Garrett Kincaid

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November, 2024

6,824 words

Nov 1
There are a few creators who have most opened up my world and led the way by showing me what is possible in life. The first few that come to mind, in the order I was exposed to them are:

Knowledge of grammar, mechanics, and structure is what separates literary writers from online writers. And if online writers would train themselves in the arithmetic of language, they would no longer be at a disadvantage. The stuff they self-publish would be as good or better than the stuff that editors labor over for publications. If you become an expert self-editor, there are no doors barred to you, because you can render prose as well as anyone, without relying on anyone but yourself.

Ideas live in the brain. Words live on the tongue.

Nov 2
Take a look at the mechanisms and gauges in our cars, and note the trend over the years about what we measure and monitor. I’m driving a car right now and dictating this as I watch a hologram on the windshield with my exact current speed. There is a wide dashboard with a mini TV, many gauges, yet no compass. It’s telling that the metric we care about is not our direction but our speed. We want to plug in our destination and be told where to go, and only ever have to worry about how fast we are going on our way there. That is wrong. Those priorities are wack. The thing that is undeniably more important than how fast you are going is what direction you are going. Are you headed home, or just to a place you’ve been told to live?

Nov 4
The lie of The Fall (Genesis): Satin, the serpent, tells Eve the truth that her Father had withheld from her. God says, “If you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die.” And later, the serpent rightly and truthfully says, “No, your eyes will be opened.” The tree is not what kills Adam and Eve. The fruit gives them divine knowledge, self-consciousness, and moral agency. It is God, their Father, who kills them as a punishment for their disobedience. The lie is that the devil is deceitful. No. In Genesis, it is God who deceives Adam and Eve.

And it’s all to promote the value of obedience. What use is obedience except to those in power? Why is that a worthy value at all? What human ever grows or changes in any meaningful way by doing exactly what their parents say? If Eden isn’t Hell, it is at least un-American.

Before The Fall, Adam and Eve had freedom but no agency. Upon eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they became moral agents capable of good and evil. And after they were cast from Eden, they became mortal. The two together make them human: an autonomous moral agent aware of one’s own mortality.

I have only my love for you. I only have you for my love. For my love, I only have you. For only you have my love. My love, for you I have only me.

Scraps For all my love, I only have you. I only have you for all my love. For only you have all my love. I have only all my love for you. My love, for you I only have me.

My love I have only for you. Only my love I have for you. I have you only for my love. For my love I have only you. I have my love only for you. My love I have only for you.

I have you I have my love I have only I only have For only you have my love. I love only you

Only my love I have my love

Nov 5
Tags for The Self-Editor’s Survival Guide on Substack:

I read The Fall as a man-made myth describing how we are and how we are meant to be. It describes how we are perfectly but errs in describing how we ought to be. How we are is how are meant to be. At least, that’s what I want the thesis of my creation myth to be.

How could Adam and Eve have known not to disobey God without the knowledge of good and evil? Animals are incapable of moral disobedience, so Adam and Eve would have been too. There was some latent, unconscious power of will within Eve that led her to eat the fruit. But until eating it, she was not aware of it being morally good or evil to do so. Eve’s disobedience was a proto-human act of moral autonomy.

Do you have an acquiescing spirit or one agentic?

The hardest part of the writing process for me is finishing the first draft. So, I get discouraged when I feel like I have to rewrite the draft from scratch. Without rewriting, though, you face the risk of over editing and losing the spirit.

So, to avoid rewriting and preserve the spirit of what I write, I instead transcribe. I don’t do this all the time, but I want to start doing it more often. I will write the first draft on my typewriter, which is a tool that helps me finish a messy first draft. And then I will transcribe the typewritten draft on my computer, which has the effect of rewriting without the feeling of restarting from scratch. As I transcribe, I’ll cut and rearrange and do a second take on whole paragraphs, but because I am working from a finished draft, it feels more like revising than rewriting, and that’s something I’m much more inclined to do.

