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  • #2 Why I write

    If writing and creating every day were as vital to my survival as drinking water, ingesting food, and bonding… What would life look like?

    Biologically, all behavior is driven by pain, pleasure, and the triggers and habits that come from repeated reaction to those stimuli.

    So I eat because I want to escape the pain of hunger – or heartbreak, sadness, and frustration.

    I connect with others because I’m neurologically hardwired to feel pleasure when bonding… and pain and deprivation when I’m abandoned.

    Similarly, I write because I want to escape the frustration of not being able to put into words an insight.

    I also write because I enjoy the rush resulting from finding the words that convey what I want to say.

    I write because I love the tingling in my back and neck when I combine those words into sentences with just the right rhythm, just the right cadence capturing the meaning, context, emotion of what I want to say…

    I write because writing wrests the essence from the whirlwind of thoughts and emotions racing through my mind and body.

    I write because when when I write, I feel that at last, I can make sense of life.

    And the more meaning I find, the more likely I am to write.

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    #92 The true purpose of memory

    Memory isn’t an objective account of the past – and that’s not its purpose either.

    Memory stores the lessons we extract from life experience. And to do so, it modifies, adds, subtracts, highlights, and hides.

    Hot soup burns my tongue – next time, I’ll remember the pain, but not if it was tomato soup or chicken soup. And I’ll remember to wait a couple of minutes before having the first spoon.

    Experience lived. Irrelevant info deleted. Lesson learned. Memory created.

    My country gets invaded – and that causes so much pain, I won’t just deliver an objective account of what happened: I’ll make sure to tell everyone who the evil guys are too.

    Experience lived. Story modified. Lesson learned. Memory created.

    I eat the most delicious dessert at a Mexico City restaurant – that’s the memory I’m going to tell my friends about, not which glass of dessert wine I had with it.

    Experience lived. Dessert highlighted. Lesson learned. Memory created.

    You’re going to make memories anyway. Which lessons do you want to learn?

  • #394 Remind yourself of the future

    There is no way to predict the future.

    But thinking about where you would like to be in the future can help you make better decisions today.

    Want to be a writer in the future? Better write today.

    Want to run a marathon? Better run today (or eat better, or rest, or stretch…)

    Remind yourself of the future, not for the sake of precise predictions, but for the sake of the present.

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    #123 Never again

    What gets you going – and what keeps you going?

    Pain. Pleasure. Usually, a combination of both.


    I like being disciplined – it gives me pleasure.

    I also know very well that I don’t want to go back to jumping from one project to another, giving up before reaching any meaningful level of skill or results, and ending up frustrated with myself – the thought alone is painful.


    The pain often gets you going, later to be joined by pleasure in a cocktail of motivation, discipline, and persistence.

    And in this case, strong emotions, passion, and yes, also pain, often lead to more leverage – if you allow yourself to see the lessons it can teach you.

    I never want to be that person again – which helped me figure out that I really want to be this person.

    Living your never again might well help you figure out your yes, for as long as I shall live.

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    #96 Massive addiction, minimal value

    Nobody chooses to get addicted to social media.

    We chose to get something of value: stay connected with friends. Stay up-to-date. Discover interesting voices.

    Then we get addicted through features that bring little value: likes, notification signs, flashy videos hijacking our brains. That’s where the addiction creeps up to you.

    If the interests of social media apps (make you spend as much time as possible on the platform) start deviating so much from the original reason we started using them…

    Is massive addiction worth the minimal value?

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