Tag Archives: "list"

Every Wednesday is List Day, or Tip Day, or Quiz Day. I spend a lot of time thinking about questions such as, “How do we change?” “Why is it so hard to make ourselves do things that we want to do?” ( for instance, why is it so hard to make myself go to bed?) and “How can we stick … →

At the recommendation of a friend, I read Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting That You’ll Ever Need. She told me that while she wasn’t writing a screenplay, the book was extremely helpful for writing any kind of story. She’s right, it’s a fascinating look at storytelling, and it also includes some terrific exercises to foster … →

Every Wednesday is Tip Day. This Wednesday: 7 tips for fighting boredom. One of the patron saints of my Happier at Home project, Samuel Johnson, wrote, “It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery, and as much happiness as possible.” One “little thing” that can be a source of unhappiness is … →

Every Wednesday is Tip Day, or List Day, or Quiz Day. This Wednesday:  72 Proverbs from Hell, by William Blake. I love paradoxes, koans, parables, proverbs, Secrets of Adulthood, and aphorisms. So how have I never come across poet William Blake’s Proverbs of Hell before? When I found it the other day, I couldn’t believe I’d never read it before. … →

Every Wednesday is List Day, or Tip Day, or Quiz Day. This Wednesday: time for something completely different. This is a list that appears in an essay by Jorge Luis Borges, “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins,” in Borges: Selected Non-Fictions. I have no idea why I love this passage so much, but I do. These ambiguities, redundancies and deficiencies … →