Natalie Audelo

The idea of research as leisure activity has stayed with me because it seems to describe a kind of intellectual inquiry that comes from idiosyncratic passion and interest. It’s not about the formal credentials. It’s fundamentally about play.

We design our lives by every choice that we make—from how we plan our days, to how we approach our relationships, to our interactions with our environments. The question we can all practice asking ourselves, she offered, is: “Is what I’m about to do conducive to life?”

Measuring from zero helps us keep perspective. I’ve often recommended a similar exercise, but in this version you make your friends disappear instead. You might know it already: when you’re with a loved one, imagine that they’re gone from your life and you’re not actually seeing them in the room with you, you’re just remembering what it was like... See more

According to Kierkegaard, when we first find life boring, we seek new delights. He called this the aesthetic stage of life. Kierkegaard focused particularly on art and the erotic, but the category obviously refers to much more. This is the time, usually in early adulthood, when people are most open to new experiences and opportunities.

Read: Organic... See more

What you call a demon we just call another normal moment in the endless thought-storm that is a human mind. Do you want the thought storm to end? Oh, it will, sweetie, at the conclusion of your life. But until then, your mind will do what minds do — it will chew at itself, it will tumult about, it will feel joy and pride and awe, but also terror

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There’s also something to be said about collating and curating in the slow writing process—facts, knowledge, smells, descriptions, stories, passport stamps, headlines—until the collection becomes part of the transformation process. Through acute and critical attention, away from the drive of production, toward the singularity of studying a branch,... See more