“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” The critic and novelist Namwali Serpell told me that the quotation appeals to her in this moment, even though Žižek’s translation is slightly unfaithful to the original. The phrase “now is the time of monsters,” Serpell said, “allows us to think about the... See more

I’ve spent my whole life finishing the sentence: It’s going to be ____________. Sometimes I’d say great, because I’d damn well make sure of it. Or I’d say really dangerous , because I had convinced myself that catastrophizing or dress rehearsing tragedy helped me feel a sense of preparedness. Now, all I can do is tell you, Here’s what we’re doing, ... See more

Having 'potential' in your mind, feels better than failure in reality. This ego-cushion prevents millions from creating their life's work. Once you feel it- physically- that cushion becomes painful, like a tumor you have to remove. And you only get it out one way. By identifying not with goals, but with output. You should feel dead inside if you ha... See more

Your premise is the specific, defensible purpose for a project or your overall platform, pulled from your personal vision for your audience . Most work is too generic to resonate, too forgettable to become anyone’s favorite. But by developing our premise — and forcing ourselves to test just how differentiated it truly feels to others — we stand a g... See more

Your personal experiences make up maybe 0.00000001% of what’s happened in the world but maybe 80% of how you think the world works.

I feel totally overwhelmed by the state of the world, but I think music and creativity, to me, is a way of exploring what's possible. There's always something when I'm making music that I didn't see that comes from nowhere and appears. When you go to create something, you're opening yourself up to possibility. It is a way that I continuously touch ... See more

Jonas Salk, inventor of the polio vaccine, said the main motivation of his life was, “To be a good ancestor.”

Then I started thinking about all the other important “nodal points'' (I don’t know what else to call this) of people, places, books, albums, websites, etc. that all played a part in shaping who I am as a person and what I think is important. These points are a combination of seeking things out myself and getting a recommendation that felt like it ... See more

every human being is a storyteller, that stories are how we seek to understand the meaning of our lives