Not Everything Needs Improving
Let Some Things Stay Messy
The Dashboard is Lying
Track it, chart it, stack it. Even pleasant feelings have analytics these days: “Joy per Hour,” “Gratitude-Regret Ratio,” “Return on Vulnerability,” “Emotional Fluidity Index,” “Calm Streak,” etc etc. Did you win? Did you heal?
Fuck that. The formula is broken.
I’d rather go missing in something immeasurable.
Donald Judd’s 101 Spring Street
Perfection
“Things that are perfect are dead things. Empty things. A silence beyond change or challenge. An endpoint. A blank page. You are a messy thing. An impossible thing made of iron and rainwater. Meat and electricity. A dream with teeth. You're too good for perfection.”1
I’m aiming to build a relationship - a real relationship - with that beautifully messy thing rather than trying to kill that messy thing with perfection.
If some frustration or anger shows up, maybe I just let it in.2 If I’m distracted, maybe I follow the pull. If idleness strikes at 2:00pm, maybe I grab a beer and people-watch from the balcony. Latitude is always an option.
I don’t have to “earn” these moments. And I definitely don’t need to apologize for them. I’m not a machine that’s malfunctioning - I’m a creature, and my manifesto is this: Be kind to the creature you are!
“It is not when man is working in the office but when he is lying idly on the sand that his soul whispers, ‘Life is beautiful.’”3
It Happens in Love
Why is it that love so often turns into control? We see something beautiful, and we want to hold it, keep it, make it our own. But in doing so - we start to erase the very thing that drew us in.
We meet someone vibrant and full of quirks, and slowly, without meaning to, we begin to tidy the edges. Then, one day, we realize we’re staring at a stranger shaped by our own anxieties.
Maybe love is less about having, and more about witnessing/welcoming, without giving into the urge to edit. Yes, I know, “love is a classroom”… but not every moment calls for a lesson plan.
Perhaps the truly therapeutic question isn’t “How can I make this better?” but “Why do I feel the need to?”
Somewhere Between Almost Right and Not Quite, John Baldessari 2025
Down-to-Earth
I’m far less interested in the supernatural than I am in the everyday practice of goodness. Why wouldn’t I be? What use are complicated studies of history and theology if we can’t turn that wisdom and love into a lived experience? What’s the point of all that reading, writing, reflection and prayer if we can’t loosen up and be nice to people - including ourselves?
School of Athens (Detail of Plato & Aristotle), Raphael 1509–1511
Their gestures indicate central aspects of their philosophies. For Plato, his Theory of Forms, and for Aristotle, an emphasis on concrete particulars. It’s a key divergence:
1. Plato argues a sense of timelessness.
2. Aristotle looks into the physicality of life and the visible world.
In the Middle, Always
We tend to think in terms of beginning, middle and end - some kind of arc and resolution. But along the way - perhaps in that middle - we realize that everyone lives with things that may not get worked out, that the middle has to be the resolution, and how we make the most of it is our only imperative.
There's also an irony in “arc thinking”: we want quick solutions to our problems, but many of our problems come from being hurried in the first place. We imagine that we're rushing now in order to savor our lives later, but so often, “later” never comes. Again, we’re always in the middle, and if that’s the case, how we make meaning of that perpetual middle is our first responsibility and the only decision that makes a difference.
Alyson Fox & Derek Dollahite, Austin, TX, The Selby 2020
Good Stuff
I’ve spent the last two nights at Vas’ place, which, naturally, means some inconsistency in my routines. No library, no office/studio, no kettlebells, no supplements. And you know what? Her warmth and the playful rhythm we find together are worth more than everything in my kit.
We’ve co-worked happily, goofed around with a ukulele, taken mid-afternoon swims at Barton, played chess, shared meals - even danced a little two-step at Broken Spoke. In the words of the wise: “That’s the good stuff.”
Sure, I’m a little more tired than I’d be on eight hours and perfect sleep hygiene. Yes, my self-imposed programs for strength-training and money-making lost some of their momentum. But… who cares? Even thinking in those terms makes me want to throw my laptop out the window and light up a Marlboro - just to remind myself to relax.
At the Beach, Tod Papageorge 1978
What I’m trying to say is this: we’ve over-corrected. The threat I see today isn’t a lack of self-improvement - it’s losing our humanity in the process. I’m learning to walk the other way again.
It’s not the so-called “interruptions” I’m resisting, but the ideas that assign some of life’s sweetest moments with that label. I’m trying to catch them mid-flight, name them false, and shoot them down.
All things considered, I’d rather be lighthearted with a little mess than joyless with a clean scorecard. Striving is beautiful, but if it becomes the graveyard of my happiness, I’m missing the point.
Field Guide to the Haunted Forest, Jarod K. Anderson
“Joy is the matriarch of a family of emotions. She won't come into your house if her children are not welcome.” Joe Hudson
The Importance of Living, Lin Yutang