Neither candidate on the 2024 Presidential ticket is worthy of the office, because they’re both dishonest. Trump is hyperbolic, and Harris is hypocritical. Neither characteristic befits our highest office.

Nov 6
Democracy is under threat. We just had a free and fair election. Next, there will be a peaceful transfer of power. We’re practically a totalitarian state! Hide in your homes. Don’t have babies. Decry patriotism and pride. Or, enjoy your time on this earth and be grateful for being born in the USA.

A little lyrical word association, starting with “ocean”:

Ocean, tall tales, whales, feet, stink, hats, cats, bats, rats, fats, gnats, fly, die, rise, against the man, within the woman, forever going underneath, the beat, a treat, Halloween, my death, unreal, unrealized, God, Jesus, crucifixion, definition, dictionary, Bryan Garner, umbrella, Rihanna, Barbados.

The Write of Passage writing process: (The six-sentence culmination of my work as Curriculum Director)

  1. Start by talking.
  2. Frame your topic in a fresh & novel way.
  3. Make it POP: personal, observational, playful.
  4. Find and focus on your Shiny Dime.
  5. Reduce your essay to its essence.
  6. Polish, publish, & promote it.

v1

  1. Discover ideas through conversation.
  2. Choose a fresh & novel frame for your topic.
  3. Take a shot at making it POP.
  4. Find and focus on your Shiny Dime.
  5. Distill your essay to its essence.
  6. Polish, publish, and promote your work.

Takeaways from Tim Denning’s Distribution Palooza Session: How to Write Clickable Titles

It’s not a title. It’s a headline, and a headline is a sales pitch for the time and attention of your reader. With the few words in the headline, you must convince them that your writing will be worth their time.

Action Steps:

Nov 7
A tricky case for comprise vs. compose: “What parts compose the ecosystem?” or “Of what parts is the ecosystem comprised?” Not “What parts comprise the ecosystem?” or “Of which parts is the ecosystem composed?”

Compose means “to make up” something, and comprise means “to be made up of” something. But it gets tricky when you are talking about the parts composing the whole. The whole is comprised of the parts, and the parts compose the whole.

Notes from Charlotte Grysolle’s Distribution-Palooza Session: “Unbundling”

Some ideas for my distribution:

My response in the Write of Passage Circle group “All Things Writing” about when to use a semicolon vs. an em dash:

What a joy! I’ll try to keep this brief and make it not boring. It’s not about formal vs. conversational but about information hierarchy within a sentence.

The semicolon joins two complete thoughts that are closely related; both are held as equally important. But an em dash appends — or sets apart — information that is supplemental to the main clause.

If you want to indicate a close relationship between two independent thoughts, use a semicolon. If you want to add “color commentary” that is not necessary (supplementary to the main thought), set that apart with an em dash or two.

Last note: The dash (-) and the en dash (–) are different than the em dash, which is the longest of the three (—). In this case, you’re asking about em dashes. So, make sure not to use a dash in its place.

My First Rap Ever? Inspired by Eminem’s latest album (Cup de Grâs) and this line from my rant about phone usage and eye contact, called “Negative Sixty!”: “It’s the same shameful gaze-angle that men assume during masturbation.” Without further ado, here’s my best effort at channeling Slim Shady:

Negative sixty…

It’s the same shameful gaze-angle

That men assume when they watch their balls dangle

As they try t’ wrangle a short snake

Up against a porcelain tank.

Not cotton

But he got on a wife-beater too.

Yeah, you bet he do. 'Cuz Betty ain’t true.

‘N’ every time he hit 'uh

She gets a little bit sick-uh

Goes ‘n’ sits it on an ice sick-uh-le

That’s just a little bit bigg-uh

And thick-uh than little Dick’s prick.

And Richard’s stuck at home doin’ his same old shtick

Scrollin’ Twitt-uh ‘n’ yankin’ his dick.

(Dick’s yankin’ his little prick!)

