I believe stillness and aggressiveness are just tools, not ideals. 

What’s infinitely more important is to perceive the nuance/context of a given situation, so it becomes readily apparent which mode—calm, aggressiveness, focus, a wild, last-ditch effort—will propagate harmony and serve your aims.

In order for me to get things done, it is necessary to create a behavioral hierarchy.  Certain actions take priority over others.

But in the eternal sense, the more I stretch time and culture into an infinite line that reaches out in either direction, it seems that individual actions give rise to results that are their polar opposite in terms of worth.  “Good” and “bad” flip back and forth, giving birth to each other in endless succession, until it is impossible to tell which action originated what result.  The polarity becomes an endless dance, an endless play, and the urgency of the quest falls away.  The only model of reality that makes any sense to me is that of an immersive game.

That’s the view that helps me sleep at night.

Talent simplifies an activity.  Training simplifies it even further.  Critical thinking and honest assessment make sure it STAYS simple.

It is not simplicity I seek, per se, but the capability to render complexity into simplicity, and the humility to keep it that way.

As a writer, I have to grind it out day to day—draft and edit, draft and edit—until I’ve done the best I can (at that specific juncture in my writing journey) with my manuscript.

A manuscript which, ironically, romanticizes (or omits) the day to day, and is an attempt to funnel any “grind” into a concisely worded invitation into the flashiest parts of my imagination.

When I see life as a game, I can account for the futility imposed on me by the vastness of time and space, and I can adjust my tempo in a fulfilling manner across all ranges of activity and intensity.

When I see life as an idealized quest, I become stuck in a quagmire of melodramatic thoughts, and I have to constantly ignore the evidence around me—those ever-present indications that consistently tell me I’m not that important, and to make the most of the time I have left.

(It’s better as a game.)

There are valid excuses for consistent failure. 

But consistent failure to learn from the same kind of mistakes?  Not really.

I’m a sucker for happy endings.  I’ll write the darkest stuff I think my audience will accept into the middle of my story, all so I can elicit a mile-wide grin out of them at the conclusion.

Writing for others is a lot like fishing.  You cast your lures—the opening line, the cover, the synopsis, and everything in between—before your reader’s attention, drawing them into the same wondrous vision you had all those months (years?) ago, the one that inspired you to set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

When you do it correctly, I believe you tap into a universal truth that resonates from either end of the manuscript—from author to reader to something greater.

Every [philosophy/aphorism/religion/teaching/etc] seems to function as a causal map—an attempt to chart a pattern of consequence that steers me towards fulfillment and cautions me against undesirable pitfalls.

Ironically, all the worthwhile ones seem to be saying the exact same thing:  it’s fine to use them as guides (especially in the beginning) but in the end, I have to figure things out for myself.