Joseph Campbell: Follow your bliss, find the joy in every moment, step by step it becomes a hidden track in life.

“status is one of our greatest poisons. Because the pursuit of it is the very antithesis of knowing yourself. Anytime you play a status game, you take on the perspective of an outsider looking in, judging who you are based on whatever metric or position you’re chasing. You give credence to the belief that you’re not enough, and that there’s something you need to achieve to finally accept who you are. But of course, any chase of this nature has no end, given that your very participation in this chase means that self-acceptance isn’t possible.”

One consequence of everything feeling thin & flimsy, is that it's really hard for complex emotions to form. They feel like sand slipping through my fingers, and won't manifest or grow roots.

For an emotion to successfully manifest in my mind, it has to be either super simple or super strong. This goes for both happy & sad emotions.

I still feel a lot of joy, love, and gratitude, because those emotions are really simple. They don't require a lot of intricate structure.

I have a harder time feeling anticipation, romantic love, a crush that gives me butterflies, "fun", anger, irritation, sadness, grief, loneliness, surprise, melancholy, and most other emotions.

But please, let us not turn this heartbreak into something useful just yet. If we do, we will be tempted to walk in old ways. We will rely on tired words. We will make memes of ourselves. Easy, digestible phrases that fill a short term longing for solutions. 

Instead let us truly bear witness.

Let the fog of confusion obscure our clarity for a time. To not know how – or where – we’ll live. To be fumbling and full of grief, because what we always counted on has been struck from our horizon. And we may never be as magnificent again. 

When writing for children: Write up, not down. Don’t dumb it down. They love a challenge.

Chesterton on why children ought to be told fairy tales