Slouches and scrolls but never Tweets, though

He shoots blanks, like ropes of sourdough

Since Betty cut his tubes ‘n’ wrapped his nuts in a noose.

Dick, ya can’t get a new fa-mi-ly by spittin’ no-pulp juice!

Scraps:

An editor is someone you pay to read your book so that more people will pay to read your book.

Nov 9
Against Punctuation as Pacing

If you ask most writers, I think they’d say that punctuation is just about pacing. But I that say punctuation about creating a clear information hierarchy. Your main goal as a writer is to communicate meaning, and punctuation helps you do that by visually separating clauses and by indicating whether those clauses are dependent on or independent from one another.

My Circle post in “All Things Writing” calling for nerdy questions on English grammar, mechanics, and usage, “Nerd Out with the Editor in Chief”:

In Write of Passage, we don’t cover some of the fine (and often tricky) nuances of English: questions of grammar, mechanics, and usage. We don’t cover these because they are ultimately small EQ dials on the DJ deck of craft, and of course because these often boring topics clash with the rip-roaring energy we want to have in Live Sessions. But if you ask me, you cannot master the craft of writing without mastering the English language — including all its quirks and tiny dials.

I love answering nerdy questions on English, so here’s a place for you to ask any that you have (inspired by ’s question about “ ; “ vs. “ — “ and ’s reply). Questions like:

If you want to make an editor’s day, drop a nerdy question.

A rule shouldn’t be followed just because it’s a rule. Only follow a rule if it serves your purposes, and break rules at will for certain effects. I’m only advocating for knowing the rules, not for following them indiscriminately.

(This is true for English composition and in all other parts of life.)

Progress ought not be measured by technological advancement but by human flourishing. We’d be much further down the road of real progress if all of our brightest minds spent their time working on what they love and value unconditionally, rather than spending their time making money and incremental progress on some technological problem with no real utility (other than convenience) in its solution.

You don’t want your reader to struggle to understand your meaning. The only struggle they should have is grappling with your ideas, the intellectually challenging content of your writing.

“This is your captain speaking” is such an effective rhetorical tool. It immediately establishes credibility and makes you want to listen.

The ideal: Treat yourself and others well without fail, and live a life so fulfilling that at the moment of death you do not long for more.

Nov 10
The most important work I have to do each day is to tend to my mind and body.

Literary fiction is just fantasy set in reality. All fiction is fantasy.

“OpenAI” is an oxymoron. What could possibly be more opaque, mysterious, inaccessible, more closed than a name-less, face-less, body-less, soul-less “intelligence” that lives in a black-box?

Nov 11
If you wear a hammer or a knife or a tape measure on your hip, it doesn’t poke and prod at you asking to be used. It is an object built for an explicit purpose: a tool. And it is the choice of the autonomous human when and whether to use it. But our devices are different. Your phone buzzes and beeps in your pocket, demanding your attention, training you to feed it and need it. The human-machine is less autonomous, more dependent on technology, and that’s exactly the way the creators of our devices want you to be.

My phone should only be able to touch me like clothing does, to rest next to my body, to be an accessible tool, used for explicit purposes (in this case, purposes is plural; a device is a multi-tool). But it should not be able to poke and nudge and prod at me.

Nov 12
I confessed that being in the arms of a woman feels like laying in the lap of God.

A curious case study for the subtle difference in meaning for a single possessive vs. one plural:

“Read one of your peer’s essays.” vs. “Read one of your peers’ essays.”

The first means that you’re choosing from multiple essays written by your one peer. The second means that you’re choosing one essay from among a group of essays, each written by a different one of your peers. And in this particular case, the latter meaning is the one intended.

Nov 13
My goal as an editor is for the writer to never be discouraged yet only satisfied upon publication.

Oh. my. God. …Oh my God! Oh my… God? Oh! Me: God.

For sex to be spiritual, it must not only be respectful and emotional and loving but, for each person, also ecstatic and orgasmic.

I want to achieve DFW’s mastery of English without getting an MFA and without killing myself.

