Journal

I was listening to Craig Mod’s Things Become Other Things podcast from the book tour. In the Beacon NY episode, Sam Anderson (who Craig was in conversation with), recalled the question that he’d asked during a Jeffersonian dinner on one of Craig and Kevin’s (Kelly) Walk & Talks.

So the question was my favorite conversation starter, which is very simple: what is your very first memory in your entire life?

I tried to recall my first memory (single) but I can never pick it out of the memories (plural) that all seem to clump together at that time—the very first time I remember being a living human in the world. Instead, I’ll have to write several and just hope that one of them is the first.

• I had a stuffed bear called Red Ted (yes he was red—I was very imaginative). One Christmas, sitting on the rug in the living room of our Maple Avenue house, I painted his paws with nail varnish.
• I remember my father having lots of DIY equipment, but my favorite was the large spirit level. My sisters and I thought it would be funny to turn it into a see-saw. My father thought it was less funny.
• My sister’s Teddy Ruxpin had a scarf that I was jealous of, so I took it off and tied it around my neck. It turned out that whilst my neck was small, his was smaller. Panic ensued. Fine in the end.
• We’d play in the front yard in the summer, and the best moments that I remember include the Pop Man arriving on our street on warm days. Limeade, dandelion and burdock, lemonade. Bliss.
• I remember so clearly the joy of Boxing Day. Bounding down the stairs to eat Christmas Day leftovers (mostly cake and mince pies to be honest) was so exciting to me. Sugar for breakfast!
• My first day of nursery at Gorse Hill. I hated the idea of being separated from my parents so much that I was trying to wriggle out of their grasp and run for it. Didn’t work. Was fine, actually.
• My bed looked like a race car, but at some point it broke. My father turned the wooden wheels into little tables for me and my sisters that we could eat at. I had a front wheel (smaller), I think.

I want AI to help me write, not to write for me. Recently I scripted a GitHub action that generates a new Moth-style story prompt for me each day. Here’s one below, and I’ll respond to it today.

Tell a story about a pivotal choice you faced at a metaphorical crossroads in your life. What were the options before you, and what factors weighed heavily on your heart and mind as you made your decision? Reflect on the path you chose, the path you left behind, and how this moment shaped your identity and future. Consider the unforeseen outcomes, challenges, and wisdom gained along this chosen journey.

My wife and I decided that we’d move to California on our very first date. Then again, many things are said on first dates—I’m not sure that even we were convinced that we’d actually do it one day.

We were still living in our hometowns at the time: her in Birmingham, me in Worcester—both of us with a Tinder radius that you could describe as “too wide”, but actually was “just right”.

Not too long into our relationship, we moved to London—a city that I’d wanted to live in since I was a kid. A city that my wife wasn’t totally sure about living in at the time, but one that she came to love.

A few years into our life in that wonderful city, and we were ready to buy a house together. We’d built up some savings, we’d found somewhere that we really loved, and we were ready to make an offer.

On that same day (let’s say that very same day, for the sake of the story) I got notice of my green card interview. We knew that it would be coming eventually of course, but you know… eventually.

We had a decision to make: should we commit—right now—to this huge (huge) thing, or should we stay in London? We couldn’t sit on it. We’d miss our window. We’d have to start all over again.

We loved London so much. Our relationship had grown there. I proposed there. She said yes there. We got married there. We loved the city and the food and the people. We loved our friends.

We could stay in this city, buy a house, turn it into our home, and keep our wonderful, comfortable routine. We could keep saving, stay close to our friends, and keep building a community.

Or we could not do that.

We could take the adventure. We could step into uncertainty. We could spend all of our savings moving thousands of miles. We could leave our friends and families. We could just say yes.

If you’ve been reading along, you’ll know that we did the latter. It hasn’t been easy, and at times it’s even been hard, but we don’t regret it. We’d do it again. We’d vote for adventure; for the unknown.

I’d never before had such a big decision, nor one that felt easier to make. It only felt easy (for me) because I know what adventure feels like with my wife. I know that any adventure with her is worth taking.

Today’s post is more of a question right now than something I’ve properly ruminated on, but I think I’ll come back to write about this again, and again. Maybe I’ll never stop coming back to this.

I only wrote about Elizabeth Gilbert a couple of days back, but it turns out that she has many thoughts that get you, well… thinking. This time, it’s the idea of “purpose anxiety” (self explanatory).

The story that most of us were taught was some variation of: each of you was born with one unique offering, special spark that is only yours and only you can deliver on that. It is your job. It is your job to find out what that thing is that only you can do.

