Blog

Koontz writes in his suspense novel about a father who loved his car more than his family: Harlo had nobody to whom he could give the love that he lavished on the car. A can’t return the love you give it, but if you’re lonely enough, maybe the sparkle of the chrome, the luster of the paint and the purr of the engine can be mistaken for affection. Have you ever…

Think about the biggest drama queen you know. Do they spin small anxieties into outsize disasters? Do they cry wolf at the slightest sign of trouble? Do they assume disaster is around every corner? Do they spin everything into a vortex of negative thought? Do they take minor provocations as personal affronts? Do they believe they are the only one to ever experience bad events? Do they have zero…

Few things bring me more joy than videos of unlikely animal pairs romping or snuggling. Goats and rhinos, pigs and cats, deer and foxes, tortoises and terriers, monkeys and tigers, parrots and hippos, few things in the world are more adorable than interspecies friendships. Disney animated movies, eat your heart out. The question is, did the animals work out a common language, or is it just another cute internet…

When somebody makes the comment, you’re all over the map, that’s not an insult, it’s a compliment. Because none of us are fixed artistic entities. The world wants to govern our growth by insisting that we never diversify. People want to pathologize anything that’s diverse and experimental. But the reality is, we’re not supposed to be one thing in this life. Having a clean and linear and tidy career…

Linklater is one of my favorite filmmakers because he is notoriously allergic to plot. In many of his interviews, he explains that plot is this agreed upon structure we all sign up for hang moments on. It’s this contract with the audience. And although people think they want it, it’s really just a fake thing that they create that assumes life is going to give them closure. But the…

Emerson once wrote: As the traveler who has lost his way throws his reins on his horse’s neck and trusts to the instinct of the animal to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us through this world. But what if he wasn’t referring to about the imaginary bearded lifeguard in the sky? What if he was talking about actually people on the…

Beliefs are just guesses based on incomplete evidence. They’re thoughts we’re in the habit of thinking. Things we actively keep reindoctrinating ourselves with. That’s why the opposite of belief isn’t disbelief, it’s experience. Because no matter how skillfully we construct our precious little mythologies to help us deal with the unknowable, eventually life takes the wind out of us and reality comes crashing in. Can you think of memorable…

The primary obstacle to expanding our creative life is way we view ourselves. The actual language we use to describe the work that we do. For the first two decades of my career as an artist, referring to myself with specific words like writer and performer and entrepreneur and agency creative and startup employee, those labels really mattered to me. And they served me quite well. But once afternoon,…

When we’re young, we assume that being disagreeable leads to ostracism and loneliness. As a result. we quickly learn to align our feelings and opinions with those around us as a survival tactic. Which works to a certain extent when we’re children. Especially if the people around us are angry and yelling and we don’t want to add fuel to the fire. But as adults, if we have not…

Making things is not only the most natural way for me to engage with the world, but it’s also the most useful way for me to cope with the heartbreak of the world. Because no matter how utterly incomprehensible and overwhelming the reality of life gets, art is still the most satisfying way for me to be at peace with the madness. Rollins famously said that music is what…