Rob Tourtelot
@rtourtelot
Rob Tourtelot
The audience wants characters (or storytellers) to succeed, but they don’t really want characters to succeed. It’s struggle and strife that make stories great. They want to see their characters ultimately triumph, but they want suffering first. They don’t want anything to be easy.
Dan Kennedy • Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling
Indeed, when Kant's friend Funk died, he found himself forced to confront what is in some ways the ultimate example of the instant of change: the fact that all that we love will pass, including life itself. Even more poignantly, the very ineradicable nature of that constant, irresistible erosion of the present is what endows our life and the
... See moreWilliam Egginton • The Rigor of Angels
What if you gave yourself the gift of inner acceptance? What would it open up for you?
What if you gave yourself the gift of inner acceptance?
Ordinary means that there is no need to add or take away from what is going on in the mind. Each portion of life has the whole of life. There is nothing wrong with what is in the mind except the sense that something is wrong. In this way simplicity turns to a form of compassion.
John Tarrant • Bring Me the Rhinoceros: And Other Zen Koans That Will Save Your Life
I think in a lot of these Eastern systems, the delusion is that we’re trapped inside this little machine that thinks it’s central, and permanent, and all-important and is always thinking it’s about its little victory narrative. But when you step out of it for a second, you see that it’s just a temporary construction of neurology, or karma, or... See more
Transcript: Ezra Klein Interviews George Saunders (Published 2021)
Art and the artist both suffer most when the artist gets too heavy, too focused on results.
Austin Kleon • Keep Going: a book by Austin Kleon
The whole of the ancient, master teachings on suffering come down to this: Suffering is the notion “This isn’t it,” and it’s variants such as, “I can’t bear this, it shouldn’t be happening,” and “I have to know how this will turn out” and “What if it gets worse?”
Freedom, waking up and fearlessness come down to the simplicity of, “Wait a minute,
... See moreJohn Tarrant • John Tarrant : Articles
Your job, really, is to find people who love you for reasons you hardly understand, and to love them back, and to try as hard as you can to make it all easier for each other."
That’s the trick. A simple one: Make sure that every moment in your story has a location attached. Every moment should be a scene, and every scene needs a setting. It’s the simplest, most-bang-for-your-buck strategy that I have to offer.