It has ever been a hindrance to some and a blessing to others that the inbred egoism of the human race blinkers even the perceptive nature. The world revolves, we can agree. But secretly each believes that it revolves around them. Knowing this is a help to the salesperson and the diplomat, but no comfort to the distressed creature who convinces themselves that the machinery of the universe has uniquely conspired to obturate them in the hunt for happiness.
From James Greer’s Bad Eminence 📚.
To gaze upon a childhood home through adult eyes is an act of disenchantment. Great doors grow small. Turrets vanish. Emblems fray. Even if the time spent within any given set of walls was, when the days are reckoned together, brief, it’s in the nature of childhood to guild all surfaces it touches, to magnify things. One should revisit such places only after having done some hard calculations: What are we willing to trade for a clear view of things? What are the chances we’ll regret the bargain later on?
From John Darnielle’s Devil House 📚.
“It’s good for kids to be bored!” After putting this into practice in various ways for a while, it is interesting to note that the result is they aren’t actually bored much at all.
95% of the time they just find something to do that makes them not bored, and 5% of the time they complain a lot and they get to watch a show on the ipad. Either way - not bored!
New notebook on the remarkable: “I love summer”
Just updated my now page 🕦
View out the front door for two weeks
Can’t go to bed, too busy doing cursive practice
🌸
Three year old just came up to me: “I’m having a meeting downstairs so please be quiet.” 🤫
This morning Emma made me a colour by number Tiana to do. Claire took care of the Rapunzel.
Any of us can do something good, in writing, when the world gives us a shove, but a true writer is inevitable only when we recognize in the work a unique and unmistakable universe of words, figures, conflicts.
But I tend to imagine, first, that the ordinary person and the extraordinary person set off from the same terrain: literary writing with its cathedrals, its country parishes, its tabernacles in dark territories; and, second, that chance plays the same role in both the minor work and the great work.
Elena Ferrante, writing in Harper’s 📚