissonance in America: Our women want to achieve what men have always sought, and our men don't know what to seek other than what they have always sought: material success. We've overcorrected. In the next phase of this, there will be more harmony and opportunity — a place for the minority of women who want masculine success and a place for the minority of men who want feminine success.
March 17 Being in a relationship is the best way to improve yourself, as long as you're not using the relationship to avoid yourself.
March 16 Everyone's journey through life is turbulent and chaotic. Only in hindsight does a person's trajectory appear smooth and calculated.
You can either use your mental energy during a conversation to remember what people say or to think of the best possible response. I would rather do the latter, because it is more impactful. But it leads to poor conversation recall, where all I can remember are the emotions and outcomes of a conversation, rather than its contents.
March 15 "Coffee-shop writing session" includes both a closed phrasal adjective ("coffee-shop") and an open phrasal noun ("writing session"). That's cool.
March 14 The future is not just unwieldy; it's unwieldable.
Another phrase for living within dualities in life: Have a bifocal mindset.
Here's what "detach from outcomes" doesn't mean: having unprotected sex. It is not an attitude of giving yourself up to chance or ignoring consequences. Detaching from outcomes means taking complete ownership of everything within your control and resting in comfort that you have done all you can... and only then do you allow things to unfold without your intervention. Only then do you assume an attitude of openness, to receive reality. You start by manipulating the future, and then move into accepting what arrives. It means wearing a condom and pulling out, and then in the event of a miraculous conception, you can receive that outcome with grace, because you know you did all that was in your power to achieve the desired outcome.
Detachment (from outcomes) is not about absolving yourself of desire. Pursue what you desire — fervently — for only after giving it your best effort will you be able to rest in comfort with whatever comes. Do, do, do, then detach.
Only by detaching from outcomes and sitting in darkness can you become open to possibility.
March 13 You know what's a great title? The Devil Wears Prada. There's so much there. You know it's about fashion and that there's a "Devil" character at the center of the narrative (Meryl Streep). It's surprising and punchy, and the specificity of "Prada" makes it super memorable.
Glaciers rule the Earth. Glaciers were here billions of years before we existed and will live long after we are gone. Their reign goes in waves, but they are sure to dominate the Earth again. They move in silence yet shape the world. And there is wisdom in them, if you can be still enough to listen.
Work is not *the* work. I should subordinate my entire career and the demands of every job I ever have to the next step of my journey inwards. I must live without needing anything from the world, and that means knowing myself before anything else.
March 12 There's a difference between danger and insecurity. It's the difference between getting mugged and getting robbed. Iceland never felt dangerous, but after getting robbed, I felt insecure.
"History is not good at capturing all that is great in art. But history is very good at discarding all that is mediocre."
My take on Atomic Habits: Everything is completely clear, but it has none of James. Every chapter follows the same template, which (1) distances me from the writer as a person and (2) makes me feel like he thinks I need to be led along like a toddler on a crosswalk. The preface is the only part you get to learn about James, with the whole baseball story. All the other stories in the book are about Olympic cyclists or — actually that's the only one I can remember because they're forgettable anecdotes. The examples are trite and repeated. Are there no habits a person would want to develop besides eating healthy and working out? James Clear has great ideas, and he's a great thinker, but by the way he writes, I don't get the sense that he knows it.
March 11 I remember being in fourth grade in the boys' locker room before gym class, and I think that was the moment I fell in love with words. I didn't act on it until later, but that might have been the moment. We'd all changed into our gym clothes, and we were sitting on the floor, lined up along the wall, waiting to walk out to class together. I wasn't talking to anyone. I was in my head repeating the opening lyric to my favorite song: "Hey there, Delilah, / What's it like in New York City? / I'm a thousand miles away / But tonight you look so pretty." Today, I would call that economic storytelling. Then, I just knew how the lyric made me feel and how it felt to sing. Words can move.
Carbon-Based Writing: Don't over-engineer prose. You must preserve the spirit of the first draft as you apply structure, clarity, and polish during revision. But your your edits risk killing the spirit; your prose can become mechanical. And metal lacks life.
As a highly analytical person, this is a struggle for me. My goal has been to have no darlings. While that's a good rule for paragraphs, sentences, and phrases, it's disastrous to kill the darling of the spirit behind your words. Edit the words while preserving the spirit.
I find we are more likely to meet expectations than we are to do wrong. So, let’s expect each other to do the right thing, and support each other so that we can all strive for that ideal: moral perfection. As soon as you start deferring to the culture or the Church or your friends to decide what you ought to do, it’s easier to make excuses and rationalize immoral behavior, as if the fault for your actions lies anywhere other than with you.
March 10 You must start with the feminine: intuition, chaos, formlessness, discomfort, uncertainty. You cannot start with structure, purpose, or a plan. This is a fact of nature: we come from the Mother. The unknown, the womb, is the source of all things real. That is the feminine; the masculine is giving form to what comes into being, to make it something intelligible and valuable and lasting.
Keep this in mind as you define what success means to you. Understand that you can't start with worldly success, and understand that success in the world is not the only kind of success. Before and after you achieve anything, success is a feeling. You can feel success within yourself (feminine success) on your way to achieving success in the world (masculine success).
You cannot measure the quality of your life by what you have accomplished — only by how you have lived.
The bardo of public transit: There is an operator who decides when the train is ready to leave. Yes, you don't know when exactly the doors will close, but you can safely assume that it won't leave until everyone has exited and until everyone who is waiting has boarded. If we were all more in tune with the transitory nature of life, we wouldn't crowd passed each other through the narrow threshold of the train doors. Those waiting to board would wait until everyone in that car who wanted to exit had done so. Only then would you transition from the platform to the train.
We crowd on to the train because we have this unconscious anxiety and insecurity that we'll be left behind or caught in transition. You can dissolve this debilitating fear and align yourself with nature by letting go of this attachment: getting what you want, when you want. Long for nothing but to experience reality as it is. Do not long for reality to bend to your wishes, because you will remain perpetually anxious and disappointed.
If we were intelligently designed, created for a purpose, it was not to do something in the world — like helping people start businesses with your podcast. It would be simpler than that and more universal. If we were made for a purpose, it would be to enjoy life and be grateful for it and love people and accept the fact of our mortality before we die.
Substack Note: I often make a "stank face" reading Yehudis, like a blues singer admiring his band-mate's guitar solo. It's an expression of disgust and admiration, an anomaly of body language. It's like walking into a room and catching whiff of a strong smell you didn't expect, and in the same moment realizing that you dig it.
March 9 I'm not sure I've ever identified with a comic-book character more than I do with Councilman Tenzin in The Legend of Korra (Aang's son). The Martian Manhunter is a close second. They're stoic leaders with strong powers who practice stillness and mediation, and they're principled and opinionated.
I want to be fond of everything I publish and forget most of what I write.
March 8 Emulate your current best conception of your ideal self.
March 7 Recreation is the same word as re-creation. It comes from the Latin recreare: "to refresh, restore, make anew, revive, invigorate." To recreate is to re-create yourself, to make yourself anew through some refreshing, regenerative action (Etymonline entry).
You are your own judge. When you fail, the only means of expiation is to do better in the future, to bring yourself closer overtime to the ideal. You can't use confession to wipe away the week's sins on Saturday. You are the source of your own salvation. (Why? Because you are also the source of your own depravity, which comes both from your actions and your self-perception.) Only you can make yourself worthy of grace, by pursuing moral perfection as if it were your religion.
My struggle in life will be to find comfort in the fact that I will die at sea, and that I will never be able to reach as far as I can dream. No matter how far I go, I will always be the same distance from the horizon.
[[Die at Sea]]
Human = Dying Dreamer + Meaning-Maker
We dream up the furthest but can only reach so far. Despite the reaching being futile, we make it meaningful.
The Dying Dreamer is mortal yet has divine knowledge — the ability to conceive of what he will never attain. He has clarity about himself, his dreams, and his inevitable death. And he is detached from what he knows, knowing it will change; detached from what he dreams, knowing it may never be.
The Meaning-Maker is detached from ordained meaning/purpose or prescribed values. By acting in congruence with his chosen values, he imbues life with meaning.
Without detachment, the equation changes: Human = dreamer + maker. We convince ourselves that our dreams will come true, or that they must come true to be worth pursuing, and we make things that may not be meaningful to us. We need an attitude of detachment to correctly orient our reason and consciousness — to unlock the contradictory composite that is our true nature — that of the Dying Dreamer and Meaning-Maker.
(Did the (inhuman) Adam and Eve dream?)
March 6 If there are things you want to do in this world before you die, start doing them today, because you could die tomorrow. At the end of life, you won't feel any guilt or regret for not achieving your dreams, as long as you were on your way.
Skills I Want to Master in Life
- Writing
- Editing
- Skiing
- Lucid Dreaming
- Calisthenics
- Rock Balancing
- Handpan
- Public Speaking
- Backpacking/Mountaineering
It's wrong to harm people, disrespect people, degrade people, endanger people, or lie to people. But it is not morally wrong to disobey people. If by disobeying you do not harm, disrespect, degrade, endanger, or lie, then at worst what you're doing is illegal. Your duty is to uphold the moral law. If a legal law neither serves neither you nor the moral law, disobeying it is not immoral.
March 5 Here are the three steps to upholding "your half of the covenant" as a writer:
- Choose a topic that you know will be valuable and interesting to others.
- Write the first full draft and first revision for yourself.
- Finally, project yourself into the mind of your reader, and revise again and again as a service to him.
