merit

February 2024

Hi! I don’t have much to say — mostly I’m just happy. I was reflecting recently on how most of my writing over the last few years has been about navigating the uncertainty of life. I used to find inherent instability beyond frustrating — I’d claw to grasp any sense of steadiness, accepting bad deals as long as they had a lower bound I could see.

Anyways, things are still as uncertain as ever but I’m learning to like it — or at least derive great appreciation for everyone and everything that stays and treats me tenderly. We can’t ensure we won’t get hurt, we can only believe we’ll survive it. So I keep going about life with my heart open — trying, failing, and trying again to give more love than I get. To my surprise, that directionality feels like enough. C.S. Lewis:

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

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Links

• Personal Renewal by John Gardner (speech)
  I adored this. Maybe my favorite “life advice” post ever? Balanced, tactical, speaks to ambitious people, and has lots of great reframes along the way.

• John Cleese on Creativity (talk)
  A really good breakdown of what goes into creating creative outcomes.

• David Brooks on the Four Commitments (talk)
  Laying out the four commitments that define our lives: to a spouse or family, a faith or philosophy, a community, and a vocation.

• How to be more agentic by Cate Hall (essay)
  Gives real examples! Really, really good.

• How to hire low experience, high potential people by Tara Seshan (essay)
  Signs of exceptionalism to come!

• Braid is Dead, Long Live Braid by Amanda Payton (essay)
  The best company postmortem I’ve ever read.

• Sam Hinkie’s resignation letter (letter)
  Masterclass in what it looks like to think long-term.

• An Honest Diversity Statement by James Hankins (essay)
  Incredible, punchy writing.

• The Bullmore Letters Collection (essays)
  A curriculum-via-quarterly-essays in branding by master Bullmore himself.

• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud (book)
  Everything you need to know about storytelling, in comic form.

• The Allegory of Love by C.S. Lewis (book)
  Says a lot aout how odd our modern conceptions of love are.

• Obsidian by Naomi Sharon (album)
  She’s a modern-day Sade!

• The Talented Mr. Ripley by Anthony Minghella (movie)
  I am continually surprised by how few people have seen this movie. It’s excellent, there's a remake coming out soon, and yes, Saltburn was inspired by this story.

• Internet Search Tips by Gwern (guide)
  Essential tactics for rabbit-holers.

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Parting thought

To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.

— The Need for Roots by Simone Weil