Love is action

Love is action. It is possible to convert irreplaceable resources into love. Time, will, energy- units of life. Every day, you are given these raw elements to work with. These building blocks can be turned into an ethereal structure that is stronger, more solid, and more durable than any physical material.

Love is a feeling

Love is a feeling, a swell of pure causality. It spawns cascades of events. You know it when you feel it. This feeling makes you think, say, and do things that otherwise would never have happened.

Love is an idea

Love is an idea. A moment of love can be forgotten, but it can never be destroyed. It will be inscribed in time forever. Like an idea, love can exist long after death. Love lives simply by being conjured in the mind. Its abundance can be infinite.

Love is magic

Love is magic, it defies explanation. To the most rational and logical among us, this may be confusing. Its elusiveness is its significance. Love isn’t an illusion to be broken, but a miracle to bask in. Not everything needs to be understood to be appreciated. You are the audience, and the magician.

Our bias is to always add more

Our bias is to always add more. More rules, more process, more code, more features, more stuff. Interdependencies proliferate and gradually strangle us. Systems want to grow and grow, but without pruning, they collapse. Slowly, then spectacularly. Why is it so much easier to add than to remove? Maybe because we attach our identity to what is visible. But there is a difference between the ornamentation that defines our style and the vestigial burdens we carry.

Powerful tools can do powerful things

Powerful tools can do powerful things. If you want to make handmade wooden furniture, you must cut wood. Your desire to have limbs and your desire to have furniture are not at odds if you learn to use tools safely. There is a limit to how safe a tool can be before its function is crippled. We should not stop making powerful tools because they are dangerous. Rather, we should empower people to use powerful tools safely.

Some events can only be understood in the moment

Pleasures accumulate anywhere you can build attention to detail. If you love someone long enough, if you cultivate attention in each other for years, you will reap the harvest of sweet memories in common. Some events can only be understood in the moment, but others can only really be understood long afterwards. There is a great pleasure in understanding these things in retrospect, a long-distance pleasure.