Irrational Confidence Guys

 I have this tendency to go through slumps in life, it’s usually when I get busy and I don’t have time to process life. It’ll take something to knock me off course, force me to step out of my life, and appreciate it.  

This time, two friends knocked some sense back into me. 

First, my friend Jason sent me an uplifting email. After graduating, Jason moved out to Chicago where he was mugged at gunpoint, but that was only the beginning. He found himself in an ugly work situation where he hated his job as a technician in a high-powered microbiology lab, so he chose to move back home to the east coast in an attempt to switch careers.  

Despite struggles that would leave me in a one man pity party, Jason capitalized on the positive. After leaving college, Jason wanted to spend time in a research lab, to see what was out there besides the medical school track he’d been on for years. After his lab experience, he was at an all-time high confidence in his medical school path. He explained his confidence: 

“Take my health, take my job, but you may never take my confidence.” 

He struggled through a job he hated, knowing it would ultimately maintain his confidence. I love that about Jason, he walks with that swagger – an obnoxious combination of self-confidence, self-deception, and a heck of a lot of talent. I wish I had that swagger. 

My second friend, Kara, moved out to Portland, OR on a whim. She found herself frustrated with the world, and had this burning desire to shake up her life. After she graduated from Kenyon, she worked in her home of Connecticut, but soon after she committed to move out to Portland. She had no job prospects, no friends, no home, but she still moved, because of this confidence. She believed life was something to be taken seriously.  

After about six months, Kara found that Portland wasn’t the right fit. She didn’t meet the same daring people she was hoping to find, and the culture didn’t quite fit her, so she was packing, again. 

On her last day in Portland, I asked what she was thinking. Surprisingly, or maybe not if you know Kara, she was still confident. I sensed the hurt on her heart, but she still held that familiar poise. She told me of her vision as she moved back to the east coast. I wished her luck, and she left me with this Steve Jobs quote: 

“Stay hungry, stay foolish.” 

After all the struggles that Kara had endured in Portland, she still had that swagger. I have tremendous respect for Jason and Kara. It’s sure as hell not easy to move, nor is it easy to shake up your life, yet they both kept their head up. 

That attitude urged me to reflect on my life. 

About three weeks ago, I opened my email to see this: Invitation to interview at Duke Medical School. A couple years ago going to Duke med was the dream of my dreams. I don’t know where it falls on my wish list today, but I was almost giddy when I saw that email, and I am not the giddy type.

It reminded me that I might be drained – but I’m living the life I’ve wanted for myself for years. Really, at 23, I’m exactly where I want to be. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

See you on the other side, friend.

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May the road rise to meet you 

May the wind be always at your back 

May the sun shine warm upon your face 

May the good Lord hold you in the palm of His hand 

May the rains fall soft upon your fields, until the day we meet again 

- Irish funeral blessing 

-- 

I’m into a lot of things, but my obsession is relationships. 

I was reading an old letter I sent to some of my friends, my college cross country team. I concluded it with this sentence: 

“For the time that was college, without all of your friendships, I would never have survived the pile of shit that is life. So, thanks. I appreciate every one of you more than I could ever say.” 

And it’s true, I would never have survived college without my running buddies. People weren’t meant to survive on their own. Allow me to break off on a sidenote: 

I’ve been trying to come up with a signature closing to my posts. “from ken” is memorable, but I’ve been wanting something more. One sign off I like is, “may the force be with you.” 

One of my college mentors told me that as I walked into the room to defend my undergrad thesis, and it’s stuck with me since. It implies that there’s something greater than your own powers that could help you, which is comforting. 

But the sign off I’ve been trying for now is, “see you on the other side.” It means several different things to me, but I like it because if you’re reading this blog, you are my friend. And whether or not I will actually see you again, I like to think that I will. 

I learned this phrase from Donald Miller, a Christian author who used it to sign off his book, Searching for God Knows What. This is a book explaining what it means to be Christian, but I’d guess he saw the other side as a place where we’ll be after earth, heaven. 

I’m not exactly sure what I see on the other side. I think it’s a bit like this. 

--

You and I are on one side. There are other people on the other side, but we can’t quite make them out. And for some reason, we’re trying to get to the other side. 

We'll probably have to part ways to get to the other side of the river, and maybe we've already parted.

But my hope is that one day, we would meet again on the other side. 

