The Wound itself is an aspect of The Gift. They cannot be divided. Solomon grasps this essential point: “Like Henry James’s obscure hurt and Dostoevsky’s holy disease, even [Beethoven’s] loss of hearing was in some sense necessary or at least useful, to the fulfillment of his creative quest.” Mysteriously, The Gift issues forth out of The Wound. It

Expert writers focus on making sure that their global meaning is communicated through the words and sentences. The meaning is primary, and every word, sentence, and paragraph in a polished work must support this meaning.

And so his koan—the central question of his life—became how to live life fully without holding on to it. How to have it without possessing it. “Kiss the joy as it flies,” says William Blake.

It is an intentional breaking down of the tasks of any domain into smaller and smaller components to see precisely how they work. And it results in steady and incremental improvements in performance.

was ‘easy and self-possessed as a lady should always be when performing a plain duty, even under 600 curious eyes.’

writing a book is nothing more than a heroic act of unification. How does this work? Well, the book has a spine. A dharma. But you don’t know what its dharma is until you begin to write it. Forget about all the things you said to yourself about your book at the beginning of the project—or what you told your editor, or what you wrote in your

Ethan and I were the same age, almost exactly, but he seemed to me more like an older brother. He was much wiser than I—or so I thought then.

Now Frost was “onto his bone,” as Thoreau would say. He knew that this was a task big enough for a lifetime. He knew that he would be chewing on it for the rest of his career.

Our conflicts and inner divisions—all that separates us from our true selves—must be worked out on the field of real life. On the field of relationships. Of work. Of effort. Of hobbies. Of callings. This is what dharma is. Dharma calls us not to just any old battlefield, but to the battlefield where we will suffer most fruitfully. Where our