How to live
Wisdom, by and copyright Helvetica Blanc. A print of this piece hangs in my bedroom. Purchase their amazing artwork at HelveticaBlanc.com.
I am learning how to live. Below, find a collection of wisdom and guidance (and far too many well-worn aphorisms) that feel true to me about life as a human. I will return to this page periodically to add more - and perhaps to remove some here and there as well. I hope you find some use for it, if not for making living more bearable, then at least as some entertainment.
On wisdom
I saw a vision of myself climbing behind a lectern in front of a wide audience, who gazed at me as a guru with a Mystic Spiritual Journey Backstory – an image which had appealed to me greatly. But then I cleared my throat, turned to the blackboard and in a bright rainbow brush, painted the words I DON’T KNOW. “Do you understand?” I asked them all in between giggles. “I have nothing to teach you. I am an idiot. I am unenlightened. I am a child. I am the one who has come here to learn.”
[…]
I regularly experience insecurity, fear, confusion, and fragility… I am tremblingly human, with a fat sense of self in a very real-feeling character that claws at the world in awkward attempts at self preservation. Don’t listen to me, nothing I say is true. Don’t look to me, I am nothing. Place me where you want me; you are the arbiter of truth, for what can you say of me that is not true?
– Aella
Beginning
“Waking Instructions,” by Emma Mellon:
Crawl ashore
To the damp beginning of day.
Forget before and after.
Allow yourself
to be spelled differently.
It will feel like falling.
It has waiting attached.
Compilations
The below resources have material covering a great many topics.
Change
American composer Harry Partch’s wall had Japanese calligraphy on the wall that allegedly read:
Though homeless, you make a shrine wherever you are.
I included this quote (in English) on the back of my college radio station’s zine on the occasion of our move to a temporary space, and the loss of our longtime home.
In the old station, we had graffitied the bathroom walls extensively. To make ourselves feel more at home, as the General Manager, the leader, I wrote on the walls of the new space without telling anyone. After all - the only person that could enforce otherwise was me! And over the course of the next two years, the walls of the station - twice as big as the bathroom, mind you - were filled with jokes, art, tags, quotations, and much more.
On the outside of my left wrist, I have the text “ATYT” tattooed. It stands for “All that you touch” from the opening of Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower:
All that you touch,
You change.
All that you change,
Changes you.
The only lasting truth is Change.
God is Change.
Good things and bad things
A six-year-old, unprompted while coloring at the dinner table (via Kleroteria):
Life isn’t all cupcakes and rainbows. You have to work hard and learn. But it isn’t all dinosaurs and knives either.
Though celebrated for what we do when things are going right, we are defined by what we do when things are going wrong.
Success
Source lost:
I had a profound realization about something that our Western culture seldom takes into consideration. The job title, education, or the amount of money in your bank account do not matter. The only thing that matters in life is how you behave towards other people and what value you bring into the world.
Fullness
Smile and laugh!
My friend Nina:
we contain multituedes
life’s rich pageant
Rachel Uwa:
Rachel, the world is crazy. Be like the world. Be crazy.
Showing up to a party with a wine bottle in one hand and a forty in the other:
What kind of party is it? :D
Belonging
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass:
The land knows you, even when you are lost.
Jenny Holzer, engraved on a bench outside a Minnesota art museum:
When you’ve been someplace for a while
You acquire the ability
To be practically invisible.
This lets you operate with
A minimum of interference.
Gratitude
Send thank you notes - lots of them.
Connection
Ronen:
It’s an invitation, not a requirement.
Always:
- Assume people will like you
- Don’t be afraid to ask people what they are up to this weekend
- Do some research and have a couple ideas on hand
Interdependence
Hafez, maybe:
Out
Of a great need
We are all holding hands
And climbing.
Not loving is a letting go.
Listen,
The terrain around here
Is
Far too
Dangerous
For
That.
Generosity
“Saving Wasps,” by Cody Putman (August 2022):
I saved a wasp from the pool the other day
I’d like to think that every time I rescue one I save myself a sting later
Today I was stung by 457,000 wasps
Guess I need to save more wasps
When others do well
My grandfather would often send congratulatory notes to those he knew on the occasion of their success.
Ambition
Ada Limón on how she wanted to be in 2023: like a washing machine, casual, warm, and normal.
The Harbinger, John Wick 4:
A man’s ambitions should never exceed his worth.
Kurt Vonnegut:
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.
Risk
Source lost:
Try to overthink and worry less.
Failure
“Sometimes I’m just horseshit.”
Source lost:
You are not almighty, so it’s ok not finish some things and drop your projects. Don’t blame yourself for it.
Stress
Jenny Holzer, engraved on a bench outside a Minnesota art museum:
By your response to danger it is
Easy to tell how you have lived
And what has been done to you.
You show whether you want to stay alive,
Whether you think you deserve to,
And whether you believe
It’s any good to act.
Growth
Steve Jobs, maybe:
You don’t need to be perfect - you just need to iterate as fast as you can.
Solutions
Chad Kohler, my high school percussion teacher, drilled one axiom into us deeper than any other:
The system you’re currently using is perfectly designed to get the results you’re currently getting.
When facing a problem with existing proposed solutions, note them, but always try to get back to the problem and explore it before deciding a course of action.
Work
Sister Mary Corita Kent:
The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
The bad guy in John Wick 4:
How you do anything is how you do everything.
A haiku (maybe):
My back hurts;
Where’s my money?
Loss
A piece of advice I give all my friends who go through breakups is this:
You cannot analyze what happened right now. So if you feel yourself spiraling, spinning, stuck on the same thoughts over and over, break the cycle! Distract yourself with something. A tv show, cooking something, a game - anything else. You can only reason out what happened with some time and distance from it.
Honesty
From the background of Knxwledge’s Bandcamp page:
If you don’t get it off your chest, you’ll never be able to breathe.
Source lost:
Listen to your own desires (as long as they don’t hurt other living beings).
Aging
Source lost:
Don’t get stuck in the conformism and routine as you get old. When you do, your time starts moving fast.
Maintenance
I studied percussion under the great Jim Campbell at the University of Kentucky. We had these 12 “golden rules” for maintaining common use of the percussion spaces and instruments:
If you open it, close it.
If you turn it on, turn it off.
If you unlock it, lock it up.
If you break it, admit it.
If you can’t fix it, call in someone who can.
If you borrow it, return it.
If you value it, take care of it.
If you make a mess, clean it up.
If you move it, put it back.
If it belongs to someone else, get permission to use it.
If you don’t know how to operate it, leave it alone.
If it’s none of your business, don’t ask questions.
Life tips
- Date your correspondence (i.e., letters)
- Wash socks in a bag so you don’t lose them
- Drink two glasses of water per day to stay regular (drink even more for further benefits!)
- Tear tee-shirts up into rags, and use/reuse those rather than paper towels
- Never buy cheap cheese, tools, or guns