--

It’s hard to remember the important people that have come and gone through your life. 

Go ahead, imagine an old friend that’s not in your life anymore. 

What I’m saying is, the other side of the river is a place where, at least in your imagination, you could be with that person again. 

You’ll laugh about old times, catch up on your lives, and of course, enjoy the other side. I imagine it like a wedding, there will be goofy dancing, bottles of local Portland beers, and it will be a celebration. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken

Why I love Wyoming pt 2: A well earned celebratory hand gesture

One of the big running mile markers, pun intended, is the one hundred mile week. It doesn’t really mean anything, but at the same time, it means everything. I had several consistent 90 mile weeks, but the 100 mile week just felt like a higher level. 

One week I had unknowingly racked up the miles, including a 20 mile long run. Near the end of that week, it was Saturday afternoon, the last day of my running week, and I was sitting at 93 miles. I had scheduled a six miler. 

Was it worth it to go seven miles to reach one hundred? 

Would I just be caving into looking good rather than being good, and wanting that three digit week? 

The answer to both those questions, was yes. But I didn’t know that when I departed. 

I set out the door that afternoon settled on a six mile run, and I saw one of my buddies, Samet, a Turkish soccer player. He was about to leave for a short twenty minute jog to stay in shape, but when he saw me running I could sense his competitive side awakening. He casually asked to run with me. 

We set out jogging easy, and I told him I was planning to run six miles. He told me he’d turn back when he felt tired. We checked past the two mile marker, and the three mile marker. Eventually, we passed the tree that signaled three and a half miles. 

We would be running back on the same road, so at that point I knew. I had one hundred miles this week, in the bank. It felt a bit surreal, but it was hard to take in at the moment because Samet and I were in the midst of a heated discussion about the philosophical aspects of our sports. 

We talked about what made us train at grueling levels and why we fell in love with our sports. We had lots of aimless tangents, but ultimately settled on one point. These sports, these challenges, they tested our character. They tested the amount of soul we had in our fragile human bodies. Maybe we were just too proud to give up. 

As we went on, I realized I was doing most of the talking. A rare thing when I'm with a new friend.  Samet was breathing hard, real hard. I paused my ranting for a second to check if he was ok. He told me, inbetween breaths, that he had never ran more than four miles. At that exact moment we were approaching six miles. 

I tried to encourage him, but I knew this was out of my hands. He kept telling me he had to walk it in, he had to give up. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I just kept running. 

Before I knew it, the employee dorms were just a short 100 yards away. When we turned that last corner something in Samet’s dead tired body just clicked. The way it clicks in a toddler’s head when he first walks on his own two legs - Whoa, I can do this. 

At that moment Samet muttered, “Thanks,” and with that he took off in a dead sprint. Samet was screaming at the top of his dried out lungs, in broken English, “NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER GIVE UP.” I get chills just putting those words down on paper. 

Samet had gained noticeable ground on me as I got back to our starting point, the employee rec hall. When I stopped, I made eye contact with him and silently acknowledged that we had helped each other reach a higher level of ourselves. He had ran a longer distance than he ever thought possible, and not only that, he had proven to himself the exact reason why he got into soccer in the first place. He never wanted to give up. He wanted to give his best, every moment he was alive. 

And for me, I had reached the seemingly impossible. When I started running in high school, I was a below average runner at best, struggling to break 20 minutes in the 5k. I never thought I would attain the level of running and strength it took to run a one hundred mile week. But here I was, standing with Samet, 100 miles logged on my legs over the past week. 

I will always remember that moment. Seeing the look on Samet’s face, I knew we had attained a connection only possible for those working together, shooting for levels of life higher than the normal person would dare to imagine. We had achieved, together, what life was like when you stick to the grind. 

I stuck out my hand, and he slapped me five. A good day.

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Why Wyoming is my favorite state pt. 2: The Trial of Miles

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“You know people just don’t, people just don’t see how much work is really involved in this rap shit. I didn’t know it, I didn’t see it, I never saw it until I was actually in it. You really gotta be in it, to understand what it’s like, but you always gotta, people always gotta see you smiling, you always gotta put on that fake, you know what I’m saying? Like, no matter what you just been through, it has gotta be right.”