But Elizabeth goes on to wonder if it’s simpler than that, or perhaps less knowable. What if your purpose, for example, was to help that one elderly neighbour get home safely, or to let someone skip ahead of you.

We worry so much about purpose and legacy, but for all we know we might have fulfilled our purpose, or at least a purpose. Perhaps we can fulfill many. Perhaps there’s no single purpose for you.

I saw a guy standing on top of a ladder painting the awning of his storefront. I instantly saw that the ladder wasn’t steady. I had nowhere else to be. I was the perfect person for the job to cross the street and just hold the ladder. I probably held it for 45 minutes. He never saw me, but I felt better because I was like: I’m just going to make sure this guy doesn’t fall today.

Perhaps that was her purpose, Elizabeth wondered. Perhaps all this time she’d been waiting for this moment. Maybe, she thought, she’d become a writer so that she would end up in Los Angeles—here; now.

Having a single purpose can be a daunting idea. Even if it’s helpful, or makes you feel good, perhaps you have more than one. Maybe you have a big purpose and a million other smaller ones.

I think about purpose a lot, but hearing this story from Elizabeth (it was on her July 2025 interview with Tim Ferris) helped me to reframe it, and to look at my past actions in a whole new light.

In The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, one of the characters (Bill Gorton) asks another character (Mike Campbell) a question.

“How did you go bankrupt,” Bill asks.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, and then suddenly.”

A lot of things are like that. Slowly at first, and then all at once. Creative work, fulfillment and success can be like that.

If you write (something like) 250 words a day for a year, you’ll have written enough words to fill a novel, and amongst all of the things you’ve written about likely tens of ideas for the novel you could write.

If you’re learning photography, taking a single photograph per day could barely sound worthwhile—but in a few months you’ll have a body of work, and likely have made incredible progress along the way.

If you persist for long enough, you might be lucky enough for someone to ask how you became so creatively fulfilled or successful. How you ever managed to complete your most wonderful works.

“How did you get here,” they might ask.

“Two ways,” you might say. “Gradually, and then suddenly.”

I’m building a daily art-making practice, starting with oil pastel on paper. Yesterday, I made a mark that created a new situation, and when I responded to that situation, I felt something shift inside of me.

It felt like the frequency I’d been tuning into the days prior wasn’t quite right. Maybe I’d almost got it and it was simply too noisy, or maybe it was the wrong station altogether. The wrong music.

That’s what making art (or anything) can feel like though: tuning a radio until you find what it is that you need in that moment (for whatever reason you need it). Something to dance to, or maybe to cry to.

When you find the right station, it doesn’t mean that the next song is going to last forever, nor that they’ll keep playing this kind of music (or even stay on air)—but for now, in this moment, it can be right.

One of my more spiritual/cosmic thoughts is that there’s always some figurative music being played for you specifically, and you can choose to listen to it or not. You can respond to it or not.

The only way that you know if it’s right though, I think, is by actually responding. Trying to dance. Squeezing out a tear. Stepping away from the metaphor briefly, that means actually making something.

If you keep tuning, and you keep making, I think that you’ll find some frequency where things just feel right, and where the thing you’re making feels like the exact thing you should be in that moment.

I watched The Roses in the theatre yesterday (if you’re in Oakland it was the Rialto, a delightful neighborhood cinema), and it made me feel a little homesick for England, despite the fact that it was mostly set in California.

There was one word in particular—used several times throughout by Olivia Colman—that made me feel particularly fond of the country I was raised in. A word that I absolutely can’t use in the same way in California.

In England, this word is used as a term of affection at least as often as it’s used as an insult. A word that you can precede with “oh, you cheeky…” and cause no issues whatsoever. It’s funny, endearing and warm.

Language is a funny thing, and the things we hold close to us can be very strange. I didn’t anticipate that I’d miss using this word out of love toward friends, nor how hearing it would feel… comforting?

I love things like this. Small things, familiar only to a few people that you might know or bump into when you live thousands of miles from where you were born. Things that bond people in the strangest of ways.

Anyway, watch the movie. It’s a good movie. It has a wonderful cast. It’s worth watching for Olivia Colman’s performance alone. It’s funny, and emotional, and familiar (to some) and I’m so thankful it was made.

In a TED Talk from 2009, Elizabeth Gilbert—author of Eat, Pray, Love—talked about the idea of having a genius vs. being a genius.

The Romans called that sort of disembodied creative spirit a “genius”—which is great, because the Romans did not actually think that a genius was a particularly clever individual. They believed that a genius was this sort of magical, divine entity who was believed to literally live in the walls of an artist’s studio—kind of like Dobby the house elf—and who would come out and sort of invisibly assist the artist with their work, and would shape the outcome of that work.