Dependent clauses are like little, opaque containers. You have to untie a bow to see their full contents. So, only put extra surprises in there -- bonus items. Don't conceal what matters. Put all essential info in independent clauses, and resign supplementary info to dependent clauses, to create an intuitive hierarchy for your reader.
If you have the choice between nominalizing and using a weird adverbial phrase, choose the noun (in most cases). Neither are great options, but the noun will likely be shorter and less confusing.
Weird Adverb: “Today, that insight resonates more profoundly than ever.”
Noun: “Today, her insight has a profound resonance.”
Even better, though, would be to keep the verb and cut the weird adverb. (A “weird adverbial phrase” is one that comes after the verb or one that includes an adverb you’ve never heard before — coerced into one from another part of speech.)
Verb: “Her profound insight still resonates today.”
March 4 Ask for what you want until you get what you want, get fired, or quit. With that approach, you'll avoid the worst outcome, which is to continue working a job you resent.
People complain about a job for years and then finally muster the "courage" to quit. I'll never understand it. Try to change your job into something you love first (by either doing different work or improving your pay). And if that doesn't work, quit.
Framework for the dichotomy between concrete examples and concepts in writing (related to RPC's Ladder of Abstraction):
Anchor: Ground a heady concept or philosophical lesson in a story or concrete example.
Elevate: Relate a particular example or story to a larger concept, to give the particular thing more significance and resonance.
These are the processes that help you move up and down the Ladder of Abstraction, between the conceptual and the concrete. Anchor ideas and elevate examples.
The sooner you start doing something you love, and at which you are talented, the less you'll have to grind to achieve success. Since you love it, you'll be willing to do it indefinitely without achieving success. And since you're talented, you'll get better quickly, and you'll get good enough to earn enough money from it. The trick is to keep practicing, keep improving no matter how much success you have, because the success can disappear but not your skills. "Get so good they can't ignore you." That is the best path to lasting (worldly, masculine) success.
March 3 On my logging practice (from this Substack exchange:
I write down many of my fleeting thoughts as digital notes. And the most important part of my practice is that I render each idea in the best prose I can manage in the moment, as if for an audience. And I revisit and revise the notes. I find it improves my craft, adds clarity to my good ideas, and cements them in memory.
March 2 I am steeped in this boiling concrete.
Kant in Religion:
The original good is *holiness* of *maxims* in the compliance to one’s duty, hence merely out of duty, whereby a human being, who incorporates this purity into his maxims, though on this account still not holy as such (for between maxim and deed there still is a wide gap), is nonetheless upon the road of endless progress toward holiness. When the firm resolve to comply with one’s duty has become a habit, it is called virtue.
One long quote from Kant's Religion that summarizes the fallacy of an ecclesiastical faith:
"The courage to stand on one’s own feet is itself strengthened through the doctrine of atonement which follows from it. For this doctrine represents what cannot be altered as wiped out, and opens up for us the path to a new conduct of life; whereas, when the doctrine is made to come first, the futile endeavor to render undone what has been done (expiation), the fear concerning the imputation of expiation, the representation of our total incapacity for the good, and the anxiety lest we slip back into evil, must take the courage away from the human being,* and must reduce him to a state of groaning moral passivity where nothing great and good is undertaken but instead everything is expected from wishing for it. – As regards moral disposition, everything depends upon the highest concept to which the human being subordinates his duties. If reverence for God comes first, and the human being therefore subordinates virtue to it, then this object [of reverence] is an idol, i.e. it is thought as a being whom we may hope to please not through morally upright conduct in this world but through adoration and ingratiation; religion is then idolatry. Thus godliness is not a surrogate for virtue, a way of avoiding it, but its completion, for the sake of crowning it with the hope of the final success of all our good ends."
Kant, Immanuel. Kant: Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy) (p. 209). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.
The narrower your scope — the more micro it is — the more likely it is to map to the macro. To reveal something about the forest, write about a leaf.
"Rationalize" is a more accurate word than "confabulate" when referring to someone who has deluded themself into thinking their actions more ethically sound than they are.
To rationalize is to offer probable justifications for your actions that actually aren't true. To confabulate is to do a similar process unconsciously but believe it as truth, without the intent to deceive or appear more ethical to others.
Below is more context, from a chat with ChatGPT.
Prompt: "Talk to me about the subtle difference in meaning between these three verbs, as they relate to moral action: 'confabulate,' 'justify,' and 'rationalize.'"
Answer: Confabulate: This term often implies the creation of fabricated or imagined explanations without conscious intent to deceive. It can suggest that the person is filling in gaps in their memory or understanding with false information, often due to a cognitive disorder or to protect their self-esteem. In the context of moral action, confabulation might involve inventing reasons for one's behavior that are not based on actual motivations or ethical considerations.
Justify: To justify something is to provide a valid or acceptable reason or explanation for it. This can involve explaining why an action was necessary, reasonable, or morally right based on one's beliefs or values. Justification typically implies a more conscious and deliberate effort to defend or explain one's actions, often in a way that aligns with ethical principles.
Rationalize: Rationalization involves providing logical or seemingly reasonable explanations for behavior that may not actually be the true motivations. It often involves self-deception or an unconscious attempt to make one's actions seem more logical or acceptable, even if they are not morally justified. Rationalization can involve distorting facts or beliefs to make them fit with one's actions or desires.
In summary, "confabulate" suggests an unintentional or non-deceptive fabrication of explanations, "justify" implies a conscious effort to provide valid reasons for actions, and "rationalize" suggests a more self-serving or deceptive effort to make one's actions seem reasonable or moral.
The concept of Original Sin is the result of species-level confabulation (to fill in gaps of memory by fabrication). We do not know from whence we came or how we were made, only how it feels to live. Since we perceive evil and pain and suffering in the world and within ourselves, we have confabulated an origin story to justify our depravity (a false depravity that comes from an avoidably low level self-esteem): Original Sin.
Glacial Parenting
The glacier engenders the river that erodes the valley.
The river thanks the glacier and gives it credit: "You shaped this valley and gave me life. All I have accomplished I owe to you."
The glacier objects: "The marks you have made on this earth are all your own. All I did was give you enough to get going. You have done the rest, and you could have done it without me."
This is the best and simplest model I've conceived of for good parenting. And really, both are true; the river could not have done it without the glacier, and the river is due credit for what it has done.
There is an island too small to stand on at the center of the infinite sea. That's what you're searching for: Truth within the fabric of reality. That's what you're searching for, but you will never find it; you must rest in comfort with the pursuit itself. And if it suits you, hope that the afterlife may reveal what you sought in life.
We humans are constantly translating the ineffable to the physical, and back again. Every spoken word is made flesh. It begins as a formless thought, then crystalizes into an idea, then it becomes matter in the world through speech. The friend who receives your words-on-air, does the reverse process — from the physical to the ineffable.
As a writer, you want to make the reverse process as smooth and satisfying as possible for your reader. They perceive your words as ink or pixels and transmute them into some immaterial thing that we can't understand. Good writing is easy to transmute from the physical into the ineffable, from words to memory.
February
February 29 An editor helps you improve a pice of writing. A writing coach uses each piece to help you improve as a writer.
February 26 Life was simpler when we didn't have the ability to make ourselves extinct.
The only consecutive numbers that sum to the next consecutive number are 1 and 2, with their sum as 3.
February 25 Here's a unique example of a euphemism, and like many euphemisms, this one is for sex: "Moondance," Van Morrison.
Examples of Dichotomies vs. Dualities
Dichotomy (the two things) :: Duality (the two things in harmony)
- Good and Evil :: Human
- Black and White :: Grey
- Day and Night :: Dawn/Dusk
- Light and Dark :: Dim
- Birth and Death :: Life
- Heaven and Hell :: Earth
- Mind and Body :: Soul
- Suicide and Blind Faith :: The Dizzying Crest
- One and Two :: Three
[[Live in the Third]]
Maybe there are two types of insecurity: social and personal (and maybe a third, existential). Think of hitchhiking.
- The personal insecurity is "I don't have a ride, and there's no guarantee I'll get where I want to go."
- The social insecurity is "What are these people thinking and saying about me as they drive by?"
- (And existential insecurity is always there: "Everything in life is fleeting and ephemeral, and someday, I will die.)
February 24 Superlative vs. Hyperbole
A superlative places the object at the top of a hierarchy. Hyperbole exaggerates an aspect of the object. Hyperbole is more effective as a rhetorical device because it's more specific and convincing. Superlatives are almost never true. They are only useful in satire, sarcasm, or humor.
Superlative: "World's Best Coffee" Hyperbole: "World-Famous Coffee"
The most common use of superlatives are as the frame for a question, whether in casual conversation or official interviews (or in high school yearbooks — "Most likely to get married"). Too often, people ask about your favorite book, favorite trip, favorite meal, or maybe your greatest accomplishment or your #1 hidden talent. All these are superlatives, and they'd be better questions if they weren't. Get specific. It makes the question easier to answer, and it leads to a more interesting, substantive answer for the audience.
Know the difference between superlatives (the best, the most, the favorite, the only, the greatest) and hyperbole (stronger than an ox, light as a feather, better than sex). Then, whenever you have a choice, opt for hyperbole over a superlative.
Note: Both superlatives and hyperbole can be negative descriptors too (worst, least or dumber than a doornail).
Birth is a leap; death is a landing. And living can either feel like falling or flying.
We long for safety because we know we're fragile and that life is fleeting. We know it every moment, even if we aren't always conscious of it. All of our decisions are colored by it.
