It’s time in my life to make fewer arguments for things and do more sitting down with things to just experience them. ‘I don’t want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt,’ is how Namwali Serpell’s latest novel, Furrows, begins. It is also one way of summarizing how the current shift in my personal character is changing my writin... See more

the sooner you make an attempt despite the fear the sooner you can make an additional attempt. as you put off your initial attempt, you are putting off the entire series that would then constitute the very practice which is required to develop skill so that you no longer fear it

This is one of many lessons I’ve learned through birding. It’s a humbling activity, where you can go from being an expert to an amateur just by crossing a few state lines. You have to get comfortable with the not-knowing.

The Buddha proclaimed, “I teach liberation through non-clinging.”

Making things is hard and I feel like that’s the most useful thing to say about it.

“What do you want to avoid?” he asks. “Such an easy answer: sloth and unreliability. If you’re unreliable it doesn’t matter what your virtues are. You’re going to crater immediately. Doing what you have faithfully engaged to do should be an automatic part of your conduct. You want to avoid sloth and unreliability.”