Courtney

Ask culture and guess culture are vastly different in behavior and expectations. Here are some highlights:

Ask culture expectations

• Ask for what you want, even if it seems out of reach or like a big unreasonable request


• Take care of your own needs, and others will take care of theirs


• It’s fine to make requests that people will probably say no to


• People

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Somebody once said that a good science-fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam.

The idea of research as leisure activity has stayed with me because it seems to describe a kind of intellectual inquiry that comes from idiosyncratic passion and interest. It’s not about the formal credentials. It’s fundamentally about play.

And when I practice letting go of how I think things are supposed to look and instead cultivate a trust in the unfolding that is taking place, often in unseen ways, the Here-ness of challenge or pain or depression or grief or (anything) softens even 5%, and that 5% adds up fast when I don’t assume it’s nothing.

Defining time well spent for yourself is one of the most important tasks of going day to day in this life.

Too often, we think of notebooks as a way-station: a necessary stop en-route to the perfected, polished work of art. But what if the notebook is the work of art? What if the process of taking notes is the point?