It makes sense to value and seek safety, but where we go wrong is clinging to the idea of security. We are perpetually insecure. And the more comfortable you are with insecurity, the more you acknowledge and address it, the more capable you are of thriving in the world.
There's a difference between danger and insecurity. Avoid danger; approach insecurity, and overcome it.
February 22
Writing advice that applies in almost every case: Finish your first draft before you start revising. That's not a hard-and-fast rule, but you'll have the best results if you keep those two processes distinct. (And before computers, that was really the only option. The invention of the Delete
key was the invention of mid-first-draft revisions.)
You must start with feminine chaos and end with masculine structure. You can't start with order or finish with chaos and still produce excellent writing. You need that harmony: the muse and the sculptor.
Quack This Way was written because of a book review that brought two snoots together: David Foster Wallace (DFW) and Bryan A. Garner (BAG). I read the brilliant, 60-page review in Consider the Lobster and, following DFW's glowing recommendation, hunted for my own copy of Garner's Modern American Usage (second edition) in the basement of the Strand. After learning from and referencing GMAU for a few weeks, I discovered that DFW and BAG had a friendship and that BAG had published an interview with DFW as as a booklet. I ordered it immediately. Now, holding this thin, little thing, I may be the most excited I've ever been about a book. Time to quack on with it.
One of my open questions as a writer/editor is "How can I write with the linguistic control of DFW without getting an MFA?" My working solution: Study DFW and BAG.
February 21 Don't use journal prompts. Journal about what's on your mind. If there's truly nothing interesting or pressing or heavy or challenging on your mind (almost never), don't journal.
It's important to have a sense for big moments. Not every day, not every decision has the same impact on your life. Duh -- yeah, that's easy to know; it's harder to know when one of those big moments is upon you. If you can develop a sense for these, you can do the work to prepare and guarantee that the moment's effect is as positive as it could possibly be.
The truths of lucidity (as a concept):
- The world you experience is one you create.
- Self-awareness gives you the power to recreate your world.
February 20 All writing is magic realism because structure is magic. It's the invisible force that transmutes what you see and hear and experience in the world into polished, stone-etched prose. Everything written is beyond what is spoken and heard, because what is written has been revised and restructured.
This quote summarizes why I say I want to write with the perceptual layers of Joan Didion. Her words are new lenses, her paragraphs microscopes and megaphones.
"I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear." – Joan Didion
"Round-about language" = a useful euphemism for editors, instead of calling a section of a writer's prose "weak."
Ironically, "round-about language" is round-about language in place of a phrase like "weak language," but it's intentionally weak to soften the blow of the word "weak." Round-about language without purpose is a burden on the reader and often leads to confusion.
February 19 This 2-minute MasterClass trailer is a master class on its own. Margret Atwood drops knowledge-bombs about creative writing:
"Let's start ['Little Red Riding Hood'] a different way: 'It was dark inside the wolf.'" "Your goal is to keep your reader believing in your story, even though both of you know it's fiction." "If you really do want to write and you're trying to get started, you're afraid of something. Remember, it's only you and the page. The waste-paper basket is your friend. It was invented for you by God." "People are always coming up with new theories of the novel, but the main rule is: hold my attention." "Any form of human creativity is a process of doing it and getting better at it. You become a writer by writing. There is no other way. So, do it. Do it more. Fail. Fail better. Somewhere out there are the readers for your book."
Deliberate, then decide; don't just do one or the other. Think, think, think, until you feel whether it's the right thing to do. Then do it, or don't.
(Note: This applies to haircut- and tattoo- decisions, not to ball-cap decisions -- ref: James Clear's framework. For ball-cap decisions, feel free to decide without much deliberation.)
Theory: Monotheistic religions have no more a basis than the pagan believes of the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, or Aztecs, but the monotheistic metaphysics is widely adopted and enduring because it appeals more to reason. Jesus was a real person in history. God is an anthropomorphic being, but he does not control the harvest or the weather. The ethics is to love your neighbor, based on reciprocity and compassion. All of that appeals to our "higher parts," because it doesn't connect the divine to the earth (the body) but resigns Him to heaven (the mind). There is one Creator, one source of things, one arbiter of things. All that "makes sense" more than the Sun god and the Moon god and the god of the harvest or the sea.
We want to believe in a unifying narrative and give ourselves up to a higher power. We humans have a religious instinct. Monotheistic religions, Christianity especially (because of the "true" life of Jesus), are constructed so that we can "rationally" justify the same types of beliefs that pagan and polytheistic religions have had forever. The monotheistic metaphysics is adopted and endures because those who believe it feel elevated, enlightened, not outcast or blindly hopeful.
Sex is amoral, just like eating, sleeping, and shitting. Sex is sustenance on the scale of a species. The sex-related ethical issues are consent and social contracts and dignity and infidelity. If this natural, amoral thing weren't so taboo in Western culture, maybe we'd have better cultural norms for the ethical issues, because we'd spend less time sneaking about and talking around sex.
February 17 What's the difference between wanting to be elsewhere and feeling like you're not at home? Can elsewhere be an adventure, or is it always an escape?
The best growth mindset is a glacial mindset.
By nature, we are distractible. Focus doesn't come easily. And reading requires a singular focus — your eyes and mind targeted at one thing. Reading has fallen to other media not because it's less entertaining or engaging but because it requires more focus. Movies and podcasts and TV shows and audiobooks enable multitasking and don't punish a lack of focus as much as a book.
Films, no matter the genre, are dreams for the waking mind. Video games, especially those in VR, are lucid dreams for the waking mind. We revel in these forms of media because they let us slip into that ever-so-pleasurable dream state that otherwise discard and diminish. Every night, you create movies and live inside video games. Yet, because you've forgotten the power of your own mind, you reach for your phone in the morning and cleave yourself from your subconscious. Make your dreams real by recalling them, writing them down, storing them like memories.
The horizon's taller here. The morning sky is bright before you see the Sun peak through Midtown's skyscrapers. And the sunset you can only see as a reflection in the windows of the same. The only way you can even glimpse the evening sun is if you're looking down a straight, downhill street facing due west. In the city, we shield ourselves from the light.
February 16 Reverse Outlining
A reverse outline is an outline for your second draft. Or, you could think of it as a revision plan. Free-write for your first draft, and dump everything on the page. Then, take a sober look at what you have and decide what you can cut.
A reverse outline helps you identify your main ideas and put them in an order that makes sense. Here are the steps:
- Read through your first draft, maybe leaving notes to yourself as you go, like “Important” or “Cut this.” But don’t edit your writing for clarity or style. Just focus on the structure. What do you need to keep, and what should you cut?
- Open another document or grab a piece of paper, and write a draft of your Shiny Dime. What is the most specific and surprising idea from your first draft? Then, list out your main ideas, omitting any that don’t support your Shiny Dime.
- Add evidence to each of those ideas as bullet points, and arrange your ideas in an order that makes sense. Remember: Only add enough detail to give you a clear direction for your second draft.
Once you’ve finished your reverse outline, it’s time to write your second draft. Keep the best parts of your first draft, and cut the rest. Follow your reverse outline, and make sure that you’re making a clear, compelling argument for your main idea.
One of the most dangerous forms of self-delusion is a feeling of false safety. Don't strut or sprint across a tightrope. You'll fall.
A close second is a feeling of false danger (debilitating neuroticism). Don't cower and tremble on this side of the chasm if there's a sturdy bridge that you could cross to get where you want to go.
Even some very experienced writers, if they aren't also editors and English mechanics nerds, think that punctuation only serves to pace their prose. No — rather, punctuation serves to organize phrases and clauses into a hierarchy and within relationships so that the reader can effortlessly glean what your mean.
February 15 The rules of grammar mechanics serve meaning-making. When you can make meaning more easily and more clearly by breaking a rule, do it.
When you're writing anything -- whether nonfiction or fiction -- err on the side of specificity, while filtering out what's irrelevant to your reader (don't go too niche to make the whole subject a bore). Reveal universal truths through particulars, and ground heady concepts in concrete examples.
Every writer's style is somewhere on the spectrum from sober to psychedelic.
The writer can stay in his head. Then, the self-editor must project himself into the mind of his reader.
Chapter headings, section breaks, and H2s are all like cairns along a trail. You see it ahead and are reassured that you're headed in the right direction, and you commit to hiking at least until you reach that next checkpoint.
Mark Manson is one of the only modern, male Internet outlier-successes who seems to be completely healthy and well-adjusted and intrinsically motivated. He's not a fitness influencer who was fat and bullied and who is motivated by not devolving into the former version of himself that he hates. He's not a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who derives all his self-worth from the sum of his investment portfolio. He's not a lonely genius who's convinced that God has ordained he write for the sake of the world. Rather, he's a thoughtful guy who's contemplated life's toughest questions and sought answers in psychology and philosophy, and then he's shared what he's learned in the most entertaining way he knows how, without sacrificing accuracy. It's accessibility for the sake of impact. He's always still trying to learn, always trying to make an impact on others through his work, and he'll humbly be proven wrong and delight in addressing his flaws. Oh, and he's a savvy businessman and marketer who works hard to build a business he believes in, while doing work that he enjoys. I will never understand the hate.
Every morning you have free admission to the museum of your mind, if you recall your dreams. We blink too early into the theater of the world and forfeit what we could see from our subconscious.
Think of yourself as a god. Not as an omnipotent or omniscient being or someone worthy of worship or the creator of the world — think of yourself as an all-seeing moral judge because that's what you are, to yourself.
