be an artist

Ray Bradbury says intellect is a great danger to creativity

Toyama points out that too much glider training doesn’t help make airplanes.

Alan Moore says writing IS magic, evolved from paleolithic shamanism. Writer can and does change the world. You are your own most important instrument.

  • Discs (material world)

    • understand the physical world around you, including history, science. how does everything fit together?
    • don’t starve-

  • Sword (discriminatory intellect)

    • distinguish good ideas from bad (critical thinking? editing?) (knowledge of good and evil?)

  • Cup (emotion, especially compassion)

    • need compassion for all characters, even villains (even those opinions apart from yours?)

  • Wand （will)

    • must direct the other three weapons
    • focus enough to finish a piece of writing so someone can actually read it, instead of moving from idea to idea

  • which writing do I think is good?

    • John Steinbeck’s East of Eden
    • CS Lewis: Four Loves, Mere Christianity, Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, his speech about the rings
    • Annie Dillard
    • 7 Powers by Hamilton Helmer
    • Nassim Taleb
    • Iain McGilchrist

“The tongue is a fire”

Naval Ravikant echoes the monopoly on being you (Scott Adams also talked about an intersection of skills. Epstein’s Range mentions generalists as likelier to discover new breakthroughs)