It’s common these days to refer to a “particularly clever individual” as a genius, but what pressure! What judgement we cast when they produce something a genius would not! I know of no one across history who would have been called a genius for every thought or work they put out there.

What if instead of being a genius, they simply had a genius—just for that moment in time. To help them with that work we so admired.

For me, and I assume for others, that’s actually closer to how it feels. We all, I believe, have experienced that moment where a flash of inspiration came to us from some place we can’t explain.

Sometimes it’s there, and sometimes it’s not.

Thinking of it this way can take the pressure off, too. You can keep showing up and hope that you have a genius to collaborate with. You can stay open to the collaboration and you can work even when you feel it isn’t there. Elizabeth made this idea feel light; playful.

I lifted my face from the manuscript and directed my comments to an empty corner of the room. I said aloud: listen, you… thing… you and I both know that if this book isn’t brilliant that’s not entirely my fault, right, because you can see that I’m putting everything I have into this. I don’t have any more than this. If you want it to be better, you’ve got to show up and do your part of the deal—but if you don’t, you know what, the hell with it, I’m going to keep writing anyway because that’s my job.

Many others have spoken and written about this idea, but this talk really resonated with me. It added humor to an idea that can be heavy; to a topic that can feel personal and sensitive. More people would make more creative work, I think, if they were less concerned with being a genius than with opening themselves up to having a genius.

1. I’ll start tomorrow
2. I’ll start next week
3. I’ll start this weekend
4. I’ll start when I get a day to myself
5. I’ll start when I feel better
6. I’ll start when work is less crazy
7. I’ll start when I’m less tired
8. I’ll start right after this
9. I’ll start when I’m good enough
10. I’ll start after I choose a name
11. I’ll start after I buy a domain
12. I’ll start after I’ve built the website
13. I’ll start when I’m inspired
14. I’ll start when I quit my job
15. I’ll start when I take a sabbatical
16. I’ll start a few years from now
17. I’ll start once I’m settled at my new job
18. I’ll start when I feel confident
19. I’ll start when someone gives me permission
20. I’ll start when I find a collaborator
21. I’ll start once I’ve finished this next thing
22. I’ll start once I’ve practiced enough
23. I’ll start at the beginning of the month
24. I’ll start at the beginning of the year
25. I promise I’ll start

I used to keep a tidy desk. I wanted it to look like those desks that people fawn over and write blog posts about. Calm, beautiful, and sparse.

These days, I aim for roughly the opposite. I want a pile of books, scraps of paper, and things that I can use to make marks. I want them in my field of view and within arms reach so that I’m compelled to make.

I’d call this “mise en place”, but I don’t think I could do so with a straight face. Mise en place feels organized and calculated to me, but my system is more… chaotic. Let’s call it… “mess en place”.

On my desk right now is a Time Timer, a desk fan, my AirPods, 2 sketchbooks, a pile of pencils and wax pastels, a Ricoh GRIII and (dead) battery, some washi tape, 5 books, a copy of The Paris Review, some incense, a pile of Post-It Notes, 2 notebooks and… more (in addition to my keyboard, trackpad, audio interface, headphones, mic and Mac Mini).

There’s barely any desk to see, and I love it.

I’m building a daily art practice, and my current tools are inches away from my hand. I immediately take a photo to share it with others and my camera is right there. I like to start my day by reading a poem, and Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems is 3 books down in the pile.

I want to be surrounded by things that inspire me and enable me to make. I want to put as little friction as possible between my body and the work I want to consume or create. I want mess… en place.

Unless I have a daily practice, I find it difficult to stick with things. If I told myself that I’d publish a blog post each week, I’d probably publish four and then stop posting for three years. If I told myself I’d paint one large painting every month, I’d… well… I’d never paint anything.

I used to hate this about myself. I don’t exactly love it now, but I have come to accept it, and even found some peace in embracing it. If my brain doesn’t want to paint something big once a month, maybe I can paint something small every day. Maybe I can change how I paint.

There’s something nice about embracing your brain in its most annoying state. There’s value in figuring out how to align your work with your mind. You can probably turn five years of daily blog posts into a book, even if you don’t think that you could sit down and… write a book.

I used to fight my brain on this; to make it change—because I do believe that it can change. I rarely stopped to consider if I could be just as happy (or happier) by changing my actions though. It turns out that I probably can. It turns out that you can accept yourself for who you are.

I started doing that with these daily blog posts. I have days where I don’t really write much at all, and other days where I write (I know, meta) about just showing up. I’m starting to do it with art. I’ll start to do it with exercise. A little bit, every day, until I’ve accrued a lot.