#76: say what you think

Writing is a byproduct of hours and hours of reading, researching, thinking, making my notecards. When a day’s writing goes well, it’s got little to do with that day at all. It’s actually a lagging indicator of hours and hours spent researching and thinking. Every passage and page has a prologue titled preparation.

Pulling an all-nighter is not a sign of dedication but a lagging indicator of the exact opposite. It means you plan poorly, you procrastinate, you aren’t proactive enough, you don’t know how to effectively manage your work and your time.

Creativity is a function of the previous work you put in. Creativity is not mysterious or romantic. It’s tedious. If you put a lot of hours into thinking and researching and reading, hour after hour — a very tedious process — creativity will come to you.

Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you; it means learning to respect and use your own brains and instincts; hence, grappling with hard work.

The difference between a life lived actively, and a life of passive drifting and dispersal of energies, is an immense difference. Once we begin to feel committed to our lives, responsible to ourselves, we can never again be satisfied with the old, passive way.

You must write, and read, as if your life depended on it. That is not generally taught in school. At most as if your livelihood depended on it: the next step, the next job, grant, scholarship, professional advancement fame; no questions asked as to further meanings. And let’s face it, the lesson of the schools for a vast number of children—hence, of readers—is This is not for you.

To write as if your life depended on it: to write across the chalkboard, putting up there in public words you have dredged, sieved up from dreams, from behind screen memories, out of silence—words you have dreaded and needed in order to know you exist.

A palliative care nurse called Bronnie Ware made a list of the biggest regrets of the dying. Her list seems plausible. I could see myself — can see myself — making at least 4 of these 5 mistakes:

Don't ignore your dreams,

don't work too much,

say what you think.

cultivate friendships,

be happy.

Most people who make big life changes are happier for it. We tend to overweigh risk, underweigh reward. Knowing this doesn’t necessarily make us more logical.

We often contemplate change for a long time before we act on it. Sleepless nights, waffling. Sometimes this persists for years. We all know people who’ve been contemplating a big change for way too long, but are consistently unable to pull the trigger. They’re paralyzed, caught on something within themselves, always blaming external circumstances: it’s the wrong time. Sometimes we give up on them. But then one day they actually make the change. And you’re like: well, that took you way too long. But I’m glad.