Pencil And Pen Quotes

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk. This is the case with many learned persons: they have read themselves stupid.

The pencil is mightier than the pen.

A poet is a painter in his way, he draws to the life, but in another kind; we draw the nobler part, the soul and the mind; the pictures of the pen shall outlast those of the pencil, and even worlds themselves.

Marginalia Sometimes the notes are ferocious, skirmishes against the author raging along the borders of every page in tiny black script. If I could just get my hands on you, Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien, they seem to say, I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head. Other comments are more offhand, dismissive - Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" - that kind of thing. I remember once looking up from my reading, my thumb as a bookmark, trying to imagine what the person must look like who wrote "Don't be a ninny" alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson. Students are more modest needing to leave only their splayed footprints along the shore of the page. One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's. Another notes the presence of "Irony" fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal. Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers, Hands cupped around their mouths. Absolutely," they shout to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin. Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!" Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points rain down along the sidelines. And if you have managed to graduate from college without ever having written "Man vs. Nature" in a margin, perhaps now is the time to take one step forward. We have all seized the white perimeter as our own and reached for a pen if only to show we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages; we pressed a thought into the wayside, planted an impression along the verge. Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria jotted along the borders of the Gospels brief asides about the pains of copying, a bird singing near their window, or the sunlight that illuminated their page- anonymous men catching a ride into the future on a vessel more lasting than themselves. And you have not read Joshua Reynolds, they say, until you have read him enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling. Yet the one I think of most often, the one that dangles from me like a locket, was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye I borrowed from the local library one slow, hot summer. I was just beginning high school then, reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room, and I cannot tell you how vastly my loneliness was deepened, how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed, when I found on one page A few greasy looking smears and next to them, written in soft pencil- by a beautiful girl, I could tell, whom I would never meet- Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love.

What pen can describe this scene of marvellous horror; what pencil can portray it?

While he writes, I feel as if he is drawing me; or not drawing me, drawing on me - drawing on my skin - not with the pencil he is using, but with an old-fashioned goose pen, and not with the quill end but with the feather end. As if hundreds of butterflies have settled all over my face, and are softly opening and closing their wings.

Silence can be a form of protest. It can be a means of survival. But it can also be a school of poetry—one with its own meter, tropes, and conventions. One that needn’t be written with pencils or pens; but that can be written in the soul with a revolver to the chest.” With

NASA spent millions of dollars inventing the ball-point pen so they could write in space. The Russians took a pencil.

While he writes, I feel as if he is drawing me; or not drawing me, drawing on me--drawing on my skin--not with the pencil he is using, but with an old-fashioned goose pen, and not with the quill end but with the feather end. As if hundreds of butterflies have settled all over my face, and are softly opening and closing their wings. But underneath that is another feeling, a feeling of being wide-eyed awake and watchful. It's like being wakened suddenly in the middle of the night, by a hand over your face, and you sit up with your heart going fast, and no one is there. And underneath that is another feeling still, a feeling like being torn open; not like a body of flesh, it is not painful as such, but like a peach; and not even torn open, but ripe and splitting open of its own accord. And inside the peach there's a stone.

Oh! why was I born with a different face? why was I not born like the rest of my race? when I look,each one starts! when I speak, I offend; then Im silent & passive & lose every friend. Then my verse I dishonour, my pictures despise, my person degrade & my temper chastise; and the pen is my terror, the pencil my shame; all my talents I bury, and dead is my fame. Im either too low or too highly prized; when elate I m envy'd, when meek Im despis'd

He chuckled, shaking his head. "Man, you hunters. I break a pencil and there's hell to pay." "I can see how that's deeply unfair, Chip. Especially if that pencil should try to kill you with it teeth and claws, or launch its brood of a thousand deadly paper clips against you.

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin sandles, and say we've no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells And run my stick along the public railings And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain and pick flowers in other people's gardens And learn to spit. You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat And eat three pounds of sausages at a go Or only bread and pickle for a week And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats and things in boxes. But now we must have clothes that keep us dry And pay our rent and not swear in the street And set a good example for the children.

A human being weighing 70 kilograms contains among other things: -45 litres of water -Enough chalk to whiten a chicken pen -Enough phosphorus for 2,200 matches -Enough fat to make approximately 70 bars of soap -Enough iron to make a two inch nail -Enough carbon for 9,000 pencil points -A spoonful of magnesium I weigh more than 70 kilograms. And I remember a TV series called Cosmos. Carl Sagan would walk around on a set that was meant to look like space, speaking in large numbers. On one of the shows he sat in front of a tank full of all the substances human beings are made of. He stirred the tank with a stick wondering if he would be able to create life. He didn’t succeed.

All I need to do is place my pen against paper and your love writes for me.

It is a pity he did not write in pencil. As you have no doubt frequently observed, the impression usually goes through -- a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage.

The mind writes with a pen, the heart, with a pencil.

There was a message written in pencil on the tiles by the roller towel. This was it: What is the purpose of life? Trout plundered his pockets for a pen or pencil. He had an answer to the question. But he had nothing to write with, not even a burnt match. So he left the question unanswered, but here is what he would have written, if he had found anything to write with: To be the eyes and ears and conscience of the Creator of the Universe, you fool.

When NASA started sending up astronauts, they discovered that ballpoint pens don’t work in zero gravity. So they spent twelve million dollars and more than a decade developing a pen that writes under any condition, on almost every surface. The Russians used a pencil.

First, consider the pen you write with. It should be a fast-writing pen because your thoughts are always much faster than your hand. You don't want to slow up your hand even more with a slow pen. A ballpoint, a pencil, a felt tip, for sure, are slow. Go to a stationery store and see what feels good to you. Try out different kinds. Don't get too fancy and expensive. I mostly use a cheap Sheaffer fountain pen, about $1.95.... You want to be able to feel the connection and texture of the pen on paper.

I still remember the day I got my first calculator Teacher: All right, children, welcome to fourth grade math. Everyone take a calculator out of the bin. Me: What are these? Teacher: From now on we'll be using calculators. Me: What do these things do? Teacher: Simple operations, like multiplication and division. Me: You mean this device just...does them? By itself? Teacher: Yes. You enter in the problem and press equal. Me: You...you knew about this machine all along, didn't you? This whole time, while we were going through this...this charade with the pencils and the line paper and the stupid multiplication tables!...I'm sorry for shouting...It's just...I'm a little blown away. Teacher: Okay, everyone, today we're going to go over some word problems. Me: What the hell else do you have back there? A magical pen that writes book reports by itself? Some kind of automatic social studies worksheet that...that fills itself out? What the hell is going on? Teacher: If a farmer farms five acres of land a day-- Me: So that's it, then. The past three years have been a total farce. All this time I've been thinking, "Well, this is pretty hard and frustrating but I guess these are useful skills to have." Meanwhile, there was a whole bin of these things in your desk. We could have jumped straight to graphing. Unless, of course, there's some kind of graphing calculator! Teacher: There is. You get one in ninth grade. Me: Is this...Am I on TV? Is this a prank show? Teacher: No.

