Don’t negotiate with yourself.
One of the most inspiring videos I’ve ever seen is one where Kobe Bryant talks about how he wouldn’t negotiate with himself. When he decided he was going to train a certain way for a certain amount of time, the deal was done. That was how he was going to train. This attitude is what discipline is all about. It most obviously relates to lifting and sports, but it is also useful to apply it to creative pursuits. Once you make the deal with yourself that you’re going to do something, don’t negotiate with yourself.
An ode to music.
I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been shocked with chills from great music. The electric kind that sends a lightning strike down your spine as the hair on your arms stands up. It’s the best. It’s been said that music is the language everybody speaks, and this is both beautiful and true. There is no place, no culture, and no people who don’t make and enjoy it. Songs are like magic. They slip right past the rational part of your mind and hit you straight in a deeper, older, more emotional part of the brain. You probably enjoy songs in other languages when you don’t even know what they’re saying—which is incredible and strange when you think about it.
Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
“You must know that there is nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man stores up many such memories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life.”
Best way to start my Thursday