on rituals & practices

Ritual prevents the ordinary from dissolving into invisibility. If you light a candle at dinner, the meal becomes an event. If you walk at the same time each day, it becomes more than exercise. Anthropologists will tell you that rituals function as technologies of attention: certain ordinary acts aren’t trivial, they’re the architecture of meaning.

You don't need discipline as an artist. You need devotion, because creativity rewards those with the highest self-respect, not with the most talent. Starting each part of your day as important, as a ritual, you will start to understand what self-respect is.

Self-respect actually means what you eat, when you shower, cook, especially clean, when you

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