My satisfaction must not depend on your transformation; my transformation must not contend with your dissatisfaction.

Everything is an opportunity to practice. Noticing your shoe is untied is an opportunity to stretch your hamstring.

A clenched fist is the obvious form of grasping but one less obvious is a flared-open hand, where the fingertips stretch back behind the knuckles. That posture is still a form of grasping, called repulsion or aversion. You’re grasping way from something rather than toward it. The only hand that ceases to grasp is one with the posture of pure relaxation. Without any effort toward or away, a hand is only able to hold whatever for the moment is resting in its palm.

[[Always Be Holding]]

The more editing passes I do on a draft or on a manuscript, the more dull my edge as an editor becomes, for I have no hope but to adopt some of the author’s blind spots, which prevents me from seeing the work as an objective reader.

In my book coaching practice, I should help my clients separate the writing process from the editing process. If you don’t have a full manuscript, what you need is coaching and encouragement to help you finish it. Once you have a full manuscript, what you need is in-depth feedback and editing to make it better.

I know this from my own experience. I am at the start of a book project, and I don’t plan on sharing the draft with anyone until it’s done — for this same reason: I must forestall the sculpting process until I have quarried a sufficient volume of marble.

Is diversity inherently good, without exception? Now, that’s an interesting question and one we’re tending to overlook.

In Singapore, they have racial quotas within neighborhoods so that each race is represented equally, within some district. But that means that only a subset of the homes for sale are available to you and your race. Is diversity still good when it compromises freedom?

There is a vast disparity in the quality of education within American public schools. That’s diversity. But diversity in quality and infrastructure is not ideal. We don’t want more diversity in education state to state, county to country; we want every student to receive a high-quality education. So, is it only demographic diversity that is inherently good?

Then why not invite people who identify as felons into your neighborhood, so that they’re equally represented?

Nov 15
No one can deliver you from here, from anywhere. You must deliver yourself to wherever you hope to go.

Outline: Solitude & Company

v2

Hook: I heard the Cal of the Void.

Promise: I was isolated and lonely for the next two days, and it required effort and focus to cling to reality.

Claim: The least illusory part of reality is other people.

Takeaway: The shadow-side of self-reliance is solitude. (Solitude is debilitating, even if you are wandering free.)

Payoff: I was saved by the arrival of pleasant company.

v1

Hook: How do you feel perched above a thousand-foot drop? Do you fear a misstep and falling, or do you fantasize about the freedom you have to jump?

Promise: These next two days were the loneliest I’d felt all summer.

Claim: Self-reliance isn’t a cure for loneliness.

Progress:

Takeaway: Self-reliance helps you endure life and find fulfillment, but people add richness to your life.

Payoff: I ecstatically greeted Hans and Evelyn at the campsite and made friends with them, sharing tea and stories.

Notes

Monkey see, monkey do — yeah, sure. But what does monkey do when he see himself?

Wow, UsefulBooks has an awesome site and what seems like a really useful beta reading product. I may need to read Rob Fitzpatrick’s book (which has a heck of a subtitle): Write Useful Books: A modern approach to designing and refining recommendable nonfiction.

We fear the monsters in our closets but not the monsters in our pockets.

Nov 16
Random memory: In 2nd grade, I lost the Spelling Bee (runner-up) to Kate Walsworth on the word “Constitution” (or maybe “Declaration”). I messed it up in front of our whole class, and then I had to listen as Kate spelled it correctly, without hesitation. She was the smartest girl in our grade and, according to me, the prettiest. I had recently and very ungraciously expressed my love to her (a different story), which wasn’t reciprocated. She was my second love, and that was the first time I’d been friend-zoned. That ordeal happened in the summer before 2nd grade, and this Spelling Bee was evidence that I was not worthy of Kate Walsworth. (The epilogue: I became worthy by high school, and she asked me to homecoming, even though I went to a different school, and a couple years later, before college, we even went on dates and hooked up.)

Nov 18
You know why competition is a masculine thing? Because there’s no way to compete with the feminine. Mother Nature remains undefeated.