        - Cypress Hill

When I shipped out to Wyoming, I made a list of five goals.  In retrospect, I don't even remember them.  Except for the one I stuck to: Running 1000 miles in the 90 days I would spend in Wyoming.  Some quick math reveals that, on average, I would need to run over eleven miles every single day.

It was the summer before my junior year cross country season.  As everyone who has run cross country knows, the real preparation is done in the summer, and when the season rolls around in the fall, it’s all just fine tuning.  That summer, everyone on our team knew we were getting ready for a huge season.  We had a strong class of seniors, and we knew this would be our big shot at making nationals.  Everyone was amped, and the summer really showed it.  Every week people were putting up 70, 80, 90 mile weeks like it was nothing.  It is not nothing to run over 10 miles a day.  It is hard.  And it takes a toll on your soul.

When I reached my summer training grounds, Wyoming, the first challenge was adapting to the climate.  For one, there was snow until late June.  On top of that, it was over 6,000 ft altitude.  My first run was a three miler - for a runner at my level a three mile run was the equivalent of walking down your front steps to pick up the morning paper - but the second day I got there when I went on that three miler, I thought I was having a heart attack.

The second challenge was deciding where to train.  There was a gravel/dirt road, Grassy Lake road, that lead out from our ranch all the way to Idaho.  So everyday I chose to run on that road, out and back.  It could have been nice to train on different terrain and varied scenery, but there was something unexplainably valuable to training on the same road day in and day out.  So after the snow melted, I began my daily ventures on Grassy Lake road:

It took me a couple weeks to shake off the rust and get my legs back underneath me after the track season, but soon enough I was hitting the high mileage.

There are always different philosophies on training, but I was always a big fan of two a days.  I got up before work and cracked out a real easy half hour jog.  It got my heart rate going a bit, and helped my legs recover from the main afternoon run.  In the afternoon, after work or between shifts, I would pound out the main session – a good hour or more.

On my days off, I would crank out a good two hour long run.  Those runs were thrilling in the sense that they made me feel powerful.  I saw my pre-conceived limits bowing down to the reality I was creating.  One such reality was the volume of running my rail-thin body could handle.

To be continued next week.

See you on the other side,

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts on the writing.

Why Wyoming is my favorite state

Wyoming is my favorite state, and not only because my wife and family are from there.  It’s also a place where I spent a once in a lifetime summer.  I realized I’ve referenced Wyoming, and that experience several times, but I’ve never written at length about it.  So I thought I’d put together a short series of pieces about it.  It’s a 5 part piece describing:

1) why I chose Wyoming

2) the running I did there

3) climbing Middle Teton

4) my work friends at the restaurant

5) my conclusions

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Why Wyoming is my favorite state pt. 1: Why I went to Wyoming

I was moving towards summer during my sophomore year at college.  I was talking with a biology professor about sticking around to do summer lab research.  Simultaneously, I was looking into summer jobs at resorts in Michigan, Cape Cod, Yosemite, Yellowstone, everywhere.  Sidenote – I wish I had writing from back then, so I could go back and look at my thoughts, but instead I’ll have to rely on human memory.

I remember that winter break I was in Lawrence, Kansas with some of my college homies.  We were sitting in a coffee shop, and I noticed an email pop up in my inbox from Flagg Ranch.  They were offering me a job that summer, waiting tables in Wyoming. 

The next couple hours I was calling my brain trust, some of my friends from home, about the potential decision not to come home for the summer.  Really I just needed someone’s approval.  I’m needy like that.

One of them told me,

“Damn, such a Ken thing.  Always doing weird bold things out of nowhere.”  

The next day, with the approval of the brain trust, I took the job.

Flagg Ranch was located in the awkward inbetween space between the two Wyoming national parks, Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons.  It was geographically isolated since it wasn’t in the parks, but on top of that, it didn’t have ready access to the internet, nor did it have cell phone service.  Basically, you were only going to interact with the sixty or so people at the ranch, which was a weird experience in and of itself. 

I hope these next few posts will explain my story in Wyoming: the relationships I formed at this isolated ranch, the miles I covered by foot, and the mountains I climbed.  If nothing else, it will be valuable practice for me as I train to write books, and stories longer than 500 words.  Sidenote - I think my story about Wyoming will be one of my first books, which will eventually get re-published after I write a hit memoir about medicine, and people will be duped into buying it because I had one successful book.  Yes, this just happened to me and I’m bitter about it.  But anyways.