Because most of the girls were still in mourning and all of them had lost their textbooks, even pencils and pens, Shaukat Ali began the first classes by reading to them from poetry and religious texts. "Reading, literature, and spirituality are good for the soul," he told them. "So we will start with these studies.

I found not being able to use a pen or pencil as defeating as the loss of her beak would be to a hen.

The pen feels unnatural in my hand. It’s so much weightier than pencil. Permanent. There are no erasers, in life.

I love to draw—pencil, ink pen—I love art. When I go on tour and visit museums in Holland, Germany or England—you know those huge paintings?—I’m just amazed. You don’t think a painter could do something like that. I can look at a piece of sculpture or a painting and totally lose myself in it.

I could write from anywhere, including the moon, provided I had a pencil and not a pen.

During the heat of the space race in the 1960s, the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration decided it needed a ballpoint pen to write in the zero gravity confines of its space capsules. After considerable research and development, the Astronaut Pen was developed at a cost of approximately $1 million US. The pen worked and also enjoyed some modest success as a novelty item back here on earth. The Soviet Union, faced with the same problem, used a pencil.

Even monarchs have need of authors, and fear their pens more than ugly women the painter's pencil.

It was never what he had done,but always what he could do. And he had chosen to make his living with something else instead of a pen or a pencil

Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can't sharpen it on the plane, because you can't take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils.

here’s my 8-step process for maximizing efficacy (doing the right things): Wake up at least 1 hour before you have to be at a computer screen. Email is the mind-killer. Make a cup of tea (I like pu-erh) and sit down with a pen/pencil and paper. Write down the 3 to 5 things—and no more—that are making you the most anxious or uncomfortable. They’re often things that have been punted from one day’s to-do list to the next, to the next, to the next, and so on. Most important usually equals most uncomfortable, with some chance of rejection or conflict. For each item, ask yourself: “If this were the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied with my day?” “Will moving this forward make all the other to-dos unimportant or easier to knock off later?” Put another way: “What, if done, will make all of the rest easier or irrelevant?” Look only at the items you’ve answered “yes” to for at least one of these questions. Block out at 2 to 3 hours to focus on ONE of them for today. Let the rest of the urgent but less important stuff slide. It will still be there tomorrow. TO BE CLEAR: Block out at 2 to 3 HOURS to focus on ONE of them for today. This is ONE BLOCK OF TIME. Cobbling together 10 minutes here and there to add up to 120 minutes does not work. No phone calls or social media allowed. If you get distracted or start procrastinating, don’t freak out and downward-spiral; just gently come back to your ONE to-do.

I looked at the ornaments on the desk. Everything standard and all copper. A copper lamp, pen set and pencil tray, a glass and copper ashtray with a copper elephant on the rim, a copper letter opener, a copper thermos bottle on a copper tray, copper corners on the blotter holder. There was a spray of almost copper-colored sweet peas in a copper vase. It seemed like a lot of copper.

It’s like being a pencil, when everyone else is a pen,” she finally said. “You worry you can be erased anytime.

You just finished a job, as you refer to it. You must be tired and I can only imagine the enervating quality of an added threat of the state pen." "California's state pen is Fisher," Cat said. "It can write upside down, but I think a pencil works better for that.

Ah me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen, To follow half on which the eye dilates Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken. Than those whereof such things the bard relates, Who to the awe-struck world unlocked Elysium’s gates?

When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. It is the same as the pupil, in learning to write, following with his pen the lines that have been pencilled by the teacher. Accordingly, in reading, the work of thinking is, for the greater part, done for us. This is why we are consciously relieved when we turn to reading after being occupied with our own thoughts. But, in reading, our head is, however, really only the arena of some one else's thoughts. And so it happens that the person who reads a great deal—that is to say, almost the whole day, and recreates himself by spending the intervals in thoughtless diversion, gradually loses the ability to think for himself; just as a man who is always riding at last forgets how to walk. Such, however, is the case with many men of learning: they have read themselves stupid. For to read in every spare moment, and to read constantly, is more paralysing to the mind than constant manual work...

When I started writing I wanted the best tools. I skipped right over chisels on rocks, stylus on wet clay plates, quills and fountain pens, even mechanical pencils, and went straight to one of the first popular spin-offs of the aerospace program: the ballpoint pen. They were developed for comber navigators in the war because fountain pens would squirt all over your leather bomber jacket at altitude. (I have a cherished example of the next generation ballpoint, a pressurized Space Pen cleverly designed to work in weightlessness, given to me by Spider Robinson. At least, I cherish it when I can find it. It is also cleverly designed to seek out the lowest point of your desk, roll off, then find the lowest point on the floor, under a heavy piece of furniture. That's because it is cylindrical and lacks a pocket clip to keep it from rolling. In space, I presume it would float out of your pocket and find a forgotten corner of your spacecraft to hide in. NASA spent $3 million developing it. Good job, guys. I'm sure it's around here somewhere.)

After a time, my hand had become as skilled as my eyes. So if I was drawing a very fine tree, it felt as if my hand was moving without me directly it. As I watched the pencil race across the page, I would look on it in amazement, as if the drawing were the proof of another presence, as if someone else had taken up residence in my body. As I marveled at his work aspiring to become his equal, another part of my brain was busy inspecting the curves of the branches, the placement of mountains, the composition as a whole, reflecting that I had created this scene on a blank piece of paper. My mind was at the tip of my pen, acting before I could think; at the same time it could survey what I had already done. This second line of perception, this ability to analyse my progress, was the pleasure this small artist felt when he looked at the discovery of his courage and freedom. To step outside myself , to know the second person who had taken up residence inside me, was to retrace the dividing line that appeared as my pencil slipped across the paper, like a boy sledding in the snow.

A poetess is not as selfish as you assume. After months of agonising over her marriage of words—the bride— and spaces—the groom, she knows that as soon as she has penned the poem, it’s yours to consume. So, without giving it a think, she blows on the ink and the letters fly away like dandelions on a windy day, landing on hands and lips, on hearts and hips. But more often than not, you can easily spot them trodden and forgotten, becoming sodden and rotten. Yet, she will continue to make what’s others to take because selfishness is not the mark of a poetess.

Here’s a silly aphorism I’ve thought up: the mind writes with a pen, the heart, with a pencil.

Depending who you ask, the Pen & Pencil is either the oldest press club in America "the place I score coke

I have one core belief: don’t be an asshole; be kind to others. That one’s written in pen. The rest of my beliefs are all in pencil.

That’s why the best plans are written in pencil and not pen. That way, they can always be rewritten depending on the circumstances. While

Alex and Conner looked up and saw a large city-limits sign above them. The sign read: BIG CITY, USA POPULATION 7,654,321 Once the handwritten words finished constructing the new dimension, the twins saw that the highway led to an enormous city a couple of miles in the distance. It had the tallest and leanest skyscrapers Alex had ever seen; the skyline looked more lie a bundle of pencils and pens than a row of buildings. "Big City, USA?" Alex asked. "You couldn't come up with anything more original than that?" "It was supposed to be a placeholder until I came up with a better name, but Big City, USA, grew on me," Conner said.

