Agency

Even if you work inside the system, you don’t need to let the system work inside of you. And if you summon up the boldness to go in a different direction, others might even surprise you by following along.

How can I thrive while operating contrary to dominant social and cultural trends?

The experts all agree: the trend, they say, is your friend.

All you need to do is identify it, and then you ride it out. And, true enough, I’ve watched thousands of people make a buck doing just that. If you are active in the arts, that may be the single most obvious... See more

On the other side of creative aliveness, there is flatness. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, about what happens when our worlds go flat. The dynamism we lose, the emotional urges we suppress, the original impulses we become too afraid to nurture.

On the running path recently, a song came on. It was by Eminem. His music is not my choice for... See more

learn to notice what your awareness is doing, because a collapse in awareness is a clear sign that you are losing the capacity to make a new choice, becoming more like a train that can only run on pre-laid tracks rather than, let’s say, a drone that could go anywhere. If you notice this, first re-expand your awareness by noticing more of the space... See more