Over the Horizon, paper collage, 2024

The older I get, the less I view my life as a series of successes and failures, goals to be accomplished, or opportunities for productivity and improvement. I look at myself at age 42 and realize that I am not, nor have I ever been, something to be optimized for peak performance—physically, mentally, or otherwise. I am not a machine, not a brand, not an article fit for mass consumption. Nor am I the sum of my accomplishments or ambitions or lack thereof.

For the rest of my life, I would like to remain a “master of none”. A perpetual student, a perpetual experimenter, a perpetual novice. Nothing kills the unbridled joy and playfulness of the creative intellect quite like taking oneself too seriously. If I ever start thinking of myself as a “master” of anything, that will be the end of my creativity, my spontaneity, and my capacity for playfulness. 

Don’t will your life or your thinking to be positive all the time. A big part of learning to appreciate life is learning to appreciate both the highs and lows without getting too caught up in either. 

Have standards.

Use the simplest language possible. 

Find one thing that interests you and do it consistently. Work to develop your skills and nurture your talents in your own time and according to your own standards. This will change who you are, how you view yourself and the world.

To be able to feel compassion for oneself is a milestone. 

To feel compassion for oneself and to feel sorry for oneself are not the same thing.

The most effective means of desensitizing a person is by cutting them off from their innate capacities. Learn how to do basic things. Cook a meal, ride a bike, go for a walk in the woods, watch birds, read a book, make something with your hands. Don’t lose the ability that your body and brain have to experience the world directly—without the intervention of a screen and without the added convenience of having other people do these things for you. 

To experience is also a psychological need. 

To derive joy from rudimentary experience is an art. 

Have an unshakable foundation. 

There are people who think it is possible, through various means, to fully integrate what Jung calls “the shadow,” or that which we repress. To anyone who thinks that, I would say, with all due respect, “That’s your shadow talking.” 

What we need more than anything is a tremendous dose of humility.