I had no confidence in myself. I was a fraud. Who was I to pick up a pen and expect anything good to come from it? I expected perfection as soon as the pencil hit the paper, and since that's impossible, I couldn't get myself to start. Then I felt guilty about not starting which made me want to start even less.

I could spell it," I say. "Write it down." He hesitates at this novel idea. Possibly he doesn't remember I can. I've never held a pen or a pencil, in this room, not even to add up the scores. Women can't add, he once said, jokingly. When I asked him what he meant, he said, For them, one and one and one and one don't make four. What

Yefgenii said, "The Americans spent millions of dollars designing a pen that would work in space. What did we do?" Gevorkian's head was down, his eyes were down. "What did we do?" Gevorkian lifted his head "We used pencils." "We used pencils.

Can I ask about that pencil in your hair?” Roth tried again. “Of course,” she said. “It’s a number-two pencil. ‘Two’ signifies the lead hardness, although pencils don’t actually contain lead. They contain graphite, which is a carbon allotrope.” “No, I meant why a—” “A pencil instead of a pen? Because unlike ink, graphite is erasable. People make mistakes, Mr. Roth. A pencil allows one to clear the mistake and move on. Scientists expect mistakes, and because of it, we embrace failure.” Then she eyed his pen disapprovingly.

In the early days of space travel, one interesting problem emerged from experiments with weightlessness. Americans found that ... normal ink pen would not work without gravity feed. Scientists undertook extensive research, finally developed high-technology pen to work in conditions of no gravity. In Russia, scientist faced with the same problem found a different solution. Instead of pen, they used pencil.

Do you know what you get to ride?" He stood and swept his desk clear, spilling papers, pens, pencils, and his coffee cup onto the floor. Languid in the chair, she licked her lips when he yanked open his belt. "Do I get three guesses?" "You get one." He shoved down his pants and boxers. "A big one.

It didn’t smell so great, and pizza boxes and empty Coke cans had overflowed the trash can and spilled over a significant portion of the kitchen floor. You could barely walk without stepping on clothing that needed to be washed. My furniture was covered with scribbled-on papers and discarded pens and pencils.

They didn't exchange a single word. But in the weeks that followed, Trip spent his days wandering the halls, hoping for Lux to appear, the most naked person with clothes on he had ever seen. Even in sensible school shoes, she shuffled as though barefoot, and the baggy apparel Mrs. Lisbon bought for her only increased her appeal, as though after undressing she had put on whatever was handy. In corduroys her thighs rubbed together, buzzing, and there was always at least one untidy marvel to unravel him: an untucked shirttail, a sock with a hole, a ripped seam showing underarm hair. She carted her books from class to class but never opened them. Her pens and pencils were as temporary as Cinderella's broom. When she smiled, her mouth showed too many teeth, but at night Trip Fontaine dreamed of being bitten by each one.

Paper: Some inexpensive plain bond paper A pad of Strathmore Drawing Paper, 80 lb., 11" × 14" Pencils: A #2 ordinary yellow writing pencil with an eraser at the top A #4 drawing pencil—Faber-Castell, Prismacolor Turquoise, or other brand Marking pens: Sharpie (or other brand) fine point non-permanent black A second marker, fine point permanent black Graphite stick: #4 General’s is a good brand, or other brand Pencil sharpener: A small handheld sharpener is fine Erasers: A Pink Pearl eraser A Staedtler Mars white plastic eraser A kneaded eraser—Lyra, Design, or other brand Masking tape: 3M Scotch Low Tack Artist Tape Clips: Two 1-inch-wide black clips Drawing board: A firm surface large enough to hold your 11" × 14" drawing paper—about 15" × 18" is a good size. This can be improvised from a kitchen cutting board, a piece of foam board, a piece of Masonite, or thick cardboard. Picture plane: This too can be improvised using an 8" × 10" piece of glass (you will need to tape the edges), or an 8" × 10" piece of clear plastic, about 1⁄16" thick. Viewfinders: You will make these from black paper—“construction” paper is a good thickness, or you could use thin black cardboard. You will find instructions for making the viewfinders here A small mirror: About 5" × 7" that can be taped to a wall, or any available wall mirror.

Shakespear appreciated the value of lovely costumes in adding picturesqueness to poetry.

I was stealing her pens and pencils, when actually, I was desperate for her words. All of them. Every letter and syllable. Every silly doodle.

When pondering who I am, I write the fiction that I want directly over the facts that I hate. However, what I’ve discovered is that fiction is written in pencil while facts are in pen.

A pencil instead of a pen? Because unlike ink, graphite is erasable. People make mistakes, Mr. Roth. A pencil allows one to clear the mistake and move on. Scientists expect mistakes, and because of it, we embrace failure.

And speaking of this wonderful machine: [840] I’m puzzled by the difference between Two methods of composing: A, the kind Which goes on solely in the poet’s mind, A testing of performing words, while he Is soaping a third time one leg, and B, The other kind, much more decorous, when He’s in his study writing with a pen. In method B the hand supports the thought, The abstract battle is concretely fought. The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to bar [850] A canceled sunset or restore a star, And thus it physically guides the phrase Toward faint daylight through the inky maze. But method A is agony! The brain Is soon enclosed in a steel cap of pain. A muse in overalls directs the drill Which grinds and which no effort of the will Can interrupt, while the automaton Is taking off what he has just put on Or walking briskly to the corner store [860] To buy the paper he has read before.

I pass to the Stationery Department. I buy several fountain and stylographic pens - it being my experience that, though a fountain pen in England behaves in an exemplary manner, the moment it is let loose in desert surroundings, it perceives that it is at liberty to go on strike and behaves accordingly, either spouting ink indiscriminately over me, my clothes, my notebook and anything else handy, or else coyly refusing to do anything but scratch invisibly across the surface of the paper. I also buy a modest two pencils. Pencils are, fortunately, not temperamental, and though given to a knack of quiet disappearance, I have always a resource at hand. After all, what is the use of an architect if not to borrow pencils from.

A pencil instead of a pen? Because unlike ink, graphite is erasable. People make mistakes, Mr. Roth. A pencil allows one to clear the mistake and move on. Scientists expect mistakes, and because of it, we embrace failure.” Then she eyed his pen disapprovingly.

Oh my God, I can totally see it," says Britt. She scrunches her face into a frown and glares at herself in the mirror. "Jael ... ," she says, in a pretty good imitation of Jael's father's flat, gruff voice. "Jael, money is tight. Do you really need these things?" "No, you're right, Dad," says Jael in a chipper, squeaky voice. "It's actually really convenient that I can store all my pens and pencils in my hair. In fact, you know what? I'll just grow my hair a little longer so you don't even have to get me folders this year!

It contained a long, narrow desk with a glass top, and on that…three ceramic beer mugs. They were stuffed with all sorts of things—pencils, rulers, drafting pens. On a tray were erasers, a paperweight, ink remover, old receipts, adhesive tape, paper clips of many colors…a pencil sharpener and postage stamps.

Then there are the scores of notebooks, their contents calling — confession, revelation, endless variations of the same paragraph — and piles of napkins scrawled with incomprehensible rants. Dried-out ink bottles, encrusted nibs, cartridges for pens long gone, mechanical pencils emptied of lead. Writer's debris.