Overall, I can’t tell you what I wanted to get out of Wyoming, but I can tell you what I got from it: Wyoming was where I learned the answer to this question. 

“There will come a point in the race.  When you alone will need to decide.  You will need to make a decision.  Do you really want it?  You will need to decide.”

            - Paul Tergat, 2004 Olympic Marathon Gold

See you on the other side,

from ken

 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

Avoid Boring People

Avoid boring people. That’s the title of a book I read recently, a memoir by the Nobel Prize winner James Watson. He co-discovered the structure of DNA and birthed molecular biology as we know it. 

I wasn’t sure whether the title meant to avoid boring other people, or to avoid interacting with boring people. Either way, it’s a great title. The book itself is too long, and reads too much like a personal journal – too much material only he or people closely involved with his life would understand. It did have a couple good pieces of advice, and if nothing else it showcased him as a dick. As always, people who are successful, are dicks. Sidenote – nothing wrong with being a dick, I plan on being successful. I’m just saying. 

Anyways, something I’ve been worried about recently, is that I’m boring. Looking at my life – I wake up, take the bus to work, read some books, work in a lab where I’m not thrilled by my projects, take the bus home, hit the gym, write a little, and spend some time with my wife. 

And really, the most frustrating part is that I’m not doing a particularly excellent job at any of them. 

It’s not a terrible life, in fact, it’s pretty idyllic in a sense, and it’s definitely comfortable. I could probably ride cruise control like this for a long time. But at the same time, I’m struggling to find meaning in a lot of my life, and frankly it just feels boring. 

I’ve had this same feeling several times before, a classic emotion that typifies the modern 20’s. Not then nor now do I know what to do, other than to complain to anybody who will listen. 

A previous post on the topic

In Avoid Boring People, James Watson’s biggest piece of advice was: To avoid becoming boring, avoid being bored. 

One thing that comes to mind immediately – another book I read recently was called Walk on Water, which was an exposé into the world of pediatric cardiac surgery, one of the most demanding professions in the world. A quote from the book: 

“You cannot lie in this work. There are so many people in this world who have no idea who the fuck they are. When you do this work your entire body is charged with it.” 

The resounding point throughout the Walk on Water is that heart surgeons know that heart surgery matters. They take their work seriously, and they are obsessed with it. 

When you take anything so seriously as to push your absolute limits – mentally, physically, emotionally, it reveals the character deep inside of you. Recently, I haven’t been challenged to see that part of me, and confront my real identity. 

So pushing yourself, and finding a place in life where you really know who you are, and what you’re about, is necessary to feel engaged in life. And, of course, to not be boring. 

But anyways, I’m trying to figure out, how can I be less boring? I’d love to hear some thoughts from anyone who isn’t bored with their lives. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken 

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

A Giant of Introspection - Herman Hesse Book Review

"It was never about the grapes or the lettuce, it was always about the people."

I’ve read two books by Herman Hesse (he wrote Siddhartha), Demian and Strange News from Another Star. Hesse’s main focus is on an individual’s search of self-knowledge and enlightenment. 

Demian is a pseudo-autobiography of Hesse’s youth as he learns how to understand his own unconsciousness. Hesse is initially lead into his unconscious by a classmate, Demian, who brings forth a counter-cultural understanding of the bible story of Cain and Abel. 

In this story, Cain and Abel are two brothers that work on a farm. Abel is much more successful, so Cain grows jealous and murders Abel. God punishes Cain by forcing him to be a lonely wanderer, and Cain walks around with a mark on his forehead for the rest of his life. Society’s understanding is that Cain is evil and Abel is a martyr. 

Demian suggests an alternate interpretation of this story. Cain’s mark was not an actual mark, but a personality trait that caused him to be exiled. People misunderstood Cain because he was so different, and automatically labeled him as evil. Sidenote - Isn’t it funny how quickly people label different = bad? 

Demian challenges society’s view that Cain was the bad guy, and further, that people should decide for themselves who is evil, what is the truth. After Hesse is exposed to such radical thoughts, he can’t take school or his parents seriously, and has to leave his home to discover the truths of the world for himself. Essentially, Demian is the story that follows. 

