Some creative work requires the application of quick, definitive force if you want to take what’s in your head, commit it to a distributable medium, and get it out the door in a shape that’s true to what you pictured in your mind. Other creative works, though, necessitate the slow, consistent application of effort and energy over time if you want to avoid converting desirable matter into unpalatable char. The distinction between these categories of work is partially down to the ingredients used (some conceptions are more suitable for extended-duration effort, while others are ideally served es ..read more

I decided at the last second to do away with my usual newsletter format for this final newsletter of 2023 (I’m taking next week off to work on my new book, avoid the news, and eat unhealthy volumes of green bean casserole), and to drop a few final thoughts on my way out the (calendar-year) door, instead. I unintentionally stopped posting things on Instagram back in early October, and from there just kept forgetting that the network even existed. And I’d love to say it was a liberating, lovely experience, but the truth is I truly just didn’t even think about it, except to periodically realize ..read more

The calendar provides us with all sorts of baked-in milestone moments, and though we don’t require such moments (holidays, birthdays, etc) to pause, assess, try new things, and make changes to how we live our lives (based on those assessments and experiments), it certainly doesn’t hurt to have these latent, potential-laden periods sprinkled throughout the year, ready to be leveraged for whatever purposes we choose. I’m personally trying something new in these final, waning days of 2023: I’m taking a whole week off, intending to spend that time in calm, quiet reflection, and to work on the new ..read more

It’s okay to not have an opinion about things. It can be awkward, though, and sometimes people will find it offensive if they share their opinion and you fail to confirm the rightness of their perspective, or if you decline to present your own doctrinal counter-belief that they can then push back against. That awkwardness is partly the consequence of the desire many of us feel to categorize the world around us: if you don’t share your opinion about the talking point of the day, how will I know which team you’re on, and thus, whether you’re friend or foe? But it’s also (increasingly) the conseq ..read more

When you consume alcohol, there’s a good chance your prime goal is not to consume alcohol: you’re looking to socialize, you’re interested in feeling altered, you’re maybe just parched and want something to drink. The same is true of many activities we engage in regularly; the act itself may be just one possible means of achieving an actual, deeper goal. In such cases, there may be other, superior (for our purposes) means of accomplishing the same outcomes: you could pop around a party with a sparkling water in your hand instead of a beer, for instance, or take mushrooms (or meditate, or work o ..read more

Years ago, I dated an Icelandic woman who—among many other accolades—was an enthusiastic linguist. She spoke a handful of languages, and was always endeavoring to further her grasp of them. Which in the context of our relationship often meant her asking me about English words and meanings. She already spoke English incredibly well, and when she asked about this subject she went beyond simple questions, tugging at the threads of a term or concept until she’d unspooled every last detail about it. That meant this process was generally fairly effortful for me, but also interesting and growth-induc ..read more

The news can be stressful, anxiety-inducing, tribalism-reinforcing, and littered with misleading, misinformed, heavily biased takes. There are things we can do to make our news-consumption habits more productive, including (for instance) avoiding most TV news, avoiding editorial/opinion content, and sticking with journalistic entities with the right economic incentives (and reputations for generally non-polemical coverage) like Reuters and The Associated Press. Exposure to solid news coverage is only one component of the world-understanding equation, though: it’s great to be plu ..read more

There’s a tension between sharing enough of oneself to convey complete, round narratives, and sharing too much: stepping over the line into something uncomfortably open, unnecessarily detailed, or embellished till it’s more icing than cake. It’s tempting to aim for extremes when we’re communicating personal details, whether that means chatting about ourselves with coworkers over lunch or broadcasting snippets of our lives to strangers from the internet. There’s something straightforwardly satisfying about being able to say, “I’m an open book, I don’t hold anything back,” or in contrast, “My pe ..read more

I don’t particularly enjoy the process of making a podcast: there are elements of it I find fulfilling and this process allows me to produce things I want to see in the world, while also contributing to my livelihood. But if there were a button I could push that would allow me to convert all the things I want to convey, automagically, into a well-made podcast episode, I would push that button immediately—the outcome of investing that time and effort is what I’m after, not the spending of the time and effort itself. In other cases, though, the spending is the point. There are quick, casual ways ..read more

When I think about work, I sometimes visualize a collection of little boxes in which I can put things. This is true of paid work—the projects that help me make rent and buy groceries—but also the sort of work I do alongside that, which is maybe just for fun, maybe meant to help me grow in some fashion, maybe something experimental and boundary-expanding, and maybe something that will someday evolve into a money-making venture. I suspect I reflexively reach for this metaphor because I often find myself with things I’d like to do, but without a proper place to put those things. And while it’s of ..read more