Dear Reader,
Have you ever read an article and found yourself thinking about
it afterward? I usually clip these gems out of the newspaper
or magazine so that I can reread them, and besides, they are
too precious to throw away. February’s blog, “In Case
You Missed This,” featured the essay “Writing the
Prado” (The New York Times Book Review, January
5, 2025, “The Prado as Author’s Muse”). It was
my way of sharing something that caught my attention enough
to make me want to write a response, a kind of sideways recommendation
if you are looking for something to read.
In his March 30, 2025, Opinion essay in The New York Times
“A Surprising Route to the Best Life Possible,” David
Brooks examines “why people do things that are unpleasantly
hard.” He recounts the choices made by a marathoner and
a violinist, both of whom began their journeys without knowledge,
skills and experience and took on something totally new, unfamiliar
and difficult. These people had “the capacity to be seized”
by a desire to test themselves, to open themselves to new learning,
to risk failing, to experience physical and emotional discomfort,
to “make a fervent commitment,” as Brooks describes
it, and accept “the long hours, the remorseless work…when
effort becomes its own reward.” Brooks writes, “When
you’re committed to some big project, your relationship
to pain changes.” He quotes psychologist Carol Dweck: “Effort
is one of the things that gives meaning to life. Effort means
that you care about something.”
I immediately connected to this essay as a writer and artist.
Every line described the ways in which I am fulfilled, depleted,
exhausted and replenished by my commitment to both practices.
Dead zones of boredom are just that. Dead. Commitment. Effort.
Difficulty. Challenge. Discomfort. Each one is a signal that
I am alive.
