Carly

And when it comes to the work of writing—which is also the work of thinking, reading, and living—I’ll say this. As a human being, intellectual discovery and gratification are your birthright. Nothing is more worthy, and more self-actualizing, than taking your interests seriously and pursuing them as far as you can go.

if you think of writing as a process , then you understand that writing badly is the only way to begin writing well, and the output isn’t the piece—it’s the mind that labored earnestly to produce the piece.

Maybe I’d be content with any fate because I’d have chosen it. A flat in London with a dog and two children and a routine morning jog. A creaky Victorian rowhouse near NoPa, or someplace in Montana or Seattle waking up to a body of water. Saturation , Ada Limon writes about the Kentucky sky, that feeling when you’re really full, or life is full and... See more

That is the very underpinning of transformation: you can’t predict how it will warp you or turn you into who you weren’t before. It simply feels like acute recognition at the site of change: the way you recognize a perfect fit on a pair of jeans, or begin to fall for someone. It’s just like, Oh.

My smartest friends are constantly plagued by the question of how to optimize their lives. Mostly because they believe in hustle and slog, and magnitude means nothing without direction. I call this experience “choice loneliness.” You’re not necessarily lonely in a holistic sense, but in a localized way. You might have a close knit community of... See more