February 14 "Rhythm" is one of the weirdest-spelled words in the English language. There are five consonants, one vowel; and that vowel is a 'y', which barely qualifies. The second syllable is all consonants: "thm." It may be the only word in English language where "thm" comprises an entire syllable; it's at least the most common word with that characteristic. The final syllable of both "algorithm" and "logarithm" is "rithm," which includes a vowel, as you would expect from a syllable. But in "rhythm," the 'y' serves as the vowel for both syllables somehow, yet it can only belong to one.
(After writing the above, I checked with ChatGPT, which corroborates my suspicions that "rhythm" is unique: "Yes, that's a safe assumption. 'Rhythm' is likely the most common word in English that includes a syllable made up of only consonants.")
Getting lost is how you develop a sense of direction. Sitting in boredom is how you become in-distractible. Lean in to discomfort to promote growth.
Let the first draft be for you, and revise as a service to your reader.
Keep editing until everything hangs on a single thread. Shift your thesis if you have to, and if you do, cut what's not longer relevant. That's the responsibility writers have to their readers -- to ruthlessly revise.
February 13 We understand that life moves in phases, fits and starts. But we treat that as a design flaw instead of a feature. We strive for perfect balance between our professional and personal lives, friends and family time, mental and physical fitness. But never at any point will both sides be at equilibrium. Balance is the wrong goal, and it's not even optimal if you could achieve it. Life is a series of seasons. Let one side of the scale dip down, let one part of you take the lead for a while. Instead of trying to achieve perfect balance, just make sure that what you're doing with your time is healthy and promotes personal growth. Go for harmony, not balance.
February 12 Computers are counter-evolutionary. Our minds and bodies are evolved to move around in 3-D space and do things in the world. At a desk, behind a computer, we sit still and move a phantom appendage in digital space. The self-reliant human-animal is now less of an animal and more of a machine, and more reliant on machines.
We have this unquestioned value of ease, comfort, and convenience. And it leads to default thoughts and decisions -- like "Why would I write emails when an AI assistant can do it for me?" or "Thanks to social media, I'll never have to be bored again!". We have these values that contradict a fundamental truth: it is the things that are difficult and boring and aimless and tedious and slow that uniquely add depth and breadth to life. There's value in doing hard things, moving slowly, and being bored. These states are nothing to escape but are parts of life to embrace.
The world is not flawed but rather how we think of the world. Nature is always right.
February 11 Find harmony, not balance. Balance suggests everything in equal portions. Harmony requires, at any one time, for one aspect of you to be in the lead. And that's what's realistic. That's how you best function, by letting different aspects of you take the lead at different parts in the song.
February 10 So much just comes down to how you package and frame what you offer. You can be a polymath and do 10,000 things, but if you want to be known by anyone or be understood or stand out to anyone, you need to be okay with them only knowing you for one thing. Make that thing very clear, and deliver on it, and that will give you the freedom to pursue the 10,000 things.
You don't have to be the Drunk or the Dork. You can be the Social Soberman. This is true for everything. Don't identify with one side of the dichotomy. Live the duality.
Mechanics magic — an en dash plus a hyphen to create a phrasal noun made up of a range of numbers:
"Are you free tomorrow for a 30–45-minute meeting?"
Life is your line in the snow, and how you live is how you turn.
February 9 I don't want a slow life. I want a dynamic, spontaneous, ambitious life that rests on a practice of stillness.
David Perell got his first job with this Twitter thread in 2016. It's a microcosm of the Internet's potential for serendipity.
As you self-edit, remain aware of what you're going for. Try to project yourself into the mind of your reader, someone who doesn't know what's coming and hasn't labored over the previous and the proximate paragraphs. If you forget what you're going for and only evaluate it from your perspective, you'll end up making the thing drier and less alive than the first draft.
You want the final draft to be just as alive but less disheveled. You're performing the service of a tailor or a barber, not a surgeon.
Raise your floor with your ceiling. That'll temper how far you fall (when you inevitably do).
Between an essay and a film, these are the analogies for pacing:
- Each sentence is a shot, each period a cut
- Paragraphs are scenes
- And sections are acts.
Faith and insecurity are always playing against each other, the one always within the other. You can't have faith without insecurity because within every belief is the real chance that you're wrong. And you can't feel insecure without a nugget of faith, because any insecurity requires you to know what you're lacking and feel that your worries has some chance of being assuaged.
You need faith to overcome insecurity, and you can't be faithful without feeling insecure.
February 8 Listen to the rhythm of this sentence (from DFW in an interview with Elle magazine): "Drugs, movies where stuff blows up, loud parties -- all these chase loneliness away by making me forget that my name's Dave and I live in a one-by-one box of bone no other party can penetrate or know."
In just the second half of that sentence, there's so much phonetic goodness. First, there's the rhyming: By, my, I, by. Then, there's the alliteration: making me, one-by-one box of bone, party can penetrate. And then there's the subtle wordplay: no other party can... know. Just read it aloud and dance to the meter of it. He's a word-magician.
Suffering is a fact of life, and life is how you respond to the fact.
The Duality of Passion
Love vs. hate is one of the most common illusory dichotomies. We forget that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference.
Maybe you'd never say that you hate your partner, but you sometimes resent them and don't want to be around them and wish they were different and feel like you don't love them as much anymore. But then maybe you realize something like "I only hate my partner when she reveals a part of myself that I wish were different. I only hate her when what she says reminds me of a painful truth." So even the hate you feel is borne from love; you love your partner because he/she helps you grow.
Love includes hate and hate love. They are inseparable and compose the duality of passion.
If the depths pose you no threat of drowning, then you can effectively breathe underwater.
Don't wait for the world to serve you rock-bottom. Instead, decide that rock-bottom was yesterday.
A cardinal rule of fiction: Make it inevitable but not predictable.
"Satisfied" Is *Hamilton*'s Best Song
Why did I tear up listening to "Satisfied" on my walk to work this morning? I'll tell you why. The love-triangle B-plot of Hamilton is better than the A-plot. I've seen the show twice — once in Chicago and once in New York. In both casts, the best singer (and performer) was Angelica, and "Satisfied" is the climax of her internal conflict. Her sister, Eliza, is marrying the man she loves: Alexander.
The song is a masterclass in economic storytelling (especially with the spinny stage they have for the set). It's Alexander and Eliza's wedding. Angelica is giving a toast to the groom and bride: "May you always be satisfied." But most of the song is a series of flashbacks through Angelica's love for and loss of Alexander. The flashbacks end at an a cappella bridge, where she says, "At least my dear Eliza's his wife / At least I keep his eyes in my life." Angelica knows she will never be satisfied.
Back to the toast: "To your union and the hope that you provide / May you always be satisfied."
Arguably the most interesting part about it all is that Angelica denied her self the satisfaction of being with Hamilton. Angelica took on the role assigned to her by her father and family, and she saw her sister, Eliza, as "helpless." If she had gone after what she truly wanted in life and trusted that her sister and her family would be okay without her sacrifice, she could have been satisfied.
This song is her realizing all that at once. It's full of regret and remorse and tragedy, and it's a feat of undeniable vocal greatness.
Also, Angelica is Hamilton's intellectual equal, and they both have equal weight in the overall narrative. Lin Manuel Miranda definitely intended for her to be the focus of the story. He'd probably say that the B-plot is actually the A-plot.
February 7 The male's god is a woman, the female's a man.
Make each thing you do the best it can be, for the time in life you're doing it. Then forgive your past-self for not being as talented and capable as you are today.
I'm pretty well convinced (from personal experience) that having any healthy daily habit will completely change your experience of life. I've had streaks of writing, meditating, reading, and exercising. And those have all done the trick. The too common mistake of ambitious, growth-minded people is that they try to do it all at once and burn out within a few days. Choose one thing you value, and do it every day for a week -- even better if it's the first thing you do in the day. It will change you, and you'll want to do it for another week straight. When you stop doing it, choose a different thing to do every day.
There are only two options: either exceed expectations or subvert them. This applies to writing, work, and life.
Quote from Grandpa, from Paul's opinion column in the Springfield Daily Citizen:
“Most things have been said and done already, so to stand out and be memorable, you have to find a different way of saying and doing things.” – Leon Kincaid
The COVID lockdown was authoritarianism without sufficient justification (analogous to taxation without representation) — no wonder Americans' first instinct was rebellion.
I love death-loop movies and games. It seems true to me. A day is a life. And how awesome would it be to have the chance to iterate on one day and make it perfect (or save the world), as your life? These include:
- Groundhog Day
- Edge of Tomorrow
- Source Code
- And Outer Worlds (video game).
February 6 POP Writing is the antidote to boring writing. You need personal stories to relate to your reader, surprising observations that add value, and playful language to keep your reader entertained. Distinct and memorable writing combines all three pillars of POP; it's personal, observational, and playful — not boring.
How many times has the park ranger hiked and trimmed the trail he cut? Before you share what you've made with the world, walk through it yourself, and make sure you've set a clear path that others can follow.
[[Park-Ranger Revision]]
Euphemisms and Dysphemisms
Most people have heard of a euphemism, which is a more palatable word or phrase to stand in for something unpleasant, inappropriate, or uncomfortable. E.g.:
- "Passed away"
- "Put the dog down"
- "Bumpin' uglies"
- "Powder my nose"
- "Between jobs"
- "Lady of the night"
I just learned, from Bryan Garner (via Modern American Usage) about dysphemisms, which are the opposite of euphemisms. They are more raunchy or rude ("disagreeable") words or phrases substituted for otherwise mundane, neutral ones. E.g.:
- "Jock" for "athlete"
- "Bible-thumper" for Christian
- "Tree-hugger" for "environmentalist"
- "Grease monkey" for "mechanic"
- "Knocked up" for "pregnant"
- "Turd herder" for "plumber"
- Or "plumber" for "urologist"
Euphemisms elevate writing and couch spoken words in comfort. Dysphemisms you wouldn't see in any serious writing, unless it were a morally ambiguous character's dialogue in a novel.
