wanderXwonder

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

I was by myself for a pretty long time. I needed to do that. I think everyone that I know has wanted to do that or needed to do that at some point. I think when you spend enough time when it’s quiet around you and you don’t open your mouth for three or four days, there’s parts of your brain that can kind of rest. I think when we’re out in the world and we have to talk to people, we edit ourselves. You know, we have to like, act a little bit. As honest as we may be as humans, when we’re out here, we’re all kind of wearing mirrors on our faces. You know, constantly reacting to how to react to the people around you. And I think when you’re alone for a long enough time, you can feel a lot more peace.

Here’s the first thing I need to tell you: doing nothing is never neutral, even when it feels like it. When I was an academic advisor, I used to explain this to my students as follows: if you have a paper due, and you have no idea what to write and just don’t turn anything in, what mark do you earn? A zero. If you write a paper, any paper at all even if it’s a total goat rodeo, what mark do you earn? An F, typically, which is a 50. It does not take a genius of mathematics to grasp quickly that your total average is vastly less damaged with the 50 than the zero. So too in our lives. Even a terrible decision is valuable to the average of your life – you learn from the process, you learn from the outcome, you generate some motion of your own.