Cain represents Hesse's main focus, that certain individuals stand out as weird, and represent a different subset of humanity. Hesse and Demian are both such individuals, described as: 

“The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who would be born must first destroy a world.” 

Basically, Hesse believes only these hyper-introspective types are really alive. Sidenote - I've come to disagree with this, I’ve met plenty of excellent non-introspective people. That said, I’ve also chatted at length about these marked individuals, referring to them as being on the plane. 

I’ve been trying to understand the plane for a long time. 

I’ve read several authors on the plane, three off the top of my head: Herman Hesse, David Foster Wallace, and Bill Simmons. All of these authors share the common trait that they are involved in the intense pursuit of truth. 

I’ve also met several people on the plane, and the unique thing I’ve experienced is that it’s a pretty immediate and mutual understanding that we’re both on the plane. Conversations blossoms more smoothly, maybe based on the mutual recognition that we both empathize and share a strange life on the plane. Most recently, when I went to interview at Wash U med school, I met a professor with whom I had a heartfelt conversation about solving the great problems of mankind. 

From these books, and these people I’ve met, I’ve learned a little bit. In Hesse’s novel, Demian is clearly on the plane, and he helps Hesse on to the plane by instilling the confidence to believe in his inner voice, and to see the importance of introspection as a way to listen to the voice inside. So, part of it is about the confidence in believing in yourself. 

But there’s more than just being a deep thinker. It’s also about taking your own life, and the world way too seriously. It’s about feeling the weight of every single moment, and understanding the unbelievable significance of life. 

If you think you know what I’m talking about, please feel welcome to shed some light on my confusion.

See you on the other side. 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

We might lose

It was winter 1998. The NBA conference finals had the five-time champion Chicago Bulls pitted against the underdog Indiana Pacers. Michael Jordan and his Bulls were in a bind, forced all the way to a game 7. 

In a tight must-win situation like this, what would you expect a coach to tell his team? 

“You’ll come through.” 

“If you play this game ten times, you might lose nine, but not this one.” 

Instead, the legendary zen Bulls coach, Phil Jackson, told his team: 

“We might lose.” 

-- 

This past week I went for an interview at Washington University in St. Louis, one of the best medical schools in the country. I thought I was a pretty good applicant, but I wasn’t really expecting to be given a shot at such a prestigious school. Just by the numbers, I would land in the lower 10-20% of their entering class. Numbers aren’t everything, but it means something. 

The first day was a casual day for the nine of us being interviewed that day to meet students and see the facilities. While eating lunch, we chatted about where we were coming from, etc. Everyone else was from Harvard or the NIH or Penn, top cut institutions. I guess I should have known that these are the kids that come to interview at a top 5 med school, but I was still caught off guard. 

I came from a small school in Ohio, and since getting out of college, I’ve gotten used to the casual attitude of Portland. I guess in those five years, I forgot about all the eliteness, and it definitely threw me off. I spent a few hours after that being intimidated as we took a tour of the facilities – shiny and expensive. 

The second day was the real test, a lineup of seven or eight faculty interviews, including a 20 minute panel interview with thirteen faculty members. I didn’t do my best, but I walked away feeling like I tried my best. I had good conversations, made some friends, and communicated at least to a couple faculty members what I was about. There’s not much more to life than feeling like you’ve given it your best. 

But walking away that day, the realization on my head was that I might not be going to medical school next fall. I always thought since I was a good candidate I would get in somewhere, but I realized the pool of candidates is overflowing with qualified candidates. 

If you’ve tried to find a job in the past couple years, I’m sure you know all about this. 

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Phil Jackson showed some serious swagger to acknowledge that the Bulls, despite having an unmatched history, could still lose. Jackson didn't want a pity party, but he just wanted to lay down the simple straightforward reality. In sports, one team wins, and another team loses. And it is always important to know the reality. 

Nobody ever wants to talk about losing or making mistakes, but it doesn't have to be a negative part of the reality, and it should be ok to talk about it. 

Of course, the 1998 Chicago Bulls won the NBA championship. 

See you on the other side, 

from ken  

Feel free to comment! I would love to hear your thoughts.

the driving force by which humans accomplish their goals

I went to a neuroscience seminar this past week, and the speaker started his presentation by talking about motivation. To paraphrase: 

Everybody has to have a motivation for what they’re doing. I love talking to young people about their motivations because for them, their motivations are so much more clear. But for me, my motivation is figuring out how people think. I acknowledge that there are several different ways to figure this out, but to me, the most interesting one is the molecular perspective. That’s why I became a scientist. The molecular perspective might be incomplete, and it might turn out not to be the best way, but it’s the most interesting to me. 