Chilton nodded. "To begin with, Dr. Lecter will stay in his room. That is absolutely the only place where he is not put in restraints. One wall of his room is a double barrier which opens on the hall. I'll have a chair put there, and screens if you like. "I must ask you not to pass him any objects whatever, other than paper free of clips or staples. No ring binders, pencils, or pens. He has his own felt-tipped pens." "I might have to show him some material that could stimulate him," Graham said. "You can show him what you like as long as it's on soft paper. Pass him documents through the sliding food tray. Don't hand anything through the barrier and do not accept anything he might extend through the barrier

My father was cigarettes and red-and-white cans of beer. He was dirty white T-shirts and a brown rocking chair and blue eyes and scratchy cheek stubble and "Oh, Misty,", when my mother would frown at him. He was days of not getting out of that chair, of me on the floor by his feet, filling paper with suns, houses, cats' faces, in crayon and pencil and pen. He was days of not changing those T-shirts, of sometimes silence and sometimes too much laughter, a strange laughter that seemed to crack him from the inside until there wasn't laughter, but crying, and tears that bled along my face as I climbed up and rocked with him, back and forth, back and forth, heartbeat heartbeat heartbeat as the light changed outside, as the world grew darker around us.

Writing on Paper A benefit of writing in a paper journal is that the only limitation is the size of the page. Be creative and make the book a reflection of your personality. Besides writing, you can draw or paint, glue in mementos like ticket stubs or photos, use different-colored pens and pencils, and insert letters and notes. You can write sideways or upside down on the page, and doodle in the margins. Writing in the journal can be fun. Your journal can be an expression of your individuality.

For this boy destined to be the world’s greatest heir, money was so omnipresent as to be invisible—something “there, like air or food or any other element,” he later said—yet it was never easily attainable.11 As if he were a poor, rural boy, he earned pocket change by mending vases and broken fountain pens or by sharpening pencils. Aware of the rich children spoiled by their parents, Senior seized every opportunity to teach his son the value of money. Once, while Rockefeller was being shaved at Forest Hill, Junior entered with a plan to give away his Sunday-school money in one lump sum, for a fixed period, and be done with it. “Let’s figure it out first,” Rockefeller advised and made Junior run through calculations that showed he would lose eleven cents interest while the Sunday school gained nothing in return. Afterward, Rockefeller told his barber, “I don’t care about the boy giving his money in that way. I want him to give it. But I also want him to learn the lesson of being careful of the little things.

fad is a wave in the ocean, and a trend is the tide. A fad gets a lot of hype, and a trend gets very little. Like a wave, a fad is very visible, but it goes up and down in a big hurry. Like the tide, a trend is almost invisible, but it’s very powerful over the long term. A fad is a short-term phenomenon that might be profitable, but a fad doesn’t last long enough to do a company much good. Furthermore, a company often tends to gear up as if a fad were a trend. As a result, the company is often stuck with a lot of staff, expensive manufacturing facilities, and distribution networks. (A fashion, on the other hand, is a fad that repeats itself. Examples: short skirts for women and double-breasted suits for men. Halley’s Comet is a fashion because it comes back every 75 years or so.) When the fad disappears, a company often goes into a deep financial shock. What happened to Atari is typical in this respect. And look how Coleco Industries handled the Cabbage Patch Kids. Those homely dolls hit the market in 1983 and started to take off. Coleco’s strategy was to milk the kids for all they were worth. Hundreds of Cabbage Patch novelties flooded the toy stores. Pens, pencils, crayon boxes, games, clothing. Two years later, Coleco racked up sales of $776 million and profits of $83 million. Then the bottom dropped out of the Cabbage Patch Kids. By 1988 Coleco went into Chapter 11. Coleco died, but the kids live on. Acquired by Hasbro in 1989, the Cabbage Patch Kids are now being handled conservatively. Today they’re doing quite well.

He was the most astonishing contradiction of components I’d ever encountered. Shy yet fiercely communicative when putting an idea into your head. Vocally astringent regarding his own abilities but not to the point that he couldn’t produce—he was as prolific an artist (yes, an artist, and I never use the term, especially regarding people I like) I’ve ever seen. But I could feel it. Everything he sketched, penciled, inked, made—was a payment, one he could scarcely afford; as if it physically hurt him to put pencil to paper. Yet that only seemed to spur him on, to live far beyond his means. He was unable not to. For Sketch, to draw was to breath, and so the air became lead—silvery in the right light, dark soot in the wrong; heavy, slick and malleable—into shapes he brought together in glorious orchestration, with a child’s eye and a rocket scientist’s precision, all fortified by a furious melancholy, a quiet engine of sourceless shame and humility. When it came to another’s work, he longed to praise it but then couldn’t resist critiquing it all within an inch of its life, analyzing deficiencies with uncontrollable abandon and laser accuracy. He was sharp as his Radio 914 pen nibs, and as pointed. And then he’d apologize. Oh, he would apologize: Oh my GOD, forgive me, please don’t hate me, I’m SORRY, don’t listen to me, why am I saying things, what do I know, I don’t know anything, why do you listen to me you should just tell me to shut UP, I’m awful, forgive me, you hate me, don’t you? Tell the truth. Please don’t hate me. Please don’t. Please.

ultimately, most of us would choose a rich and meaningful life over an empty, happy one, if such a thing is even possible. “Misery serves a purpose,” says psychologist David Myers. He’s right. Misery alerts us to dangers. It’s what spurs our imagination. As Iceland proves, misery has its own tasty appeal. A headline on the BBC’s website caught my eye the other day. It read: “Dirt Exposure Boosts Happiness.” Researchers at Bristol University in Britain treated lung-cancer patients with “friendly” bacteria found in soil, otherwise known as dirt. The patients reported feeling happier and had an improved quality of life. The research, while far from conclusive, points to an essential truth: We thrive on messiness. “The good life . . . cannot be mere indulgence. It must contain a measure of grit and truth,” observed geographer Yi-Fu Tuan. Tuan is the great unheralded geographer of our time and a man whose writing has accompanied me throughout my journeys. He called one chapter of his autobiography “Salvation by Geography.” The title is tongue-in-cheek, but only slightly, for geography can be our salvation. We are shaped by our environment and, if you take this Taoist belief one step further, you might say we are our environment. Out there. In here. No difference. Viewed that way, life seems a lot less lonely. The word “utopia” has two meanings. It means both “good place” and “nowhere.” That’s the way it should be. The happiest places, I think, are the ones that reside just this side of paradise. The perfect person would be insufferable to live with; likewise, we wouldn’t want to live in the perfect place, either. “A lifetime of happiness! No man could bear it: It would be hell on Earth,” wrote George Bernard Shaw, in his play Man and Superman. Ruut Veenhoven, keeper of the database, got it right when he said: “Happiness requires livable conditions, but not paradise.” We humans are imminently adaptable. We survived an Ice Age. We can survive anything. We find happiness in a variety of places and, as the residents of frumpy Slough demonstrated, places can change. Any atlas of bliss must be etched in pencil. My passport is tucked into my desk drawer again. I am relearning the pleasures of home. The simple joys of waking up in the same bed each morning. The pleasant realization that familiarity breeds contentment and not only contempt. Every now and then, though, my travels resurface and in unexpected ways. My iPod crashed the other day. I lost my entire music collection, nearly two thousand songs. In the past, I would have gone through the roof with rage. This time, though, my anger dissipated like a summer thunderstorm and, to my surprise, I found the Thai words mai pen lai on my lips. Never mind. Let it go. I am more aware of the corrosive nature of envy and try my best to squelch it before it grows. I don’t take my failures quite so hard anymore. I see beauty in a dark winter sky. I can recognize a genuine smile from twenty yards. I have a newfound appreciation for fresh fruits and vegetables. Of all the places I visited, of all the people I met, one keeps coming back to me again and again: Karma Ura,

