Love is fear

Love is fear. The more you love someone, the more you may become afraid to lose them. But you must never let that fear stop you from loving someone as much as you possibly can.

Love is freedom

Love is freedom. It is unwise for trapeze artists to learn how to defy death without a safety net. Love gives you the freedom to explore the weirdest corners of your soul, your most peculiar ambitions. To love someone is to give them the freedom to become themselves, because they know you will be there if they fall.

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.

There is an endless collection of secrets to be discovered

There is sometimes a temporary disenchantment that follows discovery. We meet someone new or find a new place and become infatuated. But after some time, we realize that the city we longed to live in is in fact just a city, or some unattainable girl or boy, so hard to get their attention before, is not so otherworldly after all. This delusion is often our fault. People or places exist in our minds first as a projection of our desires, and only later as the real thing. First, we shed the projection, and here many people stop. But if you persist, you might find that there is no such thing as “just a city”; there is an endless collection of secrets to be discovered, and the same with people. It is our fault if we crave novelty, forget detail, and then find only surface, unstudied pleasures.

Stop being so available

If you respond to every text instantly and show up for everyone without hesitation, you’re communicating that your time isn’t valuable and that you don’t have much going on. Have things going on in your life, genuinely, and people will treat your time like it matters. More importantly, you will too.

Make something every day

People who like themselves tend to create things, even if it’s just a few paragraphs of writing or a sketch on the back of a receipt. Creating puts you in a position of agency rather than consumption. It has you contributing. You can scroll for two hours and feel hollow, or you can make something - even something ugly - in twenty minutes and feel like a human again.

Serve people well

What you say about yourself is forgotten. What you do for others compounds. Serve people well, and their word about you will travel further than yours ever could.

Tip for tap

There is plenty of unintentional harm in our world. We’ve all been bruised or derailed by someone who had no ill intent. We often respond with intentional harm to make a point and to teach a lesson. The alternative is clarity. Shared understanding instead of intentional pain. Tap is going to keep coming. It’s the tip that’s up to us.

The sidelines are safe, but sterile

The loser has more in common with the winner than with the person sitting on the sidelines. The winner and the loser each dared to try. Both risked embarrassment. Both were willing to face uncertainty. Both were stubborn enough to continue. Success is endurance in disguise. It belongs to the person who can absorb the losses without absorbing the identity of "loser." It's the courage to start and to stick with it that is the real separator. Results tend to find the person who stays in the game. The sidelines are safe, but sterile. Nothing grows there.

Stop seeking approval

When your happiness depends on other people’s thoughts and actions, you’re in a precarious position. You feel good when they’re pleased, and you crumble when they’re not. Seeking validation signals insecurity. People sense it, and it loses you respect. Focus instead on being useful and genuine. When you stop trying to impress and start bringing real value, admiration becomes a by-product rather than a goal.

Stop being so nice

Fake niceness is a form of manipulation. You’re pleasant because you want something in return, usually approval or safety from conflict. People can sense this, even if they can’t name it. It doesn’t feel authentic because it isn’t. Be kind when you mean it. Drop the forced smile when you don’t. Authenticity, even when it’s a little uncomfortable, commands more respect than any performance.

Expose some of your flaws

Most people are terrified of looking imperfect. They hide their mistakes and pretend they’ve got it all figured out. When you’re willing to admit a past failure or share something that makes you a little uncomfortable, people lean in. They see a human being, not a cardboard cut-out. Vulnerability, done right, builds trust and connection.

Process thinking

Sure, you made it work this time, but will it work next time? Can you teach the method to someone else? Do you have a protocol for what to do when it doesn’t work? How can someone else contribute to your process to make it better?

Free agency

Unrestricted free choice is a myth. There are always boundaries and trade-offs. But being fully stuck is also a myth. We might not like the trade-offs, but we also have a choice. Since we always live in between, the work isn’t waiting until we have free agency. The work is deciding and acting when we think that we don’t.

Most people aren't like you

The more ambitious you are, the easier it is to fall into this trap. You hand someone a project and think, "I would have stayed late every night for this." When they leave at 5, you feel betrayed. But here's the thing: you are unusual. Most people aren't like you. That's not a flaw in them. It's what makes you different. Once you stop expecting others to be you, the frustration disappears.

Talk to people

Actively cultivate relationships with family, friends, and strangers. Initiate conversations. Let curiosity lead. Ask follow-up questions. Assume rejection or awkwardness isn’t personal. Strong social connections are one of the most powerful predictors of long life and happiness, and their benefits begin immediately, not decades later.

Unknot yourself

Don't ignore the problem, but keep it light. Take action with a smile. Adding tension won't solve your troubles faster. Even when the problem is hard, it doesn't need to harden you. Unknot yourself. Body loose, head clear, and then take the first step. Be happy in the doing.

Is it helping?

There are millions of ways we can remind ourselves about the events of our lives and the systems we live in. But in this moment (and the next) we’ll choose just one or two to rehearse and allow it to alter our decisions, outlook and interactions. So the key question is simple: Is it helping? The story is a choice. You can change it. Not all at once, not easily, but of course, we change our focus. This takes effort, and it’s worthwhile.

Practice deep sensory noticing of people and places

Practice deep sensory noticing of people and places. Pay deliberate attention to textures, sounds, voices, movements, and atmospheres. Pleasure grows in proportion to attention.

Let seasons govern some pleasures

Let seasons govern some pleasures. Resist constant availability. Wait for certain foods, temperatures, or experiences, and then indulge fully when they arrive.

Make rest a non-negotiable priority.

Make rest a non-negotiable priority. Treat rest as something you actively protect, not what’s left over after everything else. Review your calendar and deliberately block time for high-quality rest. If no space exists, decide what you can reduce, delegate, or redesign. That could mean coordinating childcare, renegotiating responsibilities with a partner, or letting go of lower-value commitments.

Choose to be philosophical

Choose to be philosophical. Take the long view. There have always been bad leaders, chaotic periods, and moments when it felt like the world was coming apart. That’s what living through history looks like. Chaos isn’t an exception—it’s the pattern. You don’t get to choose whether you live in turbulent times, but you do get to choose how you meet them. Focus on what you can control, do your work, and refuse to be broken by forces beyond your power.

Do difficult things on purpose

Do difficult things on purpose. Train your body and mind to handle discomfort. When you’re stronger and more disciplined, you’re calmer, kinder, and harder to shake.