make art not content

Being smart means thinking things through. It means trying to fnd the real answer, not the easiest answer.

Whether something is possible or impossible is not your business. Success and failure are ideas that will only serve as a burden to your quest. Rather than finding the thing that you can imagine yourself becoming, find the thing that you simply cannot imagine yourself Not Becoming.

So apparently all of that exhausting, red-faced, full-on push-push-push I had been doing had given me only a 4 percent boost. I could just take it easy and get 96 percent of the results. And what a difference in experience! To go the same distance, in about the same time, but one way leaves me exhausted, and the other way, rejuvenated. I think of

part of my joy in learning is that it puts me in a position to teach; nothing, however outstanding and however helpful, will ever give me any pleasure if the knowledge is to be for my benefit alone.

But first become a man worthy of being bowed to. Not through fame and accomplishment. But through Uncompromising Sincerity. Be not a pretender, my dear student. Be Uncompromising. For the man who refuses to compromise holds The Universe in his hands.

I noticed this after spotting my favorite bloggers—including Paul Graham, Angela Jiang, and Derek Sivers—post erratically whereas the writers I often regret reading publish as much as they can.)

So, what is it that Rick Rubin does? How has he helped artists make their best music for almost half a century across such disparate genres and styles? The secret seems to be rooted in self-discovery. As Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks put it, Rubin “has the ability and the patience to let music be discovered, not manufactured”—or, to use our

Inspiration is not receiving information. Inspiration is applying what you’ve received. People think that if they keep reading articles, browsing books, listening to talks, or meeting people, they’re going to suddenly get inspired. But constantly seeking inspiration is anti-inspiring. You have to pause the input and focus on your output. For every