I pity those who measure their worth by outcomes.
The musical interval of the third is the simplest possible chord — two notes separated by two steps, ringing in harmony. Emulate the third in life, by striving for simplicity and harmony.
[[Live in the Third]]
I don't live in a neighborhood. I live in an outpost of New York City.
I don't like the idea of spending time tracking how much time I'm spending on a thing. I'd rather just do the thing or do something else. The tracking only makes sense if it significantly increases the time you'd spend doing something that you really value.
The only intellectually honest position is uncertainty. Any other position is a form of self-delusion.
The Third is an interval between extremes. It is a conditional, liminal space, where questions reign and answers change. And it's the arena for everything real.
[[Live in the Third]]
February 5 Well shit, this is the best answer I've received in my very limited use of ChatGPT. I was testing it with something I know, and I likely would have failed to summarize it more concisely myself.
Prompt: "Explain what Kant means by an 'ecclesiastical faith' in his book Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason.
Answer: "In his book Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Immanuel Kant distinguishes between two types of faith: ecclesiastical faith and moral faith.
Ecclesiastical Faith: Kant defines ecclesiastical faith as a form of religious belief that is based on doctrines and teachings provided by a specific religious institution or authority, such as a church or religious organization. This type of faith involves accepting and adhering to the dogmas, rituals, and practices prescribed by the religious community to which one belongs. Ecclesiastical faith often includes adherence to specific theological doctrines, religious ceremonies, and hierarchical structures.
Kant criticizes ecclesiastical faith for its reliance on external authority and dogmatic beliefs that are not subject to rational scrutiny or moral evaluation. He argues that ecclesiastical faith can lead to religious fanaticism, intolerance, and the suppression of individual freedom of thought and conscience.
Overall, ecclesiastical faith, in Kant's view, is characterized by adherence to religious doctrines and practices dictated by external authority, without critical examination or moral autonomy.
Moral Faith: In contrast to ecclesiastical faith, Kant proposes the concept of moral faith, which he considers to be the essence of true religious belief within the boundaries of mere reason. Moral faith is grounded in the individual's rational and moral autonomy, rather than external religious authority or dogmas. It involves a commitment to moral principles and the pursuit of moral perfection based on the dictates of practical reason.
Kant argues that moral faith centers on the individual's inner moral disposition and commitment to ethical principles such as the moral law, the categorical imperative, and the principle of autonomy. Moral faith does not require adherence to specific religious doctrines or rituals but rather emphasizes the moral autonomy and responsibility of the individual.
Kant sees moral faith as compatible with rationality and moral autonomy, providing a foundation for ethical living and the pursuit of the highest good. He considers moral faith to be the true essence of religion, transcending the limitations of ecclesiastical authority and dogmatic beliefs.
In summary, Kant distinguishes between ecclesiastical faith, based on external religious authority and dogmas, and moral faith, grounded in individual moral autonomy and commitment to ethical principles. He critiques ecclesiastical faith for its reliance on external authority and advocates for moral faith as the essence of true religion within the boundaries of mere reason."
I'm not sure whether to be reassured or concerned. Regardless, I'm impressed. (Archive of the full chat)
Learn from others. Lead yourself.
What is philosophy worth if it isn't practical? Why would I want to publish anything that didn't warrant that modifier: practical philosophy?
The Hypertrophic Mindset
- Go slowly through the hardest part.
- Put yourself in disadvantageous positions to potentiate growth.
- Pace yourself so that you have nothing left by the end.
- Give full effort to the object of your focus.
- Build a plan, and stay consistent.
(Inspired by Renaissance Periodization)
I'm way more interested in being a successful editor than I am in being a successful writer. My main goals with writing are to:
- Always write what I'm interested in and not rely on being assigned projects
- Get better with every piece and challenge myself with big projects on my way to mastery
- And never stop writing.
Editing will help me accomplish all three of those goals, because I won't have to sacrifice anything as a writer. It can be detached from what I need to make money, while the thing I do to make money (editing) helps me master the craft of writing.
Starting any writing project is like drawing up a bucket from a well of interminable depth. The bucket is heavy enough that you know it's filled with water, but you have no idea how long you'll have to work at it to bring the fruits of the spring to the surface.
It's deeply rewarding to create something deserving of italics.
My two favorite genres of film are doomed romances and psychological thrillers. (An honorable mention is m allegorical dramas, like The Truman Show and The Prestige.) Here are my favorites in each category, in no particular order.
Psychological Thrillers:
- Parasite
- Silence of the Lambs
- The Shining
- Get Out
- Se7en
- "Beyond the Sea," Black Mirror
- "USS Callister," Black Mirror
- "The Entire History of You," Black Mirror
- Severance
- The Menu
Doomed Romances
- Past Lives
- Marriage Story
- 500 Days of Summer
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
- La La Land
- "Hang the DJ," Black Mirror
- "San Junipero," Black Mirror
"Everything works out" is something I believe. But it doesn't mean that every thing (read: "all of the things") works out; it means that everything, the singular thing that refers to all things, works out. On average, it all works out, even if there are many important, painful things that do not.
Is it "in the water"? Or is it just in the water where you are? Find your valley.
Liberally share your nascent ideas and your full drafts. Keep your partial drafts to yourself.
February 4 The main reason people become patrons of creators is because they want to support the artist and give thanks for their work. Exclusive content perks are just how a patron justifies his purchase. Takeaway: Only give them enough to make it feel more valuable than the price, but don't promise so much that you end up under-delivering.
Robin Hood is ethically deluded. He has convinced himself that because he is stealing from the rich and giving to the poor that his thievery is morally permissible. In his head, he truly believes that what he's doing is justified. Yet, there is a primordial part of him that knows otherwise. Surely, Robin Hood's conscience torments him for being a thief, no matter how steadfastly he believes his crimes to be good deeds.
February 3 We don't think of a puny ice-cap as the mother of the valley. We forget that it was once a mighty glacier and that it reared this land. The glacier moves in silence and doesn't seek credit, yet it shapes the world — like all good parents.
January
January 31 If you feel like you have to get everything done, you won't be able to give your all to anything.
No matter how crowded the morning commute is in New York, there's always a line for the escalator and an open lane on the stairs. I don't think it's because people are lazy; most of them are about to walk a half a mile to finish their commute. I think it's because we can't resist the temptation of ease and comfort. I mean, why would you turn down a free twenty seconds to check your favorite social media feed while magically descending two flights-worth of stairs?
The practice of meditation is not clearing your mind but filling your mind with a singular focus.
January 30 This is why I love and align with Kantian ethics: Kant argues for a a faith borne from morality, a "religion of good life-conduct." It empowers me and you as autonomous moral agents capable of discerning right from wrong and endows us with the responsibility to religiously uphold what we reason to be good life-conduct. It's beautiful.
One of the greatest insights from Camus's The Fall:
"God is not needed to create guilt or to punish. Our fellow men suffice, aided by ourselves. You were speaking of the Last Judgment. Allow me to laugh respectfully. I shall wait for it resolutely, for I have known what is worse, the judgment of men."
It has an uncanny kinship with possibly my favorite quote ever from Kant (which I have memorized):
"The pretension that the depraved go unpunished in the world is ungrounded, for by its nature every crime already carries with it its due punishment, inasmuch as the inner reproach of conscience torments the depraved even more harshly than the Furies" (Religion).
Camus argues for the severity of man's judgment as being worse than God's. Kant argues for the severity of our own self-torment as being worse than any consequence man could endure in the world. The synthesis of the two reveals that man is his own moral authority.
A dream is a cryptic message from your past life, the you of yesterday.
January 29 We humans are sensitive to shock: sudden drops, noise from silence, anything that subverts our expectations. But we can manage any outcome and not be immobilized by shock, as long as the outcome isn't so far from our expectations. We are adaptable, but it's not the things that change; it's our expectations of and reactions to the things. At the turn of winter, the cold is a shock and keeps us indoors. Even a week into winter, we change our expectations and brace for the most likely outcome. Warm weather would be a shock.
Remember: You are writing for a reader — someone who exists outside of your head. Make it clear to them and make it matter.
January 28 Live Like a Glacier
- Be in the low places, where everything is abundant.
- Chart a path and gradually move in your chosen direction.
- Value stillness.
- Acknowledge your own majesty.
- Make your mark on the world.
- Grow slowly and consistently, season by season.
- Be noble and reliable, impenetrable.
You are not the boxes people put you in, and you're not how you see yourself. You are an amorphous, obscure thing — always imperceptibly changing.
Our cosmic insignificance is important to remember, as long as it doesn’t lead to us forgetting the agency we have on Earth. We matter in this universe because we matter to ourselves and each other, and because we have the unique ability to decide what is meaningful in life.
Cherish the middle-moments, because most of life happens between where you were and where you're going. Very little of life is arriving.
January 26 I'm not religious, but I am principled.
A great example of riffing on cliches: "Everything in moderation, even moderation"
January 25 It's immoral to cut in line, unless the person in front of you moves more like leg-less reptile than a bipedal mammal and lacks urgency in the most un-American way, where you would otherwise waste your ticket to ride. Then, it's morally permissible to cut in line.
