how to live
Narrow the aperture of your attention enough to take in any one thing fully, and it becomes a portal to everything. Anneal that attention enough so that you see whatever and whoever is before you free from expectation, unfiltered through your fantasies or needs, and it becomes love.
Maria Popova • Favorite Books of 2025
There’s a quote from author Robert Brault that I think about often:
“We are kept from our goals not by obstacles but by a clear path to lesser goals.”
Sahil Bloom's Curiosity Chronicle • The Hard-Earned Win: Avoiding the Easy Path
The price we pay for dreaming is the possibility of drowning; the price we pay for not dreaming is the surety of coasting through life in a stupor of autopilot, landlocked in the givens of our time, place, and culture. The dreamer, then, is the only one fully awake to life — that bright technology of the possible the universe invented to prevail
... See moreMaria Popova • Arundhati Roy on the Deepest Measure of Success
“People who are direct are generally in touch with themselves and their desires. People who are habitually indirect usually aren’t.
This is because people who are indirect don’t have much experience with their inner world making contact with the outer world. They sit and theorize instead of saying it out loud and seeing... See more
I know that freedom is earned by confronting things that embarrass and trigger you, over and over again, until you are cringe-proof in your desired environment.
Sasha Chapin • 50 Things I Know
Life is, of course, just like this: You get only one shot, and it’s up to you to make the most of it by rejecting okay or even pretty good ways to allocate your time or other resources — to hunt down the opportunities to make really great bets on yourself. Do not make barely positive-value bets with your life!
In praise of quitting
You basically don’t need to worry about being too kind or too chill. If you’re the kind of person who worries that being a little more relaxed or emotionally open will destroy your whole life, you could probably stand to relax and be more emotionally open.