Nina Goodheart

“I have a noisy mind, and when I am directing, my mind is not so noisy,” she said. “I was like, I have to keep doing this.”

But what if — as I am convinced — a fully formed person is not about optimizing productivity but rather about understanding and even embracing the messy inefficiencies of life?

I thought about how it might alienate some people. But I just felt like, well, if you don't want to alienate people, don't be an artist.

Lucy Ellman: “ As if the end of the world had not already come and gone. ”

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in... See more

Surviving is almost entirely a mental game. Being calm, rational and able to regulate your emotions is an extremely important soft skill. Surviving is high-stress, and recognizing when the body is in psychological distress is essential.

The survival I came to know on this trip was about something completely different. It was, above all, about letting yourself be affected by the changing world around you. Not just riding it out, but adapting, molting. Not succumbing to the luxury of despair, but keeping a foothold in possibility. Not blocking the world out, but letting it in.

Doomerism can be seductive: It allows for the security of a foregone conclusion, and beneath its faith that the end is inevitable lies a subtle note of satisfaction.