Before opening them, I slowly looked around the room. Sumire’s coat was hanging in the closet. I saw her goggles, her Italian dictionary, her passport. Inside the desk were her ballpoint pen and mechanical pencil. In the window above the desk the gentle, craggy slope was visible. A black cat was walking on top of the wall of the house next door. The bare little boxy room was enveloped in the late-afternoon silence. I closed my eyes and could still hear the waves on the deserted beach that morning. I opened my eyes again, and this

A Zentangle® Art Kit To make your own little art kit you will need: Zentangle squares cut from black and white paper A Micron 01 and 05 Pen A Sakura White Gel Pen A White Pencil A Soft Lead Pencil A Box to house all your treasures. All you have to do is gather your materials and put them in a box. You can decorate the box as you like. Maybe you would like to draw Zentangles all over it. I like to carry my kit in my purse and so a box is quite cumbersome. I use a small plastic pouch. It very easily houses all my Zentangle squares, pencils and pens.

Whatever it be that keeps the finer faculties of the mind awake, wonder alive, and the interest above mere eating and drinking, money-making and money-saving; whatever it be that gives gladness, or sorrow, or hope—this, be it violin, pencil, pen, or, highest of all, the love of woman, is simply a divine gift of holy influence for the salvation of that being to whom it comes, for the lifting of him out of the mire and up on the rock. For it keeps a way open for the entrance of deeper, holier, grander influences, emanating from the same riches of the Godhead.

You will need 12 index cards and the pen/pencil of your choice. Draw one panel per card, spending no more than 3–4 minutes per card. Do not use any words. Draw the following scenarios: (A) The beginning of the world; (B) The end of the world; (C) A self-portrait, including your entire body; (D) Something that happened at lunchtime (or breakfast, if it’s still morning); (E) An image from a dream you had recently; (F) Something that happened in the middle of the world’s existence, i.e., between drawings A and B; (G) What happened right after that?; (H) Something that happened early this morning; (I) Something that has yet to happen; (J) Pick any of the above panels and draw something that happened immediately afterward; (K) Draw a “riff” on panel J; for example, a different perspective, another character’s viewpoint, something that happened off-panel, or a close-up on some detail or aspect of the drawing; (L) Finally, draw something that has absolutely nothing to do with anything else you have drawn in the other panels. Spread the 12 panels out in front of you. Try to create a comic strip by choosing 4 of the panels in any order.

More mature doesn't have to mean more complicated As things progress, don't be afraid to resist bloat. The temptation will be to scale up. But it doesn't have to be that way. Just because something gets older and more mature, doesn't mean it needs to get more complicated. You don't have to become an outer space pen that writes upside down. Sometimes it's ok to just be a pencil. You don't need to be a swiss-army knife. You can just be a screwdriver. You don't need to build a diving watch that's safe at 5,000 meters if your customers are land-lovers who just want to know what the time is.

Nature journaling doesn’t need to be complicated. You don’t need artistic skills, fancy pens, or expensive journals to get started. All you need is a curious spirit, a pencil, and a notebook. Call them nature journals, field guides, or whatever you like. But go into the fields, walk into the woods, and sit by the streams. Listen, watch, and sketch what you see. Include the date, time, and location. Include lists, quotes, or pressed flowers in your pages if you’d like. And fill them with the observations of your outings. In time, the habit of nature journaling will nurture a love for nature in both you and your children.

The odd sensation I had while cooking would often last through the meal, then dissolve as I climbed the stairs. I would enter my room and discover the homework books I had left on the bed had disappeared into my backpack. I’d look inside my books and be shocked to find that the homework had been done. Sometimes it had been done well, at others it was slapdash, the writing careless, my own handwriting but scrawled across the page. As I read the work through, I would get the creepy feeling that someone was watching me. I would turn quickly, trying to catch them out, but the door would be closed. There was never anyone there. Just me. My throat would turn dry. My shoulders would feel numb. The tic in my neck would start dancing as if an insect was burrowing beneath the surface of the skin. The symptoms would intensify into migraines that lasted for days and did not respond to treatment or drugs. The attack would come like a sudden storm, blow itself out of its own accord or unexpectedly vanish. Objects repeatedly went missing: a favourite pen, a cassette, money. They usually turned up, although once the money had gone it had gone for ever and I would find in the chest of drawers a T-shirt I didn’t remember buying, a Depeche Mode cassette I didn’t like, a box of sketching pencils, some Lego.

The What ifs ricocheted around in my head. In other words, the left side of my brain, if there is a left side, proposed. The right side of my brain, if there is a right side, disposed. No use proposing on the left if there is no one home on the right. I was lucky in my genetics. God, the Cosmos, the Life Force, what ever fits, gave me the right side as ball-catcher for anything the stuff from left field pitched over the plate. One half, the left, seems obvious. The other half, the right, stays mysterious, daring you to fetch it out in the light. The seance, which is to say the typewriter, computer, pen, pencil, and paper are there to catch the ghosts before they thin out in midair.

And all that time I was lying to my support group. I told the ladies, "Sure! I'm writing!" when I wasn't. Yes, I could have filled all those newfound minutes with actual work, but I had no confidence in myself. I was a fraud. Who was I to pick up a pen and expect anything good to come out of it? I expected perfection as soon as the pencil hit the paper, and since that's impossible, I couldn't get myself to start. Then I felt guilty about not starting, which made me want to start even less. And with no game to bury the feelings, I got very depressed. No wonder I didn't book any acting jobs in the last half of 2006. No one wanted to hire a clinically depressed person to sell snack foods.

I have a fine desk but I prefer to work from my bed, as if I’m a convalescent in a Robert Louis Stevenson poem. An optimistic zombie propped by pillows, producing pages of somnambulistic ­fruit—not quite ripe or overripe. Occasionally I write directly into my small laptop, sheepishly glancing over to the shelf where my typewriter with its antiquated ribbon sits next to an obsolete Brother word processor. A nagging allegiance prevents me from scrapping either of them. Then there are the scores of notebooks, their contents ­calling—confession, revelation, endless variations of the same ­paragraph—and piles of napkins scrawled with incomprehensible rants. Dried-out ink bottles, encrusted nibs, cartridges for pens long gone, mechanical pencils emptied of lead. Writer’s debris.

