Category: creativity
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the company I keep
When I started practicing Transcendental Meditation, the teacher would talk about how important it was to surround yourself with good people. “You are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with,” he would say. I’ve been pretty lucky to have had some good friends and…
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the importance of wondering
Here’s Marc Maron on what it’s like to forget: Sure, we have the entire Library of Alexandria in the palm of our hands and can get the answer to any question we have at a moment’s notice, but is this really a good thing? If we have all the answers,…
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unplugged
Last fall, I watched the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, and immediately deleted all of my social media. What started as an emotional reaction to the implications of digitizing life quickly became a turning point. I deleted my Facebook and started calling my friends instead. I deleted my Instagram and…
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a nocturnal generation
In my early twenties, I took Kerouac a little too seriously. The case could be made I read On The Road at exactly the right moment, during the worst summer of my life, a time that would shape and change me in so many ways. As school resumed, I found…
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where’s the fun?
I’ve been writing novels since I was fourteen. None of them have ever seen the light of day and I sincerely hope they never will. While I’ve always wanted to write books that people read, most of my early efforts had one goal: fun. As other kids were playing Xbox,…
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fuck it…
I read an interview with Anthony Hopkins last year, in which he talks with Brad Pitt about his favorite two-word prayer: I once asked a Jesuit priest, “What is the shortest prayer in the world?” He said,“Fuck it.” It’s the prayer of release. Just say, “Fuck it.” None of it…
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hustlin’
Austin Kleon on the hustle: “I made poetry at night not because it was a side hustle, but because it was keeping me alive, ya know? It was keeping me from hating my life.” This video is a fun companion piece to John Cragie’s “Hustlin‘” off his new record, Asterisk…
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on the go
Between August of 2015 and September of 2018, I moved ten times. From my childhood home to my first apartment, from a rundown house with squirrels in the walls to a rented room in a lake house, from a commune in Cincinnati to a cabin in the middle of a…
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my favorite thing about Weezer
For the second time in a row, Weezer announced an album, then put out something entirely different. After 2016’s The White Album. the band’s frontman, Rivers Cuomo, announced the band was going to release a follow-up entitled The Black Album. But as they started the recording process, Rivers changed his…
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what happens?
Oftentimes, when I’m writing, it’s easy to lose sight of the important questions. I get wrapped up in my ideas, my self-prescribed brilliance, my ego. By holding too tight to what I’m making, I prevent the story from becoming what it wants to be. With storytelling, the simplest question is…
joshua chamberlain 