On the Rose Reading Room, in the Rose Reading Room:
Surrounded by beauty and bathed in silence, I hear the thoughts that would otherwise be drowned out by city-noise. There is silence in the city; it's just scarce. It's sacred and must be protected.
January 24 Do you agree that our awareness of death is the source of gratitude? Could you be grateful for what you have if everything in life were not fleeting and ephemeral, if you knew you could have it all forever?
(Revised Springboard from "Majesty and Mortality")
When I am journaling, exercizing, and meditating, I have a negligible amount of stress in my day-to-day. (Of course, there's a chicken-or-egg question here: Do you do those things when you are not stressed, or by doing those things, do you relieve stress?) If I can just do those things consistently, I can operate at a higher level of energy and enjoyment in life.
Duality is one of the oldest pieces of philosophical knowledge: Adam and Eve, salvation and sin, Sun and Moon, Heaven and Hell, predator and prey, Good and Evil, Yin and Yang, Life and Death. The idea is that nothing exists as one or the other but always both, that two extremes mix in unequal portions to create each thing. It's easy to know this conceptually and hard to know experientially.
Careful with your prepositions — they change the meaning of what you're saying.
Don't: "She is untethered to precedent."
Do either:
- "She is not tethered to precedent" (my preference for this example)
- Or "She is untethered from precedent."
On Whether to Capitalize an Independent Clause Following a Colon
There's a debate among grammarians: whether to capitalize an independent clause when it follows a colon. And here's my verdict: only capitalize that clause if what precedes the colon is a phrase. If both sides of the colon are independent clauses, do not capitalize the second, so that the two appear more closely related.
Don't capitalize when it's a phrase. "There were only ever three kinds of flowers in Nana's garden: tulips, daisies, and red roses."
Do capitalize when the first is a phrase and the second a clause. "My revelation in the valley: There is nothing more noble than a glacier."
Don't capitalize when both are complete clauses. "The E-News panel was malnourished after the Academy Awards: only one woman had a wardrobe malfunction."
Exception: When using a colon to introduce a quotation, capitalize the first word of the quote regardless of whether what precedes the colon is a complete clause.
"I'll think about this idea at least once a week until the day I die: 'The pretension that the depraved go unpunished in the world is ungrounded, for by its nature very crime carries with it its due punishment, inasmuch as the inner reproach of conscience torments the depraved even more harshly than the Furies'" (Kant, Religion).
(Also, don't use a colon to connect two phrases. "My fatal flaw: being too good-looking." In that case, add a verb: "My fatal flaw is being too good-looking.")
On Formatting Bulleted Lists
The most important thing with bulleted lists is parallelism. Whether you use:
- lower-case elements separated by semicolons;
- Capitalized fragments with a period after each item.
- Or capitalized fragments with a period only after the final item.
keep it consistent through the entire list.
My preferred method: Treat the bulleted list as if it were a list within a sentence or paragraph, just formatted differently. Capitalize and punctuate it as a normal list with a few exceptions:
- Capitalize the first word of each item
- Omit commas and semicolons, for readability (and let the bullets serve as those marks)
- And if each item is an independent clause, end each line with a period (otherwise, only add end-punctuation to the final item).
(Note: Bryan Garner says to place the and (or whichever conjunction) at the end of the penultimate item, but then you'd have to add a comma or semicolon before the conjunction. I say, put the and at the start of the final item and capitalize it to avoid commas and semicolons altogether.)
The Paleolithic Psyche
The masculine insecurity is about how well you provide for others. The feminine insecurity is about how well you care for others. And both are insecure about how they appear to others.
You could call these the 1) hunter, 2) gatherer, and 3) tribal insecurities, respectfully.
Then, there are three possible ways to respond to whichever source of insecurity you feel:
- Prey: Assuming guilt, internalizing the pain, feeling fragile, and being non-confrontational
- Predator: Casting blame, lashing out with aggressive language, being dismissive and stubbornly disagreeable
- Sage: Acting from acute self-awareness and radical self-honesty; owning your genuine shortcomings and working to correct them; disregarding the hateful attacks from others that come from places of malice, pain, and jealousy
In a capitalistic society, we get to thinking that what's scarce is what's valuable and that what's valuable is expensive. And that's all true — for material things. Yet, there are things in life that are abundant and valuable but free. In a capitalistic society, we lag in our ability to appraise these immaterial things, these things that cannot be bought or sold and that don't follow the price-and-value laws of the free market. These abundant, valuable, and free things include: community, laughter, silence, sunrises and sunsets, love, and the breath. If you are not rich in life, you can still have a rich life.
How to ski type III: Use your edges to turn while keeping your shoulders square down the mountain, and make your turns longer to slow down, shorter to speed up.
Trade in Your Generic Verbs
Example of nondescript, passive, wordy verbs vs. apt, active, descriptive verbs:
Don't: "My team and I celebrated our championship win as we were handed a huge, heavy trophy."
Do: "I hugged my teammates and hoisted the championship trophy."
Hoisted alone replaced this entire phrase: as we were handed a huge, heavy. I hugged my teammates is more descriptive and three fewer syllables than my team and I celebrated. Whenever you have the chance to swap nouns or adjectives for verbs, do it (e.g., hoisted). And whenever you have the chance to upgrade your verb to one that is more descriptive or visual, do it (e.g., hugged).
When you read the first sentence, you have at least one question: How did you celebrate?
The second sentence answers that question without losing the answer to: What did you win? (the championship). I hugged my teammates and hoisted the championship trophy.
January 23 "A 'mondegreen' is a misheard lyric, saying, catchphrase, or slogan." – Bryan Garner, GMAU
Example:
- "The answer, my friends, is blowin' in the wind." – Bob Dylan
- "The ants are my friends, blowin' in the wind."
(Also an example of how comma placement can change the meaning of a sentence — compare the misheard lyric to "The ants are, my friends, blowin' in the wind.")
The Etymology of Editing
If you're a writer and want to become a better editor, start by understanding the full etymology of these words: concentrate, compress, revise.
- Concentrate: verb: to bring to a common center; to intensify (some action of the mind); noun: that which has been reduced to a state of purity or intensity
- Compress: to press or pack together; to force or drive into a smaller space; to put under pressure
- Revise: to look again, visit again (with the intent to improve or amend)
A talented editor has a practice of revisiting a piece of writing, each time with the intent of bringing it under pressure and scrutiny, so that the whole piece can come to a common center, until it has been reduced to a state of purity or intensity.
There's a level of comfort that makes life easier but makes it harder to do what you want in life. Doing what you want requires growth, and growth requires discomfort.
A microcosm of the greater-New-York attitude: If the lane in front of you is backed up all the way to the intersection and you have a green light, you will go ahead anyway and block the intersection for everyone else who is about to get a green. "If I can't get where I want to go right now, then no one can." Actually, it's not so malicious; rather, it's unconscious. Tri-state area people on the road seem to be blinded by a chronic self-centeredness.
Dreams give you free, daily admission to the museum of your mind.
Why is it that our default state is to delude ourselves and deny ourselves what we truly want in life?
There's nothing more noble than a glacier.
January 22 When to Hyphenate Compound Adjectives
A compound adjective must be hyphenated if it is made up of two or more parts of speech.
Examples:
- "She furnished her home with low-brow art." (adj. + noun)
- "Finger-lickin' good" (noun + present participle)
- "He was the best-fit candidate." (adj. + noun)
- "This establishment offers deep tissue massages, hot-stone (adj. + noun) rubs, and the highly-recommended (adv. + adj.) foot reflexology treatment."
Exception: Some compound adjectives are colloquially written as two words, called "open compounds." These are very few and include phrases like "high school" or "pro bono." You are not wrong to hyphenate these open compounds when they serves as adjectives, but it confuse your reader. (Although, it is incorrect to hyphenate these words as nouns, since they are naturally open compound nouns, like "no one.") If the adjective-phrase* is colloquially common enough, you can omit the hyphen. Otherwise, hyphenate.
- Don't get confused, now. "Adjective-phrase" is a compound noun, made up of two nouns. It's hyphenated because the individual nouns would have different meanings if separate, and if separate and consecutive, the nouns' relationship would be ambiguous.
If a compound adjective is made up of two or more adjectives, you must decide whether those adjectives are coordinate or hierarchical. If they are equal and independent (coordinate), separate them with a comma (and in that case, they in fact do not form a compound adjective). If the adjectives are unequal and dependent on one another (i.e., hierarchical –– see "deep tissue" in the example above), do not use a comma and leave a space between the words (to form an open compound adjective, made up of adjectives).
[[Coordinate and Hierarchical Adjectives]]
Attention is like uranium-235; it's a scarce and delicate commodity — hard to obtain and easy to lose.
January 21 The editorial *we*: I should only use we when staying an opinion about us humans. ("We are autonomous moral agents"). And us only has its place for the same: when I'm making a claim about our species or about the human experience. Otherwise, I need to use singular personal pronouns, since I am one writer sharing his thoughts, not speaking on behalf of any group.
Summary: Never use "we think" — only ever "I think we are" (the collective we, never the editorial we).
Don't use periods or paragraph-breaks for emphasis; use them for their true purposes: to separate clauses and ideas and arrange them in a meaningful sequence.
