Authenticity
Keely Adler and
Authenticity
Keely Adler and
the path to excellence is aligning what you do with who you are. Lean in, or better still, dive in, headfirst. The first step is to look inward and think deeply about who you are and what you’re made to do.

Where we struggle to imagine a future beyond the contemporary shitshow, nihilism leads the retreat inwards; in art as in politics. “What good is a flourishing poetry market,” Watts asked, “If what we read in poetry books renders us more confused, less appreciative of nuance, less able to engage with ideas, more indignant about the things that annoy
... See moreI heard this quote from the writer Harold Brodkey who said, “I don’t understand privacy.” I’ve always understood privacy very well, but it’s like—what’s the point of taking your secrets to the grave, or even your banalities? We have this chance to let ourselves be known to other people, to fill out the web of humanity that we’ve been spreading for
... See moreConfessional art can be beautiful, and it can be terrible; either way, to love it only as a representation of what we already know is to deny it, and ourselves, a much richer complexity. Pop music is where fantasies are played out, turned into mansions and lived in, where five hundred people can tumble out of a clown car and every dream comes true.
... See morePretty much everything in life is like this: there are some ways you can show up that just feel better. And when you show up for the truest and most beautiful version of your life that you can imagine, you feel excited and alive.

Funeral inspo. But also life inspiration. Hold space for inconveniences. Show up raw. Give space to the ugly versions of you so they can live and die.
The original poem this piece is built on is called ‘Tract’ - written by William Carlos William (whose work was a muse for the film Paterson).