Doesn’t “My body, my choice” also apply to the decision of whether to let semen enter your vagina while you’re fertile? Can we please talk about that too? Sure, some old men in power are telling you that you can’t get an abortion. But where are the men telling you that you have to get pregnant?

[[‘Casual Sex’ Is an Oxymoron]]

A dream is l much more like doing a homework assignment than it is like listening to a lecture or sermon.

Everyone confuses the verbs hone and home. You home in on something, to locate it. You hone something to improve it. Home like a missile, hone like a knife.

Jesus Christ was born uncircumcised, and then man cut off part of God’s cock on the eighth day of his life. Why do we think we know better than Him and/or Mother Nature? If we are truly imago dei, then why mess with the package we were delivered?

Nov 19
In this old video from a short-haired David Kadavy, he gives a list of all the font sizes you should ever use, according to a 3:4 ratio:

Anti-natalism is a form of natural selection.

The two-party system is libertarian. Why? Because if we’re always split 50/50 on every issue, and if every presidential term flips party, then nothing gets done. Government gets smaller (besides the balance sheet), meaning that who the president is has less of an impact on individual lives.

The shopkeeper shouldn’t make the restaurant’s menu and decide what their patrons put in their bodies, just as FANG shouldn’t decide what you consume with my mind.

I only ever drink water and caffeine-free tea, and the occasional glass of milk with pancakes or cookies. I don’t think I’ve ever had a single sip of Coke or Pepsi, because I’ve always been naturally repulsed by them. I would drink Sprite or Fanta as a kid, because I could justify those as sparkly, fruity waters. But whenever I was offered a Coke, it would hit my ears as, “Would you like to ingest this bubbly, brown liquid? What’s it made of? Besides sugar, I’m not really sure.” I never once had an urge to say “yes.” And now, I’m trying to reverse-engineer that same sort of innate, insurmountable, unwaivering disgust I have for drinks in cans and manufacture it as a deterrent against brain-eating media, delivered daily to my eye- and ear-holes via algorithmic feeds.

No porn. Why? So that I don’t dissociate from my cock and so that I don’t distance myself from women.

Nov 20
Acceptance isn’t giving up; it’s the necessary first step to start moving forward. Acceptance means receiving reality as it is now. It does not mean giving up your agency over the future.

A listicle is like an interstate highway. It’s easy to get where you’re going, but there’s no adventure along the way. Real writers write winding mountain roads or hiking trails. They require effort, but the vista is always better from the summit than from the roadside rest-stop.

In a story, the Mardi Gras Moment is the event that causes the character to accept the adventure, and it foreshadows the ordeal to come.

(Or, maybe it’s more like the event of departure from the normal world. It’s Luke leaving Tatooine. It’s not when he leaves home with Obi Wan for Mos Eisley.)

Imagine this moment happening on March 3, if your story were mapped onto a calendar year (at the 17% mark).

Woah! I just learned that one of the three temptations that Jesus faced during his 40 days of fasting (which Catholics celebrate with Lent) was the call of the void:

He was then brought to the top of a building in Jerusalem and told that, if he truly was the Son of God, he should jump from the building and angels would carry him to safety. Jesus once again resisted, knowing not to challenge God. – Source: MercyHome.org

Here is the second temptation, according the Gospel of Matthew -– Matthew 4:5–7:

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

[Solitude & Company]

v2: The Eight Inflection Points of a Three-Act Narrative

Act I: Into the Dark

  1. Disturbance
  2. Resistance
  3. Acceptance & Departure (Mardi Gras Moment)

Act II: Out of the Dark 4. Commitment 5. Ordeal 6. Respite (or “False Summit”) 7. Do or Die

Act III: Into the Light 8. Fruition

v1: The Seven Inflection Points of a Three-Act Narrative

Act I:

  1. Disturbance
  2. Acceptance
  3. Departure (Mardi Gras Moment)

Act II: 4. Commitment 5. Triumph/Tragedy 6. Do or Die (Halloween Moment)

Act III: 7. Fruition

And I wondered in vain, What valleys will I carve?

