joshua chamberlain

Category: life

  • embracing the unknown

    I was trying to write this morning and was suddenly seized by a question. My first instinct was to put down my pen, open my computer, and find the answer to said question. But I didn’t. I stayed with the writing and allowed the question to pass through me. I…

  • cleaning house

    It’s awfully hard to call yourself on your own shit if you’ve never had to scrub your own toilet.

  • what’s in the box?

    I tried out for an improv team once. The first round of auditions were magic. I threw myself into each scene with abandon and had a blast. The second-round of auditions were terrible. I was nervous, I was anxious, I froze. There’s an old improve game where you’re given a…

  • putting yourself on the hook

    The night before I moved out of my college apartment, my roommate and I decided to write a song. The moment we agreed to this, my roommate stood up, walked out of the apartment, and went to visit our next-door-neighbors. “Hey, Josh and I are going to spend all night…

  • my problem with YA

    A few years ago, I pitched a book to an New York agency. It was a story about the first years after college and navigating the trials of early adulthood. “This will be great for the Young Adult market,” the agents said. I balked. “Isn’t the whole point of YA…

  • lightning rod

    It’s often said that certain kinds of success are comparable to getting struck by lightning. This might be true, but there are ways to attract lightning. Just ask Ben Franklin. When the storm rolls in over the golf course, the guy who packs up his cart and goes back to…

  • give and take

    I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the nature of my relationships. It seems there’s often an implicit code that dictates a friendship should be transactional. I do something for you and you do something for me. It’s very apparent this is capitalism bleeding into intangibles that should transcend commodification.…

  • drops in a bucket

    We talk about productivity as if it’s a faucet that can be turned on and off. Not so. Most days, I sit down to write and I’m lucky to get a few drops. It may take forever, but you can fill the bucket one drop at a time.

  • magic feather syndrome

    I spent most of my adolescence and early adulthood as a hopeless romantic. I wandered the halls of my high school and my college campus aimlessly, in search of a girl I thought would love me into completion. No such girl ever came my way. Every relationship I had buckled…

  • a posture of gratitude

    Earlier this year, I finished reading The Book of Joy, a series of conversations between His Holiness The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. One quote in particular stuck out with me: “When you are grateful,’ Brother Steindl-Rast explained, ‘you are not fearful, and when you are not fearful, you…