Agalia Tan

All emotions are useful for writing except for bitterness .

Good writing requires the consideration of other minds—after all, words only mean something when another mind decodes them. But bitterness can consider only itself. It demands sympathy but refuses to return it, sucks up oxygen and produces only carbon dioxide. It’s like sadness, but stuck... See more

“The professional has learned, however, that too much love can be a bad thing. Too much love can make him choke. The seeming detachment of the professional, the cold-blooded character to his demeanor, is a compensating device to keep him from loving the game so much that he freezes in action.”

the very grammar of cinema

We very often do not have the time to create what we need by ourselves. It’s reasonable to ask who on Earth is expected to return our emails or make our dinners while we wile away our time crafting. We’ve increased the distance between ourselves and the things we need or want—and also made for ourselves a steeper learning curve for meeting our own... See more

"frictionless experiences with technology mean that we notice less about the tools we’re using and what it is they actually do. This, he thinks, promotes a kind of self-absorption. We don’t see ourselves as being in conversation with our tools or the physical world; instead, we see ourselves as masters of our environment, with the expectation that... See more

For an organization to operate within society, it must be not just be mindful, but active in these changes — or “tending.” Failure to do so results in lack of resonance and more dire: disruption .

One solution I’ve been practicing: I ask for permission to "say it imperfectly".

I’ll say something like, “hey, I want to talk about this, but I don’t know exactly how to say it. Is it okay if I say it imperfectly?”