Sriya Sridhar

The “soft” characteristics of any kind of contemplative behavior (slowness, eddying, meandering) make it easy to devalue. And this, too: creative space often feels resistant, like it’s denying us something, won’t speak, won’t produce—when in reality it’s just quiet, it’s not dancing for us, or “entertaining,” or feeding us dopamine edibles.

It’s almost like boredom doesn’t exist, like difficulty doesn’t exist, scarcity doesn’t exist. And a feeling I’ve been having a lot lately is that scarcity is often what creates meaning. When you’re surrounded by infinite possibilities, when you know around the next corner is another video that might be funnier, you’re never going to sit with the

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But also—I think we’ve gotten kind of weird about reading books like reviewers, in the age of the internet. I saw a bit of a video once where this aspiring book influencer delivered this pained, extended apologia for not finishing an essay collection, like it hurt him so much not to finish the book but he just couldn’t. And I thought…most people... See more

Society which scorns excellence in plumbing because it’s a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy.

Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

~ John W. Gardner,

You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to

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