You said it was a long-term plan. So why start now?
— Éa
Self care is a necessary evil.
If something matters to Carla, then it matters to me.
A remarkable exchange between characters in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning:
Ethan Hunt: I swear your life will always matter more to me than my own.
Grace: You don’t even know me.
Ethan Hunt: What difference does that make?
All are welcome! Come on in!
Said the man in the mack with the Tommy gun. ✏️ 🎤 🎵
On having “enough” time to write songs:
One of the main ways we cheat ourselves out of creating is the widely held belief that we need the right amount of time to make something of value—to make something worthwhile. We often resist a moment of inspiration because we’re aware of a limited time window that might interrupt the flow and therefore think, “It’s not even worth it to get started because I know I won’t be able to finish it.”
— Jeff Tweedy • How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back (2020)
On just creating, damnit:
But all the time spent creating, if I’m in the right frame of mind, is not really so much about “Is this good or bad?” There’s just a lot of joy in it, in having created something at all. I don’t feel as bad about other things. I don’t necessarily feel high, or overly joyed. I just feel like, “Oh, I’m not wasting my time.”
— Jeff Tweedy • How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back (2020)
On writing without thinking about what you’re writing about:
Creating something out of nothing is the important part. And maybe, like me, you’ll discover that you’re often better off learning how to write without much concern for what you’re writing about. And through that process, you’ll discover what is on your mind. “Jesus, Etc.” was never about anything specific to me until I sang it live for the first time and learned how sincerely it conveyed my wish for a better sense of unity with my extremely devout Christian neighbors. So do some free writing. Write without thinking. I’m sure there will be some things that will surprise you, along with some nonsense.
— Jeff Tweedy • How to Write One Song: Loving the Things We Create and How They Love Us Back (2020)
Just listened to: The Goat Rodeo Sessions (2011) by Stuart Duncan, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer & Chris Thile. A chamber-grass masterclass. 🎧 🎵
Do not talk about your hard feelings after 9 PM. Maybe not even after 8 PM.
For the joy!
By which I mean to answer questions such as: Why do anything? Why work? Why make music?
A brief message I sent to our house church ahead of a meeting that I was going to miss about how one ought to relate to the Bible:
As for the questions [my friend] is posing tonight at church, my two cents (God help me and may it be of some value): The Bible is our touchstone. If you can’t square it with the Bible, you can’t square it with God. But importantly, there are two touchstones within the touchstone: the greatest commandment(s) and Jesus himself. All interpretation and application of Scripture must be subject to those.
Even here, people sometimes come to different conclusions on some matters. (In this, we mimic a milennia-or-two longer Jewish dialogue on the same subject.) While we argue these things out—because these matters are often not unimportant—we nevertheless grant these differences and love always.
What do you want? 🧘🏻♂️
If Spotify “DJ” interrupts my listening one more time, I will switch to Apple Music.
Resolved: One creative goal at a time. Current goal: Legalize backyard hens in College Township.
Step one in any anti-racist agenda: Refuse to speak in terms of race. Skin color? Pigment? Melanin? Yes. But “‘[r]ace’ itself is just a restatement and retrenchment of the problem” (Ta-Nehisi Coates).
Sexual ethics is not about consent. It’s about love, of which consent is just one, small, basic constituent.
No new system or alarms. Just a simple journal entry: It is usually the case that once 8 o’clock rolls around, I just don’t have the heart for computer-mediated communication or computery work.
Why did the Messiah have to suffer and die? I don’t know. ✏️ 🎤 🎵
Authenticity. Being true to one’s own personality, spirit, or character.
You gotta break words out of the synonym circles of their dictionary definitions. Otherwise, their meanings slip out of our grasp. They become mere trope, void of significance.
Remember the Milk is an aide-memoire, not a governor./
Air: the original social medium.
“Communication is love,” as I just wrote a few weeks ago, is a problem for relating with those people for whom communication is not the only thing they want to do.
The universe is singing! “Come Together,” indeed! (Éa and Sullivan will be sharing a two-instrument-and-vocal cover of it this week at school.) The word of last year was “with.” The word of this year is, “Finally, all of you be of the same mind, feeling with one another…” (1 Peter 3:8, my translation). Same mind, same feelings (sympathy). That latter part is what I’m working on with Dr. Wes Scala. If you want to understand behavior, you have to understand someone’s feelings, which in turn requires that you understand their thoughts, says Shawn Ishler of Bartell & Bartell at Leadership Flight School. Push toward understanding—and thinking and feeling!—the thoughts and feelings of Carla, of Sullivan, of Éa.