Commitment

Billy Oppenheimer on small steps to get to big leaps:

One of Hugh Howey’s other hobbies is sailing. Once he had the luxury of writing full-time, he sailed around the world. “You can’t get to where you want to be in one day,” he says, “just like you don’t sail around the world in a day. You just look at the horizon and say, ‘I can sail that far.

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my little life of optionality—my malleable, absorbent dunnage which lessens the shock of surprises, avoids pain and prevents breakage. No commitments, nobody counting on me, no one to disappoint and no one to disappoint me. Still, if life becomes intolerable—a measure which is lowered with each available treatment, each magical distraction—I have a... See more

Wendell Berry wrote: there are two muses — the Muse of Inspiration, who gives us inarticulate visions and desires, and the Muse of Realization, who returns again and again to say "It is yet more difficult than you thought."

I’m thinking about conviction, because it is so rare.

A lot of people start off with conviction, but life, hardships, and other people’s opinions get in the way, and they stop believing in the greatness of their own ideas.

I’ve met intelligent types with lots of skills and advantages at their disposal. But they usually don’t know where to go with the... See more