The best and worst part of being an editor: It adds a meta-perceptual layer to everything you read. The pro is that each word and clause has more depth and nuance as it passes through your mind — making for a richer reading experience. And the con is that those meta-thoughts about the words and clauses distract you from what they mean to say — interrupting your act of comprehension with cerebral (and often overly picky and inconsequential) commentary.
Not goes with or, neither with nor. You can use either without neither or not, but not plus nor means or.
Man, grammar-nerds are all punsters and word-players. Check out these books on style and usage:
- Roy Peter Clark's The Glamour of Grammar
- Ellen Jovin's Rebel with a Clause
- Patricia T. O'Conner's Woe Is I
- Eric Partridge's Usage and Abusage
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves
January 20 A rule of English grammar and mechanics is only as valuable as it is relevant to clear and concise meaning-making.
There are few rules I've found in our language that aren't necessary for clear and concise communication. But, in some instances, the language can be clear while breaking a rule. The trick is to know when you're breaking a rule and to adhere to that rule when it would otherwise confuse what you mean.
I am one of a million tech-enabled rats scurrying beneath the city. I am a patron on the NYC subway.
"Beyond the Sea" from Black Mirror is so well written and such a mind-fuck (like most episodes in the series) and a horrific tragedy. The narrative beats hit, and there's a satisfying circularity to the whole thing. But it's so sad. In a way, it plays out the defect-defect scenario of The Prisoner's Dilemma. Also, the Chekhov's Guns and foreshadowing in this one are great, namely the first and last space-walk — where the camera lingers on the tray, showing the process of Cliff removing his tag and giving it to his partner, David. Also also, the ending is such a twist. I thought David was going to kill Cliff and live out life as his replica on Earth. But instead, he kills Cliff's family to render him as lost as his David is, so that they have a chance of finishing their mission. Wow!
A day is a life. Sleep is practice for death. Dreams are analogous to the afterlife. And each morning is a resurrection.
We're obsessed with morning routines for the same reason we're obsessed with superhero origin stories: we long to understand the context of others' successes/failures. What can I emulate? What should I avoid?
The events of the morning are the prequel to the narrative of the day.
Have you ever watched an episode of TV that sounds like a table-read? I have — too many.
Great example of a Shiny Dime: The Second Mountain – David Brooks
Core Idea idea: Success is a feeling.
The key to transformation without trauma is to live in the valley of life. Let yourself be constantly aware of the ways you are missing who you aim to be. Don't climb the mountain with your wares on your back. Leave what you love in the valley, knowing you will return when you fail to or successfully summit the current mountain.
(Ref: David Brooks – The Second Mountain)
January 19 You'd think it'd be easy to be ambitious in New York. That's the default attitude, the background radiation of the city. But it's not easy for me, I think because my true ambitions include living elsewhere.
Be careful making judgement taboo (e.g., "You're too judge-y" or "That was so judgmental"). Good judgment is the foundation of a good life. It's how you decide what to do (ethics) and what to spend your time doing (values/decisions/ambitions). It's not wrong to judge. It's wrong to act like you know better than other people what is better for other people. Judge what you see — for yourself, not for others.
I believe that we humans are the sole source of meaning in the known universe, and that our ability to ascribe meaning to life and to things in the world is a divine power. When we decide something matters, we are manifesting our inherent divinity in the world. (And I believe that there is no meaning given to us by something outside of us; rather, what we inherent from some primordial source is the ability to decide what is meaningful.)
(On hitchhiking): To get where I needed to go, I had to overcome insecurity.
One of the most overused cliches: "in the middle of nowhere"
If you're not sore, you're not growing.
January 18 A dense, high-quality writing prompt (from Yours Truly): If you had a billboard on the tallest building in your hometown, what would it say?
My answer: "Say what is unsaid."
Sleep is practice for death, and dreams are analogous to the afterlife.
Say "hi" to everyone with whom I make eye-contact.
[[Experiment: Micro-Dose Discomfort]]
The Predictive Power of Convergent vs. Divergent Thinking
One of the most descriptive cognitive traits is one's capacity for divergent thinking. Convergent thinkers value security and want certainty and are more comfortable deferring to an authority, and they make up the majority of traditionally "successful" people. Divergent thinkers are rebellious and skeptical of norms, more comfortable with uncertainty and unlikely to defer to an authority. They make up both tails of the "traditionally successful" distribution. The ones who change the status quo are the success-outliers, and the ones who refuse to change in accordance with the status quo and who have not made the change themselves are the failure-outliers.
Of the Big Five personality traits, Openness and Agreeableness are most impacted by convergent/divergent thinking. The most convergent thinkers are high in Agreeableness and low in Openness (more analytical). The most divergent thinkers are the opposite: disagreeable and uniquely open to ideas/experiences (more creative). The corresponding political extremes are authoritarianism and anarchy for convergent and divergent thinking, respectively.
The most sustainable way of thinking, for individuals and nations, is a healthy mix of both — unequal, though, according to your preferences, skills, and cultural/moral values.
My favorite way to measure this in yourself is to do a word-association exercise. Have someone give you a random word to start, then go for a full minute jumping from word to word, saying the first next word that comes to mind. Record the whole thing. Afterwards, write out all the words you said, and sort them into buckets. The divergent thinker will have more buckets and cover a wider range of topics, making many surprising yet personally intuitive connections. The convergent thinker will go deeper within fewer buckets, compiling extensive lists of closely related things.
Example:
- Convergent: Tree, apple, pear, grape, gourd, fall, Halloween...
- Divergent: Tree, bee, bird, sex, abortion, democracy, Maoist China, Marx...
Note to self: Do the test with myself and friends, count the buckets, and come up with a benchmark ratio of words/bucket as a heuristic to delineate convergent and divergent thinkers along a spectrum.
The easiest way to motivate myself would be to convince myself that I'm special, that I have some divine purpose and that the little things I do have ultimate importance and that it would be a crime to keep my gifts from the world. It's hard to disobey a divine mandate. But I don't believe that.
Another way would be to give in to the idea that I am worthless if I'm not achieving what I want or not remaining disciplined or not always doing hard things. But I don't believe that either.
It would be dishonest and delusional to source my motivation from either the idea that I am "meant to do" great things in the world or that I am worthless if I fail to do great things in the world. Somehow, I need to give time and effort to the things that I value for their own sake — without some delusional self-belief or delusional self-hatred. The things I do are important to me. They are not special and are not important to the world. My ambitions and values should be enough of a motivation. But a lot of the time, they're not.
It's going to take a long time to break this habit of spamming Backspace
as I type. But I just discovered that option/ALT + BKSPC
deletes one full word at a time. Try it! Instead of hitting BKSPC
seven times to delete the word "instead," I can do it in one keystroke. (I also just realized that there's an option
on the right side of the keyboard too, which I never hit. But now I can press it with my thumb as I hit BKSPC
with my ring-finger.)
We are endowed with inalienable rights — among them, life, liberty, and the pursuit of purpose. Happiness is an unworthy ideal. It's too easily attained and lost. Purpose is unattainable and is found in the pursuit itself — a worthy ideal. A purposeful life is one lived in an unending pursuit of purpose.
Unless you want a twist for a specific and intended effect, maintain parallel structure.
January 17 It's funny how surprised we are when the winter brings cold weather. If it's below freezing, you can't talk to a single stranger without a comment on the temperature. But this happens every year. It isn't a notable event. The fact that we don't feel the winter's wind in July is a measure of humanity's resilience and adaptability. Not only do we forget how the wind feels but we live as is it won't come again.
(As I type this, my right hand is numb.)
Music taste is one of the best predictors of compatibility for people and places. There are exceptions. Your taste could clash entirely with someone you love. But if your music taste matches a person or place, you're likely to feel at home with that person, in that place. Bwé, my favorite coffee shop, plays Florence + The Machine and Of Monsters and Men and Lorde and Mt. Joy and The Lumineers. At least once per week, I'll work here from 9–5, and only about once per week, I'll hear a song I like that isn't already on my playlist.
(After writing this, I SoundHound-ed three songs within 20 minutes. Honestly, it's even better if your music tastes intersect and overlap with enough variety where you can introduce new songs/artists to each other.)
January 16This may be my favorite Van Neistat video, despite steep competition, and it's not even public (Patreon-only).
- The three-act structure, open question about his 2007 BMW and the satisfying resolution
- His DIY map setup that orients you within the video and geographically on his ride
- The introspective, personal, philosophical voiceover that ties it all together
- The audio add-ins during the edit (commentary that clearly wasn't in the original script), talking about the playback being at 340% speed to simulate the feeling of floating on a bike, etc.
January 15 We so easily forget the fact of death because it is never our reality. The closest any of us can get in life is seeing someone else die, or falling sick and coming close to death ourselves, or maybe even being revived. But the character of life is that you are not dead, so it remains a challenge to imagine death as an inevitable reality.
January 12 Transformation Without Trauma
You don't have to hit rock-bottom to turn your life around. If you have enough self-awareness about where you're headed, where you want to go, and how to get there, you can detect rock-bottom and decide to swim to the surface.
This type of change is gradual, and it's on average more painful, because you're constantly looking for ways to be uncomfortable and challenged and always forcing yourself to do hard things — because you know they are the best things you could possibly do to become the best version of yourself.
No one has ever built massive quads by breaking their femur. But that's how we talk about life transitions: "My attempted suicide helped me find meaning"; "Cancer gave me permission to live the life that I've always wanted"; "My divorce was the reason I developed healthy habits." In the same way you wouldn't wait to break your femur before you started doing sets of squats, don't wait for the world to smack you before you start changing yourself toward who you want to become.
