Kelli

I’ve been thinking about the enduring, perhaps increasing currency of personal recommendations (practically artisanal craft now if you think about it!) as well as the value of connoisseurship and curation in a culture where unthinking automation has left us feeling drowned in a deluge of content.

I suspect that’s the core appeal of all the... See more

Pushing against resistance feels meaningful, even satisfying, because it means you’re moving towards something that didn’t exist for you before. And so you reach the reward, and it’s novel and it’s different, and just for a moment it’s magic.

you can see that the truly charming people don’t draw you in by dazzling or blinding you with their looks, money, achievement — they do it by stripping away your pressure to perform, laying a blanket of ease with your humanity with humor, honesty, or untethered simplicity

Men share a joke that stretches over decades, held together by ritual and repetition, by silence and shoulder nudges, by the unspoken agreement that affection must be disarmed before it can be displayed. Their love is less novel and more architecture: a shed built in bad weather, no blueprint, just nails and instinct. Women draft essays in real... See more

When you’re working, there’s so much self-loathing. Everyone feels like their stuff is awful. When I was at CalArts I was studying painting—I’m a terrible painter—but I remember there’s a stage of a painting that just looks like a mess and then all of a sudden it becomes a painting. Movies are like that too. Magically it starts to take shape. Now I

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There will always be creators. But the ones who stand out in this era are also curators. People who filter their worldview so cleanly that you want to see through their eyes. People who make you feel sharper just by paying attention to what they pay attention to.

Many people who are talented in their various fields have access to insight they can’t share with others. They simply see something we can’t. They try to describe it—picture any Paris Review interview—and often hearing them talk about their process is interesting and informative. But they’re unable to describe the core thing—what gives them the... See more

That’s why taste is a responsibility. It’s not just about what you like. It’s about what you allow in.

Taste is how you protect your mental environment.