Ashley

Sometimes when I can't sit down to write, I watch people who talk about writing their book, poems, stories, they show the creative process, I watch interviews with my favorite writers and it's such an extraordinary dose of something magical for me that I immediately want to write something of my own, that I want to feel what they feel when they are... See more

When I set a goal for myself, I try not to let two days in a row go by without doing what I had planned. If I have the time and space to do something, and in the evening I realize I didn't do it - the next day I make sure it doesn't happen again. I asked several people about this, and after thinking about it, they confirmed that when they don't do... See more

When they ghosted or ended things with me, I assumed it was because I’d said too much, felt too much, demanded too much. Now I think it’s because I made them think at all.

Because when you stop translating your truth for other people's comfort, you don't become harder to understand. You become impossible to misinterpret by anyone who was actually listening.

Rothko didn't paint for people who wanted realistic landscapes. Coltrane didn't compose for ears that preferred simple melodies. They created from their center outward, trusting that specificity would find its own resonance. The result wasn't exclusion but precision—work that spoke directly to the people capable of receiving it.

The philosopher Epictetus

depth creates its own magnetism.

Social media platforms optimize for engagement, not understanding, rewarding content that can be rapidly processed rather than ideas requiring contemplation. We're training ourselves to think in ways that maximize immediate comprehension rather than long-term insight.

When you stop translating, extraordinary things happen. Your creative, social, and intellectual bandwidth expands dramatically. The cognitive load of constant performance was enormous—every conversation where you were editing rather than expressing depleted resources that could be directed toward creation, insight, genuine connection.