What a large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life by him who interests his heart in everything.
McCullough, David. John Adams. United Kingdom, Simon & Schuster, 2001. pg 287
Category: writer’s inspiration
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Thanks to Madame Lafayette, they were seated in a gallery overlooking the choir, “as good a place as any in the church,” thought John Quincy, who in a long description of the spectacle in his diary demonstrated that besides being precociously erudite, he had learned, as his father urged, to observe the world around him and was well started on becoming an accomplished writer. He described the Parliament lined up to the right side of the choir, robed in scarlet and black, the Chambre des Comptes on the left, in robes of black and white; the bishops arriving two by two, “a purple kind of mantle over their shoulders,” the Archbishop of Paris, “a mitre upon his head,” and finally the arrival of the King.
John Quincy Adams heeding his father’s advice to observe the world around him.
Or as Teju Cole begs: observe, observe, observe.
McCullough, David. John Adams. United Kingdom, Simon & Schuster, 2001. pg 327
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Write early in the morning, cultivate memory, reread core books, take detailed reading notes, work on several projects at once, maintain a thick archive, rotate crops, take a weekly Sabbath, go to bed at the same time, exercise so hard you can’t think during it, talk to different kinds of people including the very young and very old, take words and their histories seriously (i.e., read dictionaries), step outside of the empire of the English language regularly, look for vocabulary from other fields, love the basic, keep your antennae tuned, and seek out contexts of understanding quickly (i.e., use guides, encyclopedias, and Wikipedia without guilt).”
I’d add Claude 3.5 Sonnet and Perplexity.ai to without guilt list.
H/T Austin Kleon
Hanrahan, Brían. “The Anthropoid Condition: An Interview with John Durham Peters.” Los Angeles Review of Books, July 10, 2015. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-anthropoid-condition-an-interview-with-john-durham-peters/.
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That the mind of man is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity; and that we forget the proper use of the time now in our power, to provide the enjoyment of that which, perhaps, may never be granted us, has frequently remarked; and as this practice is a commodious subject of raillery to the gay, and of declamation to the serious, it has been ridiculed with all the pleasantry of wit, and exaggerated with all the amplifications of rhetoric.
– Samuel Johnson, RAMBLER, No. 2
At last reading Dr. Johnson. Even in his age the idea of cherishing the present was an ongoing struggle.
The RAMBLER essays are an excellent entry point. They’re short but heavy.
Enjoy the dates on them too, this one from Saturday, 24 March 1750.
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The ability to distinguish relevant from less relevant information is another skill that can only be learned by doing. It is the practice of looking for the gist and distinguishing it from mere supporting details. As we are forced to make this distinction when we read with a pen in our hand and write permanent note after permanent note, it is more than mere practice: it is deliberate practice repeated multiple times a day. Extracting the gist of a text or idea and giving an account in writing is for academics what daily practice on the piano is for pianists: The more often we do it and the more focused we are, the more virtuous we become.
Note-taking is thinking. A method and practice for helping one pay attention to the world.
Plan accordingly.
Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking. Germany, Sönke Ahrens, 2022. pg82
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The Rat paid no heed to his doleful self-reproaches. He was running here and there, opening doors, inspecting rooms and cupboards, and lighting lamps and candles and sticking them up everywhere. “What a capital little house this is!” he called out cheerily. “So compact! So well planned! Everything here and everything in its place! We’ll make a jolly night of it. The first thing we want is a good fire; I’ll see to that – I always know where to find things. So this parlor? Splendid! Your own idea, those little sleeping-bunks in the wall? Capital! Now, I’ll fetch the wood and the coals, and get you a duster, Mole – you’ll find one in the drawer of the kitchen table – and try and smarten things up a bit. Bustle about, old chap!”
Fascinating how Kenneth Grahame sets the scene here without describing Mole’s home directly. Instead he paints the scene by rendering it through Ratty’s joyful perspective.
Can one get away with saying Captial! When something is good?
Grahame, Kenneth. The Wind in the Willows. United Kingdom, Welbeck Editions, 2021. p89
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Go! Change your days. Burn with a hard gem-like flame.
– Henry Oliver
Oliver, Henry. Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life. United Kingdom, John Murray Press, 2024.
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She shows us that simply deciding to act when faced with a challenge can reveal new depths of capability. The more she did, the more capable she became. ‘Do your work,’ said Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘and you shall reinforce yourself.’
Henry Oliver on Katharine Graham
That from the introduction to Henry’s new book: Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life
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It was a week before the solstice when Little Helmut finally realized he was being hunted by a polar bear.
I loathe marketing, but this commercial. Damn it.
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What Emerson kept, and what he recommended enthusiastically to others, were what used to be called commonplace books, blank bound volumes in which one writes down vivid images, great descriptions, striking turns of phrase, ideas, high points from one’s life and reading — things one wants to remember and hold on to. A commonplace book is not a diary, an appointment calendar, or a record of one’s feelings. If your journal consists of the best moments of your life and reading, then rereading it will be like walking a high mountain trail that goes from peak to peak without the intervening descent into the trough of routine. Just reading in such a journal of high points will tighten your strings and raise your pitch
– Robert D. Richardson
This is the aim of Floodlights and Goalposts. I hope its a high mountain trail that goes from peak to peak.
If you’re keeping a commonplace book, which I hope you are, or any notebook, be sure to go back and re-read what you’ve captured.
Richardson, Robert D.. First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson on the Creative Process. United States, University of Iowa Press, 2015.
Floodlights and Goalposts 