Children, now we shall try to write a capital letter L,” I say and go to the blackboard. “Ten lines of L’s, then five lines of Lina, and five lines of Larch.” I write out the words slowly with chalk. A shuffling and rustling begins behind me. I expect to find that they are laughing at me and turn around. But it is only the notebooks being opened and the slates put in readiness. The forty heads are bent obediently over their task. —I am almost surprised. The slate pencils are squeaking, the pens scratching. I pass to and fro between the forms. On the wall hangs a crucifix, a stuffed barn owl and a map of Europe. Outside the windows the clouds drive steadily by, swift and low. The map of Germany is coloured in brown and green. I stop before it. The frontiers are hatched in red, and make a curious zigzag from top to bottom. Cologne—Aachen, there are the thin black lines marking the railways; Herbesthal, Liège, Brussels, Lille—I stand on tiptoe—Roubaix, Arras, Ostend—Where is Mount Kemmel then? It isn’t marked at all; but there is Langemarck, Ypres, Bixschoote, Staden. How small they are on the map—tiny points only, secluded, tiny points—and yet how the heavens thundered and the earth raged there on the 31st of July when the Big Offensive began and before nightfall we had lost every officer. I turn away and survey the fair and dark heads bending zealously over the words, Lina and Larch. Strange—for them those tiny points on the map will be no more than just so much stuff to be learned—a few new place names and a number of dates to be memorized by note in the history lesson—like the Seven Years’ War or some battle against the Romans. A

Perhaps, if I had a new fountain pen instead of this wreck, or a fresh bouquet of, say, twenty beautifully sharpened pencils in a slim vase, and a ream of ivory smooth paper instead of these, let me see, thirteen, fourteen more or less frumpled sheets . . . I might start writing the unknown thing I want to write; unknown, except for a vague shoe-shaped outline, the infusorial quiver of which I feel in my restless bones, a feeling of shchekotiki . . . half-tingle, half-tickles, when you are trying to remember something or understand something or find something, and probably your bladder is full, and your nerves are on edge, but the combination is on the whole not unpleasant ( if not protracted) and produces a minor orgasm or 'petit éternuement intérieur' when at last you find the picture-puzzle piece which exactly fits the gap.

Haiku are meant to evoke an emotional response from the reader ... to light the spark that triggers creative rumination ... They act as literary manifestations ... visions of nature’s seasonal modulations ... They're emotionally tinged words, barely perceptible sensory flickers ... literary etchings of lucid visions transposed into the minds of its readers ... They're meant to act as sensory catalysts ... like the passing of a penciled baton laid out upon a piece of paper that a reader might grasp for in their mind's eye ... all of which prompts the reader to continue exploring the sensory experience elicited from the writers pen ... This is how the literary sketching of poets are intended to function ... as creative muses with which readers can draw from and viscerally apply to their own artistic idioms ... from that lucid space within their heads ... where their minds eye can spark their own creative visions" Bukusai Ashagawa

She’s about to add, “I have scars, inside me,” but she stops herself. What is a scar, Oh Toby? That would be the next question. Then she’d have to explain what a scar is. A scar is like writing on your body. It tells about something that once happened to you, such as a cut on your skin where blood came out. What is writing, Oh Toby? Writing is when you make marks on a piece of paper, on a stone, on a flat surface, like the sand on the beach, and each of the marks means a sound, and the sounds joined together mean a word, and the words joined together mean… How do you make this writing, Oh Toby? You make it with a keyboard, or no… once you made it with a pen or a pencil, a pencil is a… Or you make it with a stick. Oh Toby, I do not understand. You make a mark with a stick on your skin, you cut your skin open and then it is a scar, and that scar turns into a voice? It speaks, it tells us things? Oh Toby, can we hear what the scar says? Show us how to make these scars that talk!

Preassessment Sit comfortably. Take a few deep breaths, relax, and answer the following questions in writing. Where is your self-esteem lately? Some answer this simply, as in low, medium, or high, or on a scale from 1 to 10. For some, responses are more complex. For instance, you might note that your self-esteem, in truth, fluctuates, or that, although you are growing stronger, you still struggle with mistakes you make or have made, or with expectations you or others have. There is power and courage in honestly acknowledging what is. Just observe where you are now, without judging yourself or wondering what others might think. How did your family of origin contribute, for good and bad, to your self-esteem? What have you learned to do to increase your self-esteem? What, if anything, can make you inferior as a person? What, if anything, can make you superior as a person? Using an artistic medium—colored pens or pencils, paint, crayons, finger paints, and so forth—draw your opinion of yourself on a separate sheet of paper. There is something revealing and almost magical in expressing without words how you experience yourself. The answers to questions three, four, and five especially can provide insight into what can ultimately strengthen self-esteem, although not in the ways most people think. Did you notice that the very things that raise self-esteem can also threaten it? For example, if getting a raise at work lifts your self-esteem, does failing to get a promotion cause it to fall? If a compliment makes you feel superior, does criticism make you feel inferior? If love raises self-esteem, does a relationship that does not work well destroy it? Many assume that we get value from what we do; from skills, talents, and character traits; or from acceptance from others. While all of these are desirable, I suggest that none of these make good first steps for self-esteem building. Where, then, does human value come from?

This ability to access the overall concept of the word we’re blanking on is what sometimes causes us to come out with ludicrously long-winded synonyms, out of sheer desperation. Case in point, I once blanked on the word pen, and called it an ‘ink pencil’. Case in another point, a friend of mine once referred to Starbucks as ‘the coffee pub’.

For some, writing a simple list of goals works well. For others, it is much more effective to have a visual picture of their goal to refer to. For instance, a disorganized kid who wants to keep a clean desk might take a picture of his desk when it’s straightened up. He labels the picture, noting where the pens, pencils, paper, and homework go. When he next needs to clean his desk, he can look at the picture and match it. The same thing goes for getting ready for school. If he agrees that he wants to make getting ready for school a less painful process, he can refer to a picture of himself fully ready for the day with his coat on, hair brushed, holding his backpack and his lunchbox. If he can see what he’s after, he is more likely to make it happen. This technique can also be useful for teens who don’t organize themselves well because matching a picture places fewer demands on working memory than reading from a checklist.

Yes, silence can be an opinion," said Mishka. Silence can be a form of protest. It can be a means of survival. But it can also be a school of poetry—one with its own meter, tropes, and conventions. One that needn’t be written with pencils or pens; but that can be written in the soul with a revolver to the chest.

I’m so afraid of starting something new outside of Chad, the norm, everything, but I can’t be stagnant, Tyson. I feel like I have no idea where I’m going in life anymore. The page is unwritten, and that scares me, but I’m going to be strong and face it head-on with a pen, not a pencil. Mistakes are bound to happen, but that’s life—you grow and you learn from it. Hurt, that’s inevitable, and so is growth. You have to let yourself grow and be happy—you can’t wallow in this state that you’re in.

