In a piece of writing, which attitude would you rather hear?
“Nobody knows anything. Only I and the person reading this do.”
“Not even the person reading this knows anything. I know, and this is definitely how it is.”
Or would you rather read something that asks questions, makes you think, brings up ideas, and leaves the ending to you?
The best comment you can receive is no comment at all.
Do you believe everyone who says your hair looks nice?
I’ve never again come across a place as strangely complete as a classroom. It is more homogeneous than almost anywhere else, yet somehow every kind of personality exists there at once.
There is a balance of relationships in a classroom. For each of us, it becomes a small simulation of what comes later.
Whatever work you end up doing, you first learn to make the people in your class care.
Whether you’re at an elite private school or an ordinary public high school, it works the same way.
Which one would you be friends with?
Someone who dresses every day like the neighborhood eccentric, with their top and bottom perfectly matched and carefully put together, or someone who wears whatever is in their closet, depending on how they feel?
Someone who always tells you what you want to hear, gives you what you want, and constantly validates you, or someone who has their own truths and expresses even widely accepted ideas in their own unique way?
Someone who hides themselves from the imagined gaze of others under the pressure of “I have to be normal,”
or someone who does not hide?
How good it is to be able to deliver work of at least above-average quality, made with professional equipment and a good eye, quickly, easily, and affordably.
Working with someone who tries to get above-average work, made with that same equipment, for free or for almost nothing is usually a bad idea.
When moving on to something new, you have to let go.
So, if there is something you really want right now, once you get it, you realize that you have to let go of the thing you have only just started holding, because you are already focused on the next thing.
Every place you are in, and everything you have, is temporary. It is something you will eventually have to let go of.