Develop a practice of introspection. Make a habit of doing hard things, when they are true to who you want to become. You'll never have to hit rock-bottom because you'll make every morning a resurrection.
Coordinate and Hierarchical Adjectives
"Long _ lasting flavor" —
how would you punctuate this tagline for your favorite brand of chewing gum?
A. "Long, lasting flavor" B. "Long lasting flavor" C. "Long-lasting flavor"
My first instinct would be to hyphenate, but it's not required. And after I learned what a "hierarchical adjective" is, I've decided for option B.
"Hierarchical adjectives do not have equal rank to the other adjectives in the phrase, i.e. the adjectives exist in hierarchy. This means that changing the order of the words or placing the word and between them would not make sense. For example, the cold December wind could not be the cold and December wind or the December, cold wind. Hierarchical adjectives are used without a comma." – ProWritingAid
— —
This little insight is a perfect microcosm for how I've learned so much about grammar and mechanics without any formal education in it: I've just been curious.
My pack of Wintergreen Extra actually does have that tagline on it: "Long lasting flavor." I scoffed, angry that I had encountered yet another example of a compound adjective (great Grammarly article) that didn't have a hyphen. But then I wondered, "What part of speech is 'lasting'?" Turns out, it's an adjective. "Okay, I'm wrong about the hyphen then."
Next question: "Is it still a compound adjective or something else?" I did a quick search about when to put commas between two adjectives and discovered a mechanics concept I've never encountered: coordinate and hierarchical adjectives. "Long lasting" is, in fact, a pair of hierarchical adjectives and an "open compound" adjective (meaning there's a space between the words, like "high school").
I've also just now decided that a rule for my personal style guide is to hyphenate all compound adjectives except those that are adjective-adjective pairs, and to leave spaces between hierarchical-adjective pairs.
That's how curiosity can quickly turn into learning. Iterate on that model a few hundred times, and you can develop a 95th-percentile understanding of just about any subject. (Note the compound adjective "95th-percentile," comprised of (note the correct use of "comprised" rather than "composed") a number and a noun.)
In Eden, Adam and Eve were inhuman. (To wish for "Heaven on Earth" is to wish you weren't human.)
Potential Buckets for My Core Idea
- The Benefits of Introspection
- The Significance of Dreams
- Platonic Editing
- Original Sin as a Gift
- Transformation Without Trauma
- Closed Loops and an Open Circle
- Intellectual Nomadism
You don't have to hit rock-bottom. Instead of transformation being trauma-motivated, it could be a way of life, where every day is a resurrection.
The disruptive technology of the 60s was birth control.
Why commit to "Inbox Zero?" All that means is that anyone with your email can add an item to your to-do list.
January 11 Writing (composition) is an entirely different skill from editing (compression).
An editor helps a piece of writing improve. A writing coach helps a writer improve, through a piece of writing.
From a Yogi tea bag tag:
The unknown is where all outcomes are possible; enter it with grace.
January 10 Why philosophy is more true than religion:
- It is fundamentally not dogmatic. The primary mode of philosophy is propositional and interrogative, whereas the mode of religion is prescriptive and declarative.
- It's concerned with uncovering what is rather than dreaming of what we wish to be.
- It rests and relies on perpetual uncertainty, but religion's appeal is certainty (assuming a leap of faith).
- No philosophy claims to be the Truth.
I am more apt to worship Prometheus than Jesus.
What do the world's collective genesis stories reveal about how we humans see ourselves?
You are incapable of evil. You have no concept of the future or the past. You can only speak of what is before you, devoid of any insights. You exist without self-consciousness. You have nothing to strive for, yet you are never disappointed. Your only impulse is to subsist. You have no concept of success.
Does this existence sound to you like Heaven or Hell? I assume it's the same answer as the question: Do you aspire to be a sheep or shepherd?
This is what it would be like to live in Eden, otherwise known as "Heaven on Earth." But if you would rather be a shepherd than a sheep, Eden is Hell too.
Revised 2024 Imperatives
Close open loops. Smell your tea. Live your dreams.
Thank Eve for the gift of sin.
January 9 My ideal reader is my future-self. An essay is an astounding success if it would impress the writer/editor I will be ten years from now.
Writing prompt for English nerds: "Argue in favor of your favorite cliche."
How many doors stand between you and what you value? Is your reading chair in the foyer or in the basement? To get outside from my apartment, I have to pass through five doors — and then another 75 yards if I want to touch real grass. I lament that fact. It's a signal that this is not the long-term place for me.
January 8 "Fewer than five minutes" and "less than five minutes" are both correct, but they are not equivalent. The former refers to a specific number of minutes that is fewer than five. The latter refers to any duration of time that is less than five minutes.
January 7 The Big Bang didn't happen 13.8 billion years ago. In a way, for you, the Big Bang happened the moment you were born. All of human and cosmic history collapsed into a singularity, compressed into a file cabinet called The Past. In it is more than you could ever know, yet it's contents comprise the context for your existence, like the prologue for a book you haven't fully written. By living, you are writing it, but you will never publish it. Upon death, it — like all books before — will be subsumed, as it becomes part of what has been. It will become part of the Collective Prologue, to help engender the books of the future.
Man is poisoned by the habit of self-delusion. The only antidote is introspection.
The nicest cars have the fewest miles on them. And this is true for so many things in life. We deny ourselves pleasure of indulgence to preserve purity and to pay homage to beauty.
Try to imagine what it's like to be a fish out of water. Imagine having never felt the force of gravity, never having seen a human, only to have a human yank you from the only world you've ever known and drop you onto the deck of a boat — a sensation you have never felt.
The exact equivalent for humans would be for you to be yanked out of your seat by an alien tractor-beam in the middle of a meal, brought into a space ship, measured, tossed around by giants, and either murdered, dissected, released back to Earth, or ejected into the vacuum of space (the equivalent of a fish being tossed into a cooler). That's horrifying.
January 6 Every morning, when we wake, we make a leap of faith; we assume that this is reality and that a dream.
Core Tenets of My Personal Philosophy
Expect nothing from the world and the world of yourself.
Reality is my perception. Changing my perception means changing reality.
Everything I know to be unconditionally True will change. Nothing is absolute.
Man's pathology is self-delusion, and the antidote is introspection.
A life lived in pursuit of Truth is one lived unreconciled. So, be an intellectual nomad; don't dwell in dogma.
Stagnation is evil, but stillness is essential.
I dream because I am human. I am human because I dream.
Endeavor to understand, not to be understood.
God is the self idealized, and I am God unrealized.
Say what you know is unsaid.
There is no best way to go, but there is a worst way: to follow.
Nothing is absolute. Everything I perceive to be True is conditional or, in fact, completely uncertain: a matter of faith, not inviolable knowledge.
January 4 If you're using metaphor to develop or explain an idea, choose one main metaphor, and return to it throughout the piece (like a theme). Too many comparisons and disjointed figurative language will muddy the message and prevent your reader from having any concrete takeaways (partly because each new metaphor carries a context-load).
To omit the truth is not a lie. But if you're asked a direct question about the truth and aren't willing to reveal it, the only honest answer is to decline to answer. As soon as you prevaricate, you compromise your honesty.
prevaricate (v.) to avoid giving a direct answer or deviate from the truth (The child chose to prevaricate when asked who had broken the vase.)
Passing interactions and long-term relationships both have great potential, but relationships have a different degree of effect. At best, a single interaction could lead to a revelatory conversation or an unforgettable experience, or it could lead to a relationship. At best, a relationship is the medium through which you approach the best possible version of yourself. One is day-changing, the other life-changing.
I don't prioritize myself above all else. I prioritize my future-self above all else.
January 3 Life gets exponentially harder the more energy you spend avoiding hard things. Life gets easier the more readily you do hard things.
You can't control how you feel, only how you respond to how you feel.
January 2 A few great examples of economic writing/storytelling in song lyrics:
Sexting, sonnets / Under the tables – Caroline Polachek, "Billions"
I overheard that she was nineteen / She's got a fake ID and a nose ring / Those kind of girls tend to know things / Better than I do – The Backseat Lovers, "Kilby Girl"
Bathroom towels were cool against my head / I pressed my forehead to the floor / And prayed for a trapdoor / I've been here many times before / But I've never made it to Graceland – Florence + The Machine, "Morning Elvis"
All of these lyrics lean into words that are dense with meaning and visually rich. They create a scene and imply something about characters. The dense words: "sexting," "sonnets," "Graceland," "trapdoor." The visuals: "fake ID and a nose ring," "Bathroom towels were cool against my head / I pressed my forehead to the floor," "Under the tables."
And this is what you need if you want to write economically: careful, purposeful word choice and rich, immediate visuals.
There is not time for everything, but there is time for everything that you value — only if you don't let your time be consumed by what you don't.
January 1 "It's a long way to the top (if you want to sells some books)." – Angus Young
If you want your ideas to have the most impact, do the work to entertain your readers. Humor and narrative pull eyes down the page — not insights and takeaways. No matter how valuable or mind-blowing a concept is, delivering it without a joke or a story will stall any reader's progress through your essay.
The more you have thought about an idea, the more you'll have to say about it and the fewer words you'll need to communicate it.
There's a slippery relationship in life to find among doing what you must, doing what you want, and doing what you value. The things you must do get in the way of the things you want to do, and the things you want to do often contradict what you value. The ideal is to want to do the things that you must do and to only want to do things that align with your values. Under that impossible scenario, no matter what you're doing, you're always doing what you want. It is impossible, but you can approach that way of living.