I think a lot of people are dismissive of their best thoughts. They can’t put their observations on paper because they’ve already censored them in their mind.

I find that when I write from life and not theory, I am most able create something that feels unpolluted by all the ideas I’ve consumed, all the things I endlessly regurgitate that never provide any catharsis. I think creative autonomy is best understood as honesty without confessionalism. I don’t have to, like, name everybody I’ve ever slept with... See more

I think a lot of people are dismissive of their best thoughts. They can’t put their observations on paper because they’ve already censored them in their mind. They don’t have confidence that what they see is real, because to believe that it’s real requires them to believe that their understanding of the world is as valid as anyone else’s. Most... See more

Creativity is inherently anti-authoritarian. As in: to be successfully creative, you have to shed the part of yourself that desperately wants reassurance. It’s only then that you can escape cliche and escape paradigmatic thinking.

I always make the mistake, though, in thinking that I'm going to read my way to the answer. It’s only through my habitual disappointment with the philosophers that I am reminded that there are other experiences that have to happen in order for us to really know anything.

I think a lot of people are dismissive of their best thoughts. They can’t put their observations on paper because they’ve already censored them in their mind. They don’t have confidence that what they see is real, because to believe that it’s real requires them to believe that their understanding of the world is as valid as anyone else’s. Most... See more

the only way I can gain autonomy is to write from my incomplete point of view. Put like that, autonomy comes from trust in the self, in subjective vision. It’s a rejection that the answer lies in any narrative framework.

The faulty narrative I always tell myself is that someday I'm going find enough pieces in books that I'm going to put the puzzle together into an answer for all of these questions that I have —not just about terrible, sad things, like why people have to suffer or why our lives are diminished by the arrangement of the world, but also the wondrous... See more

To write in a real voice, an alive voice, I have to trust my own eyes, what I see before I start to think. Of course my observations will be flawed—all individual perspectives are partial and distorted—but the only way I can gain autonomy is to write from my incomplete point of view. Put like that, autonomy comes from trust in the self, in... See more