I just discovered this designer Andy Moliski, and I want to be his friend. I found him on the Webby’s winners page, and he built this awesome interactive experience to commemorate his hike on the AT called A Trail Tale.

Nov 21
What single person has had the greatest impact on the New York City skyline? It’s not an architect. Is it not Benjamin Franklin? Find me a skyscraper whose summit isn’t adored with a lightning rod. All the pointy tips on all the buildings of the skyline are due to that great American inventor.

If there is any threat to democracy, it is vilifying your intellectual opponent. You can’t get much more un-American than that. This country was built upon, and our freedom rests upon, peaceful disagreement and civil discourse.

Can someone please explain to me the verb uplevel? A few questions:

Also, isn’t “level up” analogous to the verb “work out”? You would never say, “I outworked this morning” or “We need to outwork this.” So, why are we saying uplevel?!

Short story tile or something:

“The Lost and the Found”

Nov 22
Every expression of nature can be reduced to either Yin or Yang, and every object and being in nature can only be described as a combination of Yin and Yang. Volcanic eruptions are yang, but every other part of a volcano is Yin; they literally give birth to new earth. A glacier’s face is Yang, how it is rigid and harsh and still, then suddenly cleaves a chunk of ice into the sea, but beneath its surface, a glacier is Yin, the part that flows and churns and thrives under extreme pressure.

Emiel and Inge were the center of gravity in the campsite. Everyone in the lounge was sneaking glances at them and trying to figure out something they could say to start a conversation with them. Or, at least that’s what I was doing.

Read E.B. White’s “Once More to the Lake.”

I walked for two miles barefoot on that black-sand beach, and the glacier was the same size on the horizon; it looked just as large, in my eyes, as it did on that clear day in Reykjavík, when I saw it from across the bay.

Nov 23
When I was alone and heard the call of the void, it was a temptress in my ear, a hissing serpent. But when I heard it in the company of new friends on the cliffs or Hornbjarg, there was no temptation, just pure exhalation of the privilege of living.

Nov 24
I’m about as Christian as you can get without believing in the Trinity, His resurrection, or Original Sin.

Capture attention. Keep attention. Reward attention. That’s how you get your reader to read to the end, and it’s how you get them to come back for more from you. As a writer, that is your job. That is not the job of an academic, for instance, which is why no one enjoyed reading their papers.

Is Mars, the planet, dead because it doesn’t have life? Or is the planet alive because of its orbit, its rotation, and the ever-changing contours and contents of its surface? We are completely misunderstanding what’s at stake with climate change. If we ruin the climate, we will harm the life on Earth, but we will not harm Earth. If we harm Her at all, it will be merely a flesh-wound, one that will heal, whether it takes a thousand or a billion years, whether we are here to witness it or if the healing requires us to become extinct.

If you become a better writer, you’ll become a better thinker. And you can think your way into a better life.

I’m an editor because I want to help writers recognize their inner wisdom and render it in can’t-put-it-down prose.

I haven’t had the Instagram app on my phone since right after they released Reels.

A line that made me LOL from S3:E4 of The Bear:

Ebra: “I used to work in hospital. Many people died.” [Friend]: “You’re a morbid fuck, man.”

Nietzsche’s three stages of the spirit:

  1. The Deferential Camel is subject to the commands of the Thou Shalt Dragon.
  2. The Contrarian Lion blindly negates the Dragon’s commands but ultimately slays it — “thou shalt” no more.
  3. The Playful Baby is immune to all commands and is neither for nor against anything absolutely — subject only to his own will.

I don’t think Cain killed Abel because he was rejected by God. I think he killed Abel because Cain thought he had to become like Abel in order to receive God’s love (which is a delusion).

Nov 25
What is a book? A legacy.

