An online commonplace book
Certainly read the whole piece, but here is the print-it-out-and-hang-it-above-your-monitor version:
Be audacious.
Do grunt work.
Do the boring things.
Learn undefined skills.
Work hard.
Bring a sense of urgency & move fast.
Improve things.
Ask your naive questions.
Simplify things.
Follow up.
Show up during the hard times.
Figure out the first step.
Finish things.
No excuses then?
I tell people who want to write they should try to write every single day without exception. They don’t all like hearing that. Obviously, it’s not how every writer works, but it’s a good initial test to see whether you really want to be a writer.
– Tyler Cowen
This a good test of how badly one wants to write. Also, I’d take this as you don’t have to publish said writing.
You can keep it to yourself. Remember writing is a powerful method of thinking.
This from Tyler’s latest conversation with Rebecca F. Kuang:
The trunk of an elephant might feel cool to the touch. Not what one expects, perhaps, from 200 pounds of writhing muscle, strong enough to uproot a tree, which tapers down to two “fingers,” giving it enough delicacy to detect the ripest berry on a shrub, and pluck it. Feeling an elephant’s trunk draws you to her other great feature: melancholic eyes that are veiled by long and dusty lashes. This combination of might with the suggestion of serene contemplation is surely the reason that elephants seem to embody a special state of grace.
I appreciate this description of an elephant’s trunk. It’s a surprising, captivating way to open a letter. Note the focus, the detail. Wang could have described the entire elephant, but instead he honed in on one appendage.
Good writing is specific.
Also, he recounts this admonition about learning he wrote in his 2017 letter.
“Knowledge can compound. I’d like for us to think more about how to accelerate the growth of learning. The traditional method of reading more books and trying to improve professionally are good starts, but it’s not enough to stop there. One can learn more by traveling to new places, being social in different ways, reading new types of books, changing jobs or professions, moving to a new place, by doing better and by doing more.”
– Dan Wang
Learning can compound.
Dan’s letters are beyond bookmarking. They are worth printing out and reading in hand.
Skip to the full 2023 letter below:
Adams loved the speeches of Cicero, reading them aloud to himself at night. He wrote in his diary that
The Sweetness and Grandeur of his sounds, and the Harmony of his Numbers give Pleasure enough to reward the Reading of if one understood none of his meaning. Besides I find it, a noble Exercise. It exercises my Lungs, raises my Spirits, opens my Porr, quickens the Circulations, and so contributes much to Health.
Why in Adams’s diary did he capitalize seemingly random words?
What piece of literature, or reading, do you have that raises your spirits like Cicero’s speeches did Adams?
If none come to mind, find one.
Ricks, Thomas E.. First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country. United States, HarperCollins, 2020. pp50
I was introduced to Trae Stephen’s idea of choosing Good Quests through the Meditations with Zohar podcast. His essay (cowritten with Markie Wagner) explains the idea further:
At the dawn of the 20th Century, the Wright Brothers embarked on a quest to build the first controlled airplane. A half century later, NASA embarked on a quest to put a man on the moon. Combustion, penicillin, nuclear fission; the discovery of America, the drafting of the Constitution, Normandy — history is defined by protagonists pursuing good quests.
And a simple definition of a good quest:
In the most simple terms possible: a good quest makes the future better than our world today, while a bad quest doesn’t improve the world much at all, or even makes it worse.
So a question to ask ourselves as the New Year ushers in: What’s your quest?
Maybe write the idea on a notecard and pin it above your desk: Choose good quests.
Read Trae Stephens and Markie Wagner’s essay in full here.
And listen to his interview with Zohar Atkins here.
Happy New Year!
There is often great frustration in this work. I say this not to discourage anyone; it’s just a way of life. One way to get through it is sheer discipline. This isn’t about physical discipline, rather a certain psychological state. Plough on no matter how many spectacular humiliations and undignified defeats you suffer.
and
Writers and filmmakers are all alone; there is usually no one to help you, so just get off your ass and start walking. When you make a film or write a book and roll it out to audiences, be prepared to deal with either kicks to the stomach and slaps to the face or complete indifference. Most of the time no one cares about what you’re doing, except you. A filmmaker’s existence is different from that of a train conductor or bank teller. You have made certain choices about your life, which means you need to learn to overcome the despair and loneliness. Stay focused, quiet and professional at all times. Face what comes at you. You can never be irresolute, not for a single second. Plant yourself into the ground and move for no one. Make films only if there is a natural urge within. Switch off your Internet connection and get to work.
A film maker’s existence is different than a train conductor or bank teller, but whatever you aim to accomplish in 2024 you’ll encounter slaps to the face, kicks to the stomach, and indifference.
Hearken back to wise ol’ uncle Werner’s words – plough on.
Cronin, Paul. Werner Herzog – A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Faber & Faber, 2020. pp243-244
The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.
In summer when I passed the place
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it sweet and swift.
No bird was singing in it now.
A single leaf was on a bough,
And that was all there was to see
In going twice around the tree.
From my advantage on a hill
I judged that such a crystal chill
Was only adding frost to snow
As gilt to gold that wouldn't show.
A brush had left a crooked stroke
Of what was either cloud or smoke
From north to south across the blue;
A piercing little star was through.
It may be “un-literary” to admit, but part of the joy of reading Robert Frost’s poems are that they rhyme. Copying them out gives you the feeling of transcribing song lyrics into your 6th grade Mead Composition notebook.
My favorite bit from this poem is when Frost briefly takes us back to summer in the second stanza, before for dropping us off in winter again three lines later. Brilliant how he fits that glimpse of summer in to give us the context of the present emptiness of that place.
Merry Christmas dear readers!
Frost, Robert. New Hampshire. United States, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2019. pg100
I should like to give myself leisure to read, study, make experiments.
– Benjamin Franklin
In order to transition into becoming a scientist, Franklin knew he would need to be intentional with his time. But being intentional with his actions is a discipline he cultivated throughout his life. See his 13 virtues.
Fleming, Candace. Ben Franklin’s Almanac: Being a True Account of the Good Gentleman’s Life. United Kingdom, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2014. pp45
A man with a large family . . . stands a broader mark for sorrow. But then, he stands a broader mark for pleasure too!
Benjamin Franklin, letter to Bishop Shipley, 1788
A quote to remember as we approach Christmas.
Another for the children’s books are underrated files…
Fleming, Candace. Ben Franklin’s Almanac: Being a True Account of the Good Gentleman’s Life. United Kingdom, Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2014. pp14
If we opened people up, we’d find landscapes.
– Agnès Varda
I was unsure about why she was celebrated yesterday. Did she pass? Was it her birthday?
No.
On 12.13.2014 Varda received an honorary Lifetime Achievement award from the European Film Academy.
A random choice to celebrate with a Google Doodle, but it is Agnès Varda…
See her Closet Picks here.
