feeling something

he put me on an “idea contract.” Every month, I had to write a memo of what I thought was interesting in travel, and what I thought we should do stories on.

And if I arrive alone? So be it. If I arrive misunderstood? I’ll survive that too. I’ve already done worse.

“We only dream of images we have inside us”

You’re nostalgic for the bumps and you don’t even know it.

iterate toward something that feels alive

Because the telling is alive, shaped by whatever grief or joy we've carried into that particular afternoon.

That return, to me, is important, and that that exists is a reason for me to do the work that I’m doing. I can’t really put words to it. It’s just a feeling, but it’s there. It makes me want to create, and that’s the thing that matters to me most on the planet is encountering art that makes me want to make art.

What I mean is that with its blunt authority the New Oxford definition of "pathos" -- "a quality that evokes pity or sadness" -- shuts down the conversation, it shuts down your thinking about the word, while the Webster's version gets your wheels turning: it seems so much more provisional -- "that which awakens tender emotions, such as pity,... See more