bits of wisdom
Little things don’t have big signs on them
At sixteen, Mike Nichols’s girlfriend’s parents gave him tickets to a Broadway play that turned out to redirect the course of his life. In college, a chance interaction with a cafeteria busboy led to him attending weekly improv workshops, where he soaked up practices and principles of creativity and collabo
No matter how seriously sick one may be, for example, one’s life is still 100% life. Even if we are dying, our life is still 100% life. Even if we are in prison, our life is still 100% life. There is no such thing as a 50% life or a 70% life. Each moment is all of our life.
The Imperfectionist: Living two hours in the future
-Zen priest Shohaku Okamura
from the great Hanif Kureishi —
"One falls in love, and then learns, for the duration, that one is at the mercy of someone else's childhood."
"One falls in love, and then learns, for the duration, that one is at the mercy of someone else's childhood."
Junot Díaz on Substack
I find myself slowing changing from an agent of change to an agent of care. I’m less confident in the impact my activism might have on policy than I am about the impact my care may have on other human beings, as well as how they might trickle up to the systems that need changing.
Everything is In-Between
My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.
– Michael J. Fox
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves…
— “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver
A monk once went to see the Abbot of the temple and told him "I am very discouraged. What should I do?" The Abbot replied, "encourage others."