becoming

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” Which also implies it’s opposite: the examined life will inform us of what makes life meaningful.

Keep your drafts offline, don’t post your work-in-progress, make things no one will ever see. That’s where the real progress happens.

The better my taste gets, the worse my drafts look to me. It’s not that my talent is necessarily regressing, but I’m simply noticing more. Sometimes I think that’s what creativity in adulthood really is: realizing that getting better mostly just feels like getting worse.

So how can you comfortably stay in this gap between knowing and doing until you’re ready to become more?—

Make choices that reinforce your future self, even when they feel premature. You won’t become that version of yourself by waiting to feel ready. Read what “they” would read. Dress how “they” would dress. Work like “they” would on a good day.... See more

You’ve already imagined this version of yourself who can do something well, but you just can’t seem to actually become that person. But this is simply the natural tension of becoming. To try to skip it is to avoid the work of existing consciously.

It’s why most people quit before they ever get good. Not because they’re lazy or lack discipline, but because they develop taste before they develop skill. They already know what “good” looks like, and it makes the process of getting there unbearable. You can recognize rhythm, tone, precision, but can’t reproduce it yet. You can tell when your work... See more

Maybe our taste develops first so that we don’t settle too soon. Maybe the gap between who you are and who you want to be is supposed to be frustrating. You can’t imitate your way out of it, and there’s no way to rush through it. You just have to stay there for a while, stuck between admiration and ability.

We’ve become fluent in the language of aesthetics without ever learning the patience that mastery demands from us. Pinterest boards, Substack articles, Youtube video essays—all work to refine our tastes, but they don’t train the patience or tolerance for failure that we need.

And it’s not simply comparison that’s the problem, it’s compression.... See more