5 Comments

❤️ I feel you.

Seems like the hardest thing to do for our generation is ruthlessly focus and cut everything else out. Thank you for the advice of trusting a feeling! Tryign to figure it out only seems to create more fragmentation and suffering

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Have you read Octavia E. Butler's essay "Positive Obsession"? It's a brief history of her writing career, and resonates quite a bit with what you're talking about here: https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Butler_Positive_Obsession.pdf

She also integrated her idea of positive obsession into the fictional religion of Earthseed in her "Parables" books, basically saying it's what gives life purpose/meaning:

Prodigy is, at its essence,

adaptability and persistent,

positive obsession. Without

persistence, what remains is an

enthusiasm of the moment. Without

adaptability, what remains may

be channeled into destructive

fanaticism. Without positive

obsession, there is nothing at all.

https://godischange.org/the-book-of-the-living/

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why is this called stamina?

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There’s a Joan Mitchell/Claude Monet side by side at the LV institute in Paris through January I think. If you happen to be there, it’s quite an amazing and emotional exhibition

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Thanks for this essay; it’s exactly what I was thinking about last night (your essays tend to have a lot of synchronicity like that). I constantly want more and am constantly dissatisfied, but I too couldn’t give up writing even if I am sorely disappointed with it. Beautiful writing, thanks :)

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