From this beach, I stared at the snow-capped peak, as I stepped over a shoot of its many snow-melt streams. I stared at the glacier that had once carved this valley and has since fed the sea. What valleys will I carve? Or is that too grand a feat for a bipedal mammal like me?

This guy crashes funerals and speaks on behalf of the descaled, either a confession or an accusation or a simple self-eulogy. His name is Bill Edgar. It’s admirable. He is admirable. The people who hire him, however, could just do those things while they are alive. It’s a little weak and deferential to me. Instead of hiring the guy to tell off some person at your funeral, just create the guest list for your funeral. He also has a book, which shares his nickname namesake: The Coffin Confessor. Oh shit! He has a TedX talk too.

“We all live dying. We just go about our lives, and then we die. So many fewer of us die living. We’ve got to die living.”

The best possible outcome requires that you detach from all possible outcomes.

Some of the most comforting moments in my life are when I have felt cosmically small. I think it’s comforting because it reminds me that I don’t need to accomplish anything. I could just be, until I can no longer.

What does it mean to be The Arbiter or Truth and Justice? It means no one can tell you what is right, and it means that you know every time you do wrong.

I needed to know what I would do with my life, and the only certainty I could cling to was that I needed to go to Iceland. I had not much of a reason for it, beyond intuition, but because I was certain, I didn’t have to think past it. For a while, I could be free.

I thought I needed to know what I would do with my life. But I learned that everything would work out, as long as I never lost touch with the essence of life. I thought I had lost all my ambition, but in fact, I had just developed an inner ambition, one that requires autonomy, stillness, and connection.

Here’s what I needed to do: Do whatever would lead to a life I loved.

John Muir was a true American monk; he was effectively ascetic, until marriage, and he devoted his life to the wilds of our West.

New con unlocked for living near NYC: there are maybe two climbable trees within a half-hour walk from me.

All dichotomies are illusory. Every thing in Nature is some harmonious composite of two seemingly incompatible extremes: a duality. In Iceland, The Land of Fire and Ice, this truth is etched into its very geology.

Nov 26
These are the principles I follow that promote conscious media consumption:

You don’t really want your life to be a dramatic story. Sure, you want to have stories to tell, but if your life were a drama, you’d have to suffer The Dark Night of the Soul, and, ideally, you wouldn’t. Instead, die little deaths every day.

[[Transformation Without Trauma]]

It’s very hard for a book to be a distraction, because it requires your complete focus, unlike other forms of media.

I want to earn the freedom to frolic. John Muir, for instance, neglected his relationships so that he could be alone in the woods. I want to honor and cultivate my relationships and let them lead me into the woods.

Nov 27
Grammar governs how English words work together. Mechanics describes how English clauses work together. And style is how an individual writer uses those rule sets together.

Personal Style Guide: Gender-neutral pronouns

Example from me:

And what a pleasure a book is! An expert, informed by years of study, compiles the most valuable information she knows, or tells the most compelling story he can muster, and renders it in captivating prose that is subject to high editorial standards. On the metrics of value-per-minute or wisdom-per-word, no place on the Internet comes close to most books.

Try to tell me that there is some thing more deeply pleasurable and fulfilling than personal evolution.

Nov 28
Rush and hurry are modern inventions, not any older than the wristwatch. They are fabricated emotions. Urgency is innate, the counterpart emotion to the sensation of hunger. But once the masses become well-fed and hunger turns figurative, we manufacture counterfeit forms of urgency, among them: rush and hurry.

Possibly the best thing I could do as a writer is to become a composite of Emerson’s poignancy of thought, John Muir’s reverence for Nature, and David Foster Wallace’s mastery of language.

I don’t want to live with the fear of God but, rather, with a reverence for Nature and the attendant humility.

Nov 29
Repetition in writing is different than redundancy. At least, for my purposes, I consider repetition to be a stylistic choice for a certain effect, and I consider redundancies to be the effect of oversight.

Nov 30
Resource for discovering and pairing fonts, and generally learning about typography, recommended by Nate Kadlac: TypeWolf.