When You Write An Essay, Of Course

Whether You're Eighteen Or Sixty, In A Certain Way, Whatever You Know Is Valid.

I Find That The Great Artists I've Met Are People Who Are So Playfully Invested In Their Process That, Even If It Doesn't Come Out The Way They Like, They Still Power Through And Even Take Energy From It.

I Keep Thinking Of Robert Stone Making The Distinction Between The Word Sublime And The Word Beautiful. He Described Being In A Battle As Sublime. Because Even Though People Were Dying, It Was Such A Huge Sensory Experience That It Became Sublime.

One Lesson I Learned The Hard Way, Early In My Career, Was That If I Tried To Write To Be Smart Or To Convey A Theme Or From Some Existing Plan, The Result Was Usually Pretty Boring. My Intuitive Move, Whenever I'm Considering Writing Something, Is To Steer Towards What Feels Enjoyable. Another Way Of Saying It Is, You Just Try To Avoid The "sucky." If You Start To Think Of A Story And A Way To Tell It, And Your Reaction Is Kind Of Like, Ugh, That's Going To Be Hard, Then You Don't Want To Do That.

In The Reason That The Contrast Between The Absolute And The Relative Is So Terrible Is Because We Believe So Fully In Ourselves As Permanent, Continuous, And Central. I Feel Insane Saying This, But If One Weren't So Deluded About The Permanent Reality Of The Self, A Lot Of This Pain Would Actually Lessen.