“I often think of myself as water flowing into a rock. The water eventually finds its way out the other side, but in between it seeks out every hole and channel in the rock. It keeps trickling forward, gathering force until it bursts out on the other side as a raging torrent. That’s my career experience. I don’t have steps or ladders. I don’t improve in steps. I’m the water slapping onto the rocks. I gather force and then…explode.”
—
Twyla Tharp on ambition in her book The Creative Habit.
Allison texted me today with a picture of this book saying, THIS BETTER BE GOOD and I was like, It is!! But (ssh, don’t tell her) I haven’t read too much of it yet. I started longing for some narrative again and reading another awesome book recommended and lent to me by my awesome roommate but I dove back into this on the way back from work. It is a nice meditation to transition with before I sit in front of another computer for a few more hours.
And yes I am always like halfway humiliated riding the subway fiddling with my iPhone reading a book with a woman sitting on top of a ladder over the words THE CREATIVE HABIT: LEARN IT AND USE IT FOR LIFE. But then I’m like, fuck you, Imagined Criticizers Who Probably Don’t Exist or Care, this book is a DELIGHT.
