Remember, though: You’re not trying to become better — more obedient, less lazy, less terrible. You’re just trying to feel better right now. There’s a difference. You’re not working toward a goal. You’re just working, period, because it feels good. You don’t have to arrive in a new place. You just have to set off down an empty road with an open heart. Think of the student who loves music, practicing her instrument, knowing what she loves the most. You don’t have to be Mozart to feel your way in the dark toward divinity.

You said it to me clearly: I want more. It’s time to take the enormous risk of wanting more. The fire is there. Follow it. But don’t worry about the finish line. Focus on how good it feels, each day, to be pointing toward your truest desires.

The computer so readily pairs with futurist visions, pushing forward futuristic, technology-oriented aesthetics. But the reality of our relationship with digital technology always retains this messy pulsing humanity. Marshall McLuhan predicted computers in every classroom, people connected around the world, utopian vibes. Technically he was very right, but we still have bad carpeting and ugly plaid couches and gas station tchotchkes and dirty bathrooms. Regardless of time passing, we remain in communion with the century preceding us, and even the previous millennium or two.