Taken together, they raise the question of how we might fail well, in an age that all too often shoehorns failure’s insights into pom-pom clichés.

In a culture that demands overcoming against all odds, even failure has been commodified by the American self-help industrial complex: rebranded not as a devastating and possibly life-altering event but as a blip en route to a chest-thumping achievement, accomplish­ment, or acquisition.

The ability to articulate what you think and how you feel with certainty exemplifies patience and commitment to growth. Being vague with our desires and areas of focus frees us from accountability and ultimately lands as avoidance. It is increasingly rare & beautiful to be decided.

The plan you follow through on is better than the better plan

If you touch an idea too much without actually making it, just like a dough or plaster, it dies. I think it’s better to make and bake it and throw it away than to imagine how it would have worked or tasted.
—Zeynab Izadyar

i think maybe a useful tool for working is; whenever i start believing things are impossible, i am simply tired and need rest. i can begin again when i have the energy to believe in possibilities. i am not a negative person, i am just exhausted.

“Not that I ever had a choice in the matter. If you want a thing—truly want it, want it so badly that you need it as you need air to breathe, then unless you die, you will have it. Why not? It has you. There is no escape. What a cruel and terrible thing escape would be if escape were possible.”

—Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

For me, the earliest sign that I’m going there is a lack of movement. When I’m stuck in a thought pattern, or focused on it to the point of immobility, I know my only choice is to make a move

The wind went over
me
saying
Why are you so distressed

Oh I said I
can't seem to make
anything
round enough to last

But why
the wind
said
should you be so distressed

as if anything here belonged to you
as if anything here were your concern

∆ Mission by A.R. Ammons