Have you found your one thing?

Mitch at first tries to make light of Curly’s explanation of the secret to life. But the secret to life really is one thing, and everything else don’t mean shit.

Character can be created on the job only when we can see that there’s an intelligible, justifiable relation between past effort, learned skills and present reward. When I see that your income is completely out of proportion to your production of real value, of durable goods the rest of us can use and appreciate (and by ‘durable’ I don’t mean just material things), I begin to doubt that character is a consequence of hard work.

~ James Livingston, from Fuck Work

What’s the one thing? “That’s what you gotta figure out.” Is it a quest for character, knowledge, or challenge? Is it a mission, exploration, or solution? Is it a vision of change you must share, or simply a vision demanding your understanding? Co-create, procreate, or recreate?

One of the signs of the dawning of moral progress is the gradual extinguishing of blame. We see the futility of finger-pointing. The more we examine our attitudes and work on ourselves, the less we are apt to be swept away by stormy emotional reactions in which we seek easy explanations for unbidden events.

~ Epictetus

I do not know how you can find your one thing. Ha. I’ve not yet found mine. I am aware that I have not yet found it. But I am looking.

That’s why art is so interesting to study and to take inspiration from because when you look at the minimalist artists, usually their work goes from a lot to nothing. But minimalist art only works if you go through that journey — otherwise it’s empty, otherwise it has no root, no meaning. There’s one artist that has really, really inspired me in terms of minimalism, and that’s Lucio Fontana. But it took me a long time to understand him as an artist.

~ Daniel Humm, from Daniel Humm – The Talks

Humm is a chef, and he’s talking about art. In fact, I see a lot of professionals talking a lot about art. Why might that be?

To be a digital minimalist, in other words, means you accept the idea that new communication technologies have the potential to massively improve your life, but also recognize that realizing this potential is hard work.

~ Cal Newport

I like to say that each podcast conversation I record is just an attempt to feed my insatiable curiosity, but I share them to turn on a light for someone else, to inspire them, or to give them their next question.

Through this I learned something valuable – a kind of defiant resilience to the messages, mostly in my own head, that told me my singing could be better. I got tough and protective of my vision and learned that the thing that ‘could be better’ was actually the ever-vital energy that propelled me forward.

~ Nick Cave, from The Red Hand Files, issue 260

Currently creating better conversation is the best candidate for my one thing. I work on many different things, and as I repeatedly ask myself “why this?” I keep coming back to conversation.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Whether you prefer Curly’s or Thoreau’s life advice probably says a lot about your personality. But which of them you’d already heard definitely says a lot about your age. Here in the end, if after reading this you’re noodling over even half as many questions as I was while writing… then we’re both better off.

Until next time, thanks for reading!

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