“One day I will find the right words, and they will be simple.” —Jack Kerouac Simple seems so complicated some days. Mondays often openly mock the very idea of simplicity. Want to do big things in this lifetime? Meet your wrestling partner, complexity. Complexity usually doesn’t play by the rules. Of course, Kerouac danced with…
As I publish this, it’s the 18th of March, or the 77th day of the year. Lucky sevens, if you will, falling just after St. Patrick’s Day. The luck of the Irish following us? Let’s hope for that, but get back to living with purpose just the same. For we make our own luck, don’t…
“A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question . . ….
These roads don’t move;You’re the one that moves.— Jay Farrar and Benjamin Gibbard, These Roads Don’t Move Jay Farrar framed this song around the words of Jack Kerouac back in 2009. I’d first heard it while driving around the northeast, trying to make things work in a job I’d eventually leave. The song has been…
Everything that was broken hasforgotten its brokenness. I livenow in a sky-house, through everywindow the sun. Also your presence.Our touching, our stories. Earthyand holy both. How can this be, butit is. Every day has something init whose name is Forever.— Mary Oliver, Felicity Recently I received a new laptop computer from the company I work…
Nobody ever says of a painter that he has lost his way. It is said of writers. But when one is talking about a painter one says, “He is finding his way.” — Mary Oliver, Sand Dabs, Six The curse of restlessness, as described yesterday, is a burning desire to pile on more and more…
“I want to risk hitting my head on the ceiling of my talent. I want to really test it out and say, ‘Okay, you’re not that good. You just reached the level here.’ I don’t ever want to fail, but I want to risk failure every time out of the gate.” — Quentin Tarantino As…
“The person who gets 1 shot needs everything to go right.The person who gets 1000 shots is going to score at some point.Find a way to play the game that ensures you get a lot of shots.”— @JamesClear “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” — Wayne Gretzky Too many of us…
“A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.” — Arthur Schopenhauer “The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching toward infinity…” — A. Edward Newton I wrestle with books. I love reading, and stack more books than I ought to…
“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” ― Susan Sontag What’s next? Where to? These are things the earnest world traveller considers in between days. Just back from one country, scheming the next, what meets the strict budget of time and money? The world is calling, and life is so very short. Yet…