It’s an interesting point. This guy realized he loved science, and decided to use it as a tool to accomplish what motivated him, to figure out how people think. Since then, I’ve been thinking about what motivates me, and I remembered these wise words: 

“Sometimes the only way to take a really good look at yourself is through someone else’s eyes.” - JD from Scrubs 

So I had some of my closest friends describe me: 

“Nobody else sees the world quite like he does, and is so comfortable analyzing and discussing conclusions on life.” 

“Over the course of my life I have yet to meet a person more thoughtful, and reflective. When I read his Sidenote blog, I remember the long runs in which we shared these thoughts with each other. It looks like all the uncertainties that Ken and I had then still linger 8 years later.” 

“Nobody else has been willing to talk to me about all aspects of life as much as we did on those nights.” 

What motivates me, is that I just want people to be happy. 

Sidenote: why I want people to be happy:

And as my friend’s suggest, I love thinking. 

In particular, I’ve been thinking about people for the past few years. I’ve had conversations with roughly six hundred people. I’ve lived with eight different people during that time, whose brains I’ve thoroughly picked. I’ve read somewhere between one and two hundred books about other people’s thoughts. I’ve wrote over a hundred short essays on my own thoughts. All that to say, I’ve wasted a lot of time trying to figure out what makes people tick.

So I’ve been thinking about how to get people to become happy. It’s been hard, and it’s been confusing to sort through the piles of ideas I’ve gathered from these past few years. Sidenote – here are the few fundamentals I feel like I solidly believe: 

1) People are not good at being happy 

2) People love their own kids, even if they aren’t able to show that love effectively 

3) It is hard to extract meaning without other people 

Anyways, it’s hard to say if thinking is important. I’ve met people who don’t think much, and they live perfectly content lives. In fact, a lot of times it’s hard for thinkers to get out of their heads and into real life where it actually matters. 

The author Donald Miller has this quote about overthinking: 

“I do this with good things; I think joy into its coffin; I analyze too much. I don’t want to think about life anymore; I just want to live life.” 

It’s a good point, but I still love thinking about things, and though it might not be the best way, it's my way. I might die in twenty or fifty years, not having been able to come up with any ways to help people be happy, but at least I'll be happy that I got to think about it. 

See you on the other side.

from ken

If you have a driving force by which you accomplish your goals, I am interested to hear about it.  Maybe you can help me expand my understanding of what makes people tick.  

the best quotes ever

I’m in a huge writing slump. I can’t think of anything good to write. I viciously hate everything I’ve written the last few weeks. In lieu of a post, here’s a collection of quotes. I picked out some of my favorites from a list of 900 quotes I’ve been collecting over the last ten years or so. 

“Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak Arabic, love music, and never forget that you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers, and warriors.” 

       - Hunter S. Thompson 

“Beware the day the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.” 

        - Emerson 

“I’m going to build my own fucking hospital. And there’ll be none of that there, thank you.” 

        - Paul Farmer 

“In the fight between you and the world, pick the world.” 

        - Frank Zappa 

“And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.” 

        - Kahlil Gibran The Prophet 

“You adjust the paints’ values and hues not to the world, not to the vision, but to the rest of the paint.” 

        - Annie Dillard 

“It was never about the grapes or the lettuce. It was always about the people.” 

        - Cesar Chavez 

"It wasn't necessary to win for the story to be great, it was only necessary to sacrifice everything." 

        - Donald Miller A Thousand Miles in a Thousand Years 

“Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.” 

“I had to go see about a girl.” 

        - Good Will Hunting 

“In mind’s special processes, a ten-mile run takes far longer than the 60 minutes reported by a grandfather clock. Such time, in fact, hardly exists at all in the real world; it is all out on the trail somewhere, and you only go back to it when you are out there.” 

        - Once a Runner John L. Parker 

“The good thing is we are good at so many things so if we run out of things we are good at we just make up something new so we can be good at it.” 

        - Eric Morris 

If anybody has any ideas of how to break out of a writing slump or a slump in general, let me know. 

See you on the other side.

from ken