Justin Reidy

One of my favorite commercials is an Under Armour spot featuring Michael Phelps with the tagline: “It’s what you do in the dark that puts you in the light.”

You just have to grab hold of what awakens a sense of loving curiosity in you. If you pursue those things, they never cease to open up to new questions and observations and ideas.

Putting ideas into words is a severe test. The first words you choose are usually wrong; you have to rewrite sentences over and over to get them exactly right. And your ideas won't just be imprecise, but incomplete too. Half the ideas that end up in an essay will be ones you thought of while you were writing it. Indeed, that's why I write them.

As you build newthing you will discover that building a newthing is a strange act where the harder you go about trying to do it, the harder it becomes. It will resist direct force and control. The more you relax and allow it to speak through you, however, the easier it will be.

The Kotzker Rebbe famously asked his disciples where God dwells. Schooled in the rudiments of theology, they answered, “Everywhere.” Doesn’t the prophet teach us that “all the world is filled with His glory” (Isaiah 6:3)? But the Kotzker was having none of it. “No,” he told them, “God dwells wherever we let God in.”

How to stay calm (without any hacks) This is all you need. https://t.co/RgVVVwBlpx

God will not dispense health like a cosmic vendor or be enlisted as a party to our quarrels. The only real promise is presence. What God wants from me is me; from you, you.