Asha Saluja is a rare mix of being a very serious taskmaster, but also a caring person who understands that creative work is made by real people with emotions and lives. She kept our ship running with compassion and also contributed lots of great ideas when we were developing the show.

Schopenhauer loved metaphor, and his counsel starts with the example of a mason: The man is “employed on the building of a house” but “may be quite ignorant of its general design.” Because of this arrangement, Schopenhauer suggested, the mason was stuck in the daily details of his work instead of seeing it as part of a grand design. And so it is wi... See more

What are you unwilling to feel?

"There are two ways to make the world more mesmerizing: to seek out new and increasingly intense experiences, or to loosen the filters that make ordinary experience “ordinary”. You can go skydiving, or you can meditate for long enough that walking feels like skydiving. Either way, I think what we’re seeking is an escape back into what we used to be... See more

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

The real practice of the artist is a way of being in the world. I always had assumed that it was, it was about doing things a certain way is what an artist was. But it’s more than that. Yes, there is an aspect of it that’s about doing things a particular way and in a considered way. But the only way to do things in a considered way is to live in a

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The thing that no one ever tells you about your calling is that it’s boring. Oh, everything is interesting if you’re interested… shut up. Yes, it will be exhilarating and fun and fluid and and natural and meaningful. It will also be tedious. It will hurt. You will encounter obstacle after obstacle until you feel like you’re in a video game with alg... See more

When an industry fails to address the societal and structural factors that make this type of work harder, and rely on workers’ passion to power the whole industry through a snowballing crisis....in those cases, not even a strong union can protect the worker from the burnout built into the system. You go beyond burnout to demoralization, which is th... See more

Encounters with strangers can be a humbling reminder of the vastness of the world and of each other, the impossible-feeling truth that each one of us contains an entire universe of inner life and a singular perspective, that as a species we have an incredible capacity for kindness, cruelty, courage and creativity.