loving the process

the metrics, outward success, markers of “making it”, numbers, likes, popularity, visibility, praise or criticism or being ignored, awards, highlights, or trajectory that might come from what we make don’t matter much if we aren’t enjoying the process of making what we make.

This is an amazing algorithm: do interesting things and magically arrive at a complex understanding of the world.

I place a lot of emphasis on generative making and process. Of course, institutions also give us rooms. A lot can happen in a room if we don’t let ourselves be limited by the expectations of what should happen in the room. A stanza, too, is a room.

We design our lives by every choice that we make—from how we plan our days, to how we approach our relationships, to our interactions with our environments. The question we can all practice asking ourselves, she offered, is: “Is what I’m about to do conducive to life?”

Kurt Vonnegut, talking about when he tells his wife he’s going out to buy an envelope:

“Oh, she says well, you’re not a poor man. You know, why don’t you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet? And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of

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This journey from naming what you want to achieving it isn't accidental. It follows a path that, in many ways, mirrors training for a marathon. And just like with marathon training, each phase requires different skills, different mindsets, and different kinds of courage.

Very few people really have their own opinion. Very often, their opinion is just the opinion of someone else. Perfectly prepared, warmed up and served medium well.

I'm not above this, and I'd argue not many people are. All our opinions are shaped by other peoples' opinion. It's how this all works. The question is just, how many opinions do I require

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"I frequently worry that being productive is the surest way to lull ourselves into a trance of passivity and busyness the greatest distraction from living, as we coast through our lives day after day, showing up for our obligations but being absent from our selves, mistaking the doing for the being." — Maria Popova

I just feel like, “You know what? I don’t suck. Things don’t suck. I am just doing what is in the proper life cycle of a winning team to intentionally and strategically have a rebuilding year.”