After a lifetime of hounding authors for advice, I’ve heard three truths from every mouth:
(1) Writing is painful — it’s ‘fun’ only for novices, the very young, and hacks;
(2) other than a few instances of luck, good work only comes through revision;
(3) the best revisers often have reading habits that stretch back before the current age, which lends them a sense of history and raises their standards for quality.
Vacuum
I thought I could exist in a vacuum. Attain independence and rationality.
I’m just a product of my hereditary, upbringing, hormone, culture, anxiety, education, politics, and socioeconomic status. What I see, what I read, what I experience: all is embedded in me.
Our brain and being are wired for changing circumstances. I have to learn live with all that. accept the hell and heaven of other people.
What will become of me after a decade from now? Moving shifting changing til we cease to exist. Til the vacuum comes.
Revise !
It’s never about who’s better than you. There will be plenty, dead and alive.
It’s always about how you could get better, edit and revise.
We’ll become a work of our lifetime: a sum of fractures, success, and failure.
Statistic insignificance 💘
I’m not statistically significant at all. I’m just one sample size. I’m just another person who is alive. I can’t speak for anyone. I can’t speak for me. I can only cite and sleep on a pile of references.
I’m just a boring human being with no experience. I haven’t been anywhere. I haven’t done anything. Why would my insight matter?
Personal essay was dead before I came to live. How can I be so subjective ? It’s very difficult for me.
But it’s actually nice to be uncomfortable, sometimes..
🌹
It doesn’t matter.
You matter because everyone else matter
.
The truth is that you aren’t that big of a deal. And isn’t that great
?
.
– tiny tiny dust