Personally, I suck at efficiency (doing things quickly). To compensate and cope, here’s my 8-step process for maximizing efficacy (doing the right things): Wake up at least 1 hour before you have to be at a computer screen. Email is the mind-killer. Make a cup of tea (I like pu-erh) and sit down with a pen/pencil and paper. Write down the 3 to 5 things—and no more—that are making you the most anxious or uncomfortable. They’re often things that have been punted from one day’s to-do list to the next, to the next, to the next, and so on. Most important usually equals most uncomfortable, with some chance of rejection or conflict. For each item, ask yourself: “If this were the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied with my day?” “Will moving this forward make all the other to-dos unimportant or easier to knock off later?” Put another way: “What, if done, will make all of the rest easier or irrelevant?” Look only at the items you’ve answered “yes” to for at least one of these questions. Block out at 2 to 3 hours to focus on ONE of them for today. Let the rest of the urgent but less important stuff slide. It will still be there tomorrow. TO BE CLEAR: Block out at 2 to 3 HOURS to focus on ONE of them for today. This is ONE BLOCK OF TIME. Cobbling together 10 minutes here and there to add up to 120 minutes does not work. No phone calls or social media allowed. If you get distracted or start procrastinating, don’t freak out and downward-spiral; just gently come back to your ONE to-do. Congratulations! That’s it. This is the only way I can create big outcomes despite my never-ending impulse to procrastinate, nap, and otherwise fritter away days with bullshit. If I have 10 important things to do in a day, it’s 100% certain nothing important will get done that day. On the other hand, I can usually handle one must-do item and block out my lesser behaviors for 2 to 3 hours a day. It doesn’t take much to seem superhuman and appear “successful” to nearly everyone around you. In fact, you just need one rule: What you do is more important than how you do everything else, and doing something well does not make it important. If you consistently feel the counterproductive need for volume and doing lots of stuff, put these on a Post-it note: Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action. Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.

To go back for a moment to that "paper-piled table" in Melville's room at Twenty-sixth Street: on it stood an inclined plane that for lack of more accurate designation one must call "desk"; for though it had a pebbled green-paper surface, it had no cavity for inkwell, no groove for pen and pencil, no drawer for papers, like the little portable desks that where cherished as heirlooms in the late nineteenth century. Rather, it was open underneath; and pasted on one side wall, well out of sight, it was a printed slip of paper that read simply, "Keep true to dreams of thy youth

it was like being eleven again, walking into my brother’s room for a pencil or pen, pulling open drawers and finding a color magazine of women sucking off men, when all the tiny currents open in you and they feel like evil and opportunity all at once, temptation and salvation, the cause and the cure, touch it, pick it up, take it away with you.

since the accident. I don’t know what her problem was. After all, I was a “hero.” At least the newspaper said so. “Hey, Alex,” she said, twirling her ponytail with her pencil. “Oh, hi,” I stammered, looking down at my burger. “You guys sounded really great in the talent show. I didn’t know you could sing like that.” “Uhh, thanks. It must be all the practice I get with my karaoke machine.” Oh God, did I just tell her I sing karaoke? Definitely not playing it cool, I thought to myself. TJ butted in, “Yeah, Small Fry was ok, but I really carried the show with my awesome guitar solo.” He smiled proudly. “Shut up, TJ,” I said, tossing a fry at him, which hit him between the eyes. “Hey, watch it, Baker. Just because you’re a ‘hero’ doesn’t mean I won’t pummel you.” “Yeah, right,” I said, smiling. Emily laughed. “Maybe we could come over during Christmas break and check out your karaoke machine. Right, Danielle?” Danielle rolled her eyes and sighed. “Yeah, whatever.” I gulped. “Uhhh…yeah…that sounds great.” “Ok, give me your hand,” she said. “My hand,” I asked, surprised. “Yep,” she said, grabbing my wrist and opening my palm. “Here’s my number,” she said, writing the numbers 585-2281 in gold glitter pen on my palm.” I will never wash my hand again, I thought to myself. “Text me over break, ok?” she said, smiling brightly.

since the accident. I don’t know what her problem was. After all, I was a “hero.” At least the newspaper said so. “Hey, Alex,” she said, twirling her ponytail with her pencil. “Oh, hi,” I stammered, looking down at my burger. “You guys sounded really great in the talent show. I didn’t know you could sing like that.” “Uhh, thanks. It must be all the practice I get with my karaoke machine.” Oh God, did I just tell her I sing karaoke? Definitely not playing it cool, I thought to myself. TJ butted in, “Yeah, Small Fry was ok, but I really carried the show with my awesome guitar solo.” He smiled proudly. “Shut up, TJ,” I said, tossing a fry at him, which hit him between the eyes. “Hey, watch it, Baker. Just because you’re a ‘hero’ doesn’t mean I won’t pummel you.” “Yeah, right,” I said, smiling. Emily laughed. “Maybe we could come over during Christmas break and check out your karaoke machine. Right, Danielle?” Danielle rolled her eyes and sighed. “Yeah, whatever.” I gulped. “Uhhh…yeah…that sounds great.” “Ok, give me your hand,” she said. “My hand,” I asked, surprised. “Yep,” she said, grabbing my wrist and opening my palm. “Here’s my number,” she said, writing the numbers 585-2281 in gold glitter pen on my palm.” I will never wash my hand again, I thought to myself. “Text me over break, ok?” she said, smiling brightly. “Yeah, sure,” I nodded, as she walked away giggling with Danielle. “Merry Christmas to me!” I whispered to TJ and Simon. “Yeah, there’s just one problem, Dufus,” TJ said. “Oh yeah, what’s that, TJ? That she didn’t give you her number?” I asked. “No, Dork. How are you going to text her if you don’t have a cell phone?” He smiled. “Oh, right,” I said, slumping down in my seat. “That could be a problem.” “You could just call her on your home phone,” Simon suggested, wiping his nose with a napkin. “Yeah, sure,” TJ chuckled. “Hi Emily, this is Alex Baker calling from the year 1984.” He held his pencil to his ear like a phone.  “Would you like to come over to play Atari? Then maybe we can solve my Rubik’s Cube while we break dance ….and listen to New Kids on the Block.” He was cracking himself up and turning bright red. “Maybe I’ll type you a love letter on my typewriter. It’s so much cooler than texting.” “Shut up, TJ,” I said, smiling. “I’m starting to remember why I didn’t like you much at the beginning of the year.” “Lighten up, Baker. I’m just bustin’ your chops. Christmas is coming. Maybe Santa will feel sorry for your dorky butt and bring you a cell phone.” Chapter 2 ePhone Denied When I got home from school that day, it was the perfect time to launch my cell phone campaign. Mom was in full Christmas mode. The house smelled like gingerbread. She had put up the tree and there were boxes of ornaments and decorations on the floor. I stepped over a wreath and walked into the kitchen. She was baking sugar cookies and dancing around the kitchen to Jingle Bell Rock with my little brother Dylan. My mom twirled Dylan around and smiled. She was wearing the Grinch apron that we had given her last Christmas. Dylan was wearing a Santa hat, a fake beard, and of course- his Batman cape. Batman Claus. “Hey Honey. How was school?” she asked, giving Dylan one more spin. “It was pretty good. We won second place in the talent show.” I held up the candy cane shaped award that Ms. Riley had given us. “Great job! You and TJ deserved it. You practiced hard and it payed off.” “Yeah, I guess so,” I said, grabbing a snicker-doodle off the counter. “And now it’s Christmas break! I bet your excited.” She took a tray of cookies out of the oven and placed

Our freedom is gone, our two trucks, our land, our business, our homes are gone, stolen from us. But somehow, I still have paper, pens, and pencils. None of our captors values these things, so no one has yet taken them from me. I must keep them hidden or they will be taken. All possessions will be taken. They will strip us. They’ve made that all too clear. They will break us down, reshape us, teach us what it means to love their country and fear their God.

