Daydreams generally mean that you’ve suspended concerted effort for a moment, that you’re awake but dreaming. Amid the churn and bustle and actual competition for viable neurons these days, I find that suspending conscious effort for a few minutes is a rare thing. How bizarre: I have to consciously work at keeping my brain from working!
Read MoreTHE SOUNDS WE HEAR
Don’t just be an accountant: be an elegant, insightful, artful one. Don’t simply restock the shelves at the grocery store: find subtle, nuanced ways to think about what you’re doing and then do it well. Mundane jobs are not without the potential for elegant expressions. Perception is the first part of understanding something, and transformation of those perceptions is the work of authentic creativity.
Read MoreRAINY DAY
Rainy days often insulate my thoughts. They’re full of potential, of opportunity. They have an inherent romance to them, saturated with feeling. A rainy day helps contain free associations, concentrate focus, bring outward views inward.
Read MoreTHE MUSICIAN WHO STOPS TIME
At its most successful, music suspends time. That means music can even manage to suspend your endless to-do list.
Read MoreMAKING THE WORLD REAL
We make the world real only by noticing the details around us. When we don’t notice, or worse, when we don’t really care to notice, we capitulate a measure of our own solidity and relevance. When we capitulate our own relevance in the world we cease to be able to do things we’ve never done before. And when we stop doing new things, we stop being creative
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You have to be in the world to experience the world. But one you're there, you can still miss it if you're not paying attention.
OUTSIDE THE PAGES OF A BOOK
You have to be in the world to experience the world. But one you're there, you can still miss it if you're not paying attention.
Read MorePORTMANTEAU
If you want to make new things, you need to know the history of field in which you’re working. A working knowledge of the past gives you tools to function in the present. Woody Allen couldn’t exist without Groucho Marx knocking ash from his cigar. The Tesla couldn’t exist without the Prius silently pulling out of the garage.
Read MoreSMART PEOPLE
The best smart people in my opinion are those who are unafraid to pose a challenging idea, even a contrary idea, but can do so without becoming a bore, or worse, a wrecking ball. Elite skills need to speak for themselves without practitioners having to mentally file everyone else into hierarchical categories.
Read MoreTHE ENDOCRINOLOGIST
Even with all of the many satisfactions — the patients who counted on him, the years of work it had taken him to build his reputation, a measure of financial security — the doctor longed for something elsewhere.
Read MorePLAYING BY HEART
It's not the kind of music that matters in this case. It's all about how it's played.
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