Section 02
The principles and half-formed convictions that shape how I work and think. Held loosely, revised often.
We do not encounter the world neutrally. What we believe changes what we notice, what we attempt, how we interpret setbacks, and what possibilities we consider available to us. Beliefs are therefore not just descriptions of reality. They participate in creating the reality we experience. That makes examining them important—especially the ones that feel too obvious to question.
Relationships are inefficient. People interrupt plans, need things at inconvenient times, misunderstand us, disappoint us, and require forgiveness. That inconvenience is not a defect in community. It is the cost of having one. If you want a village, you have to be willing to be a villager: to show up, make the call, host the dinner, help when it is inconvenient, and accept that meaningful relationships cannot be optimized like a calendar.
Self-respect is evidence-based. It comes less from the story you tell about yourself than from accumulating evidence that you behave according to your values when there is no audience. Every private promise kept becomes evidence. Every repeated exception becomes evidence too. Eventually, you believe what your behavior has taught you about yourself.
Related reading → To All the Folks Who Are About To…Spend enough time around people doing something difficult and the impossible often becomes merely unusual. Your environment silently calibrates your expectations—what counts as ambitious, normal, embarrassing, achievable or worth attempting. Choose environments partly for what they teach you to believe is possible.
People who appear unusually lucky often make an unusual number of attempts. They ask more questions, meet more people, send more messages, follow more curiosities, make more things, and put more unfinished ideas into the world. Most of those attempts lead nowhere. But dead ends are information. Rejection is information. Conversations create new branches. Action reveals possibilities that cannot be discovered through planning alone. I would rather have a high rejection rate and a high rate of discovery than protect myself by making too few attempts.
Self-respect is evidence-based. It comes less from the story you tell about yourself than from accumulating evidence that you behave according to your values when there is no audience. Every private promise kept becomes evidence. Every repeated exception becomes evidence too. Eventually, you believe what your behavior has taught you about yourself.
Related reading → Joan Didion on Self-RespectCuriosity is useful information. The subjects, people and problems that repeatedly pull your attention may be telling you something about where you should go. But fascination alone isn't enough. Follow the curiosity far enough to test whether there is substance underneath it.