At school, Pablo found it hard to concentrate. Rather than completing classwork, he filled the margins of his notebook with pencil sketches of animals, birds, and people. His teacher grew exasperated with his lack of attention. She wrote a note to his mother saying: “Pablo should stop drawing in class and pay attention to his lessons.” It was clear that Pablo hated rules, and he took every opportunity to disobey them. When adults told him what to do, he did the opposite. He once got in trouble for coloring the sky a bright red instead of the “normal” blue. Pablo was often banished to the “calaboose,” a bare cell with white walls and a bench, which served as a holding pen for unruly students. “I liked it there, because I took along a sketch pad and drew incessantly,” Pablo later said. “I could have stayed there forever drawing without stopping.” He even began misbehaving on purpose so that he would be sentenced to detention and sent to the calaboose. The one person who understood that Pablo wasn’t acting out for no reason was his father. One day when Pablo’s mother caught him drawing on the wall with a nail, Don José took him to the beach to blow off steam. As Don José stretched out to take a nap, Pablo sat beside him and drew a dolphin in the wet sand. When Don José awoke, he was astonished by the beauty of his son’s drawing. “Could it be Pablo who drew this?” he wondered. That afternoon, Don José took a closer look at the image Pablo had drawn on their living room wall. What at first looked like random scratches soon took shape. Don José recognized a reindeer and a bison running away from a group of men on horseback who were armed with bows and arrows. At that moment, Don José knew what to do to get Pablo to stop misbehaving. He decided to take him into his studio and teach his son how to paint. From that day onward, Pablo and his father were inseparable art partners. In search of new subjects to portray, they began going to the bullfights. Pablo was mesmerized by the sight of the brave picadors as they charged ferocious bulls. He saw El Lagartijo—“The Lizard”—one of the most famous bullfighters in Spain, and he met Cara Ancha,

Empty hands can't draw by themselves.

Here is what I recommend: As soon as possible, once you have finished reading this little book, set aside a full day. It might be a Saturday or a Sunday, or some other day you have off from work. Plan to spend six to eight consecutive hours alone, except for bathroom breaks and lunch. Go to a library. Leave your cell phone and computer in the car because you don’t want to be disturbed. Take a pen or half a dozen pencils and a legal pad, find a secluded spot, and get comfortable. Write at the top of the first page, “I am now 101 years old, I am on my death bed, and I’m looking back. If I’d stayed on the course I was on when I was (the age you are now), would I have any regrets? Instead, having learned how to work Actual Magic, I have lived an incredibly successful and fulfilling life. What about it was most important to me? What were my biggest accomplishments? What else stands out?” Write down everything, and I mean everything, that comes to mind. Do not self edit; take your time. Taking time and having time to take is important because your mind works differently when you feel rushed because of a looming deadline. It’s virtually impossible to go deep with a clock ticking in your head. That’s why it’s important for it to be totally relaxed because you have all day. Sit back and let go. Take a deep breath and hold it to the count of four. Then let it out slowly through your mouth. There’s nothing else to do or to think about but the life ahead of you and what you want it to become. Once you reach a point where you cannot think of anything else to write down, go back, look over what you have written and arrange the items in descending order with the most important one first. Having completed that task, go to the next blank sheet and put the number-one most important thing at the top. Then write down what is keeping you from achieving that goal. Is it something buried in your unconscious mind?

Wake up at least 1 hour before you have to be at a computer screen. Email is the mind-killer. Make a cup of tea (I like pu-erh) and sit down with a pen/pencil and paper. Write down the 3 to 5 things—and no more—that are making you the most anxious or uncomfortable. They’re often things that have been punted from one day’s to-do list to the next, to the next, to the next, and so on. Most important usually equals most uncomfortable, with some chance of rejection or conflict. For each item, ask yourself: “If this were the only thing I accomplished today, would I be satisfied with my day?” “Will moving this forward make all the other to-dos unimportant or easier to knock off later?” Put another way: “What, if done, will make all of the rest easier or irrelevant?” Look only at the items you’ve answered “yes” to for at least one of these questions. Block out at 2 to 3 hours to focus on ONE of them for today. Let the rest of the urgent but less important stuff slide. It will still be there tomorrow. TO BE CLEAR: Block out at 2 to 3 HOURS to focus on ONE of them for today. This is ONE BLOCK OF TIME. Cobbling together 10 minutes here and there to add up to 120 minutes does not work. No phone calls or social media allowed. If you get distracted or start procrastinating, don’t freak out and downward-spiral; just gently come back to your ONE to-do.

These ideas (taken in their general sense) were not unknown to the ancient philosophers : they keenly felt the impotency, I had almost said the nothingness, of writing, in great institutions; but no one of them has seen this truth more clearly, or expressed it more happily, than Plato, whom we always find the first upon the track of all great truths. According to him, “the man who is wholly indebted to writing for his instruction, will only possess the appearance of wisdom. The word, he adds, is to writing, what the man is to his portrait. The productions of the pencil present themselves to our eyes as living things; but if we interrogate them, they maintain a dignified silence. It is the same with writing, which knows not what to say to one man, nor what to conceal from another. If you attack it or insult it without a cause, it cannot defend itself; for its author is never present to sustain it. So that he who imagines himself capable of establishing, clearly and permanently, one single doctrine, by writing alone, is a great blockhead. If he really possessed the true germs of truth, he would not indulge the thought, that with a little black liquid and a pen he could cause them to germinate in the world, defend them from the inclemency of the season, and communicate to them the necessary efficacy. As for the man who undertakes to write laws or civil constitutions, and who fancies that, because he has written them, he is able to give them adequate evidence and stability, whoever he may be, a private man or legislator, he disgraces himself, whether we say it or not; for he has proved thereby that he is equally ignorant of the nature of inspiration and delirium, right and wrong, good and evil. Now, this ignorance is a reproach, though the entire mass of the vulgar should unite in its praise.

There is this story where NASA tried to figure out how to make a ballpoint pen that works in space. If you have ever tried to use a ballpoint pen over your head, you have probably realised it is gravity that keeps the ink flowing. After a series of prototypes, several test runs and tons of money invested, NASA developed a fully functional gravity-independent pen, which pushes the ink onto the paper by means of compressed nitrogen. According to this story, the Russians faced the same problem. So they used pencils (De Bono, 1998, 141). The story itself, unfortunately, is an urban myth, but the lesson of it encapsulates the core idea of the slip-box: Focus on the essentials and don’t complicate things unnecessarily.