Tips For the Road, or Six for the Road

First, gratitude for what we have and the place we’re in.

 Second, with gratitude comes acceptance. The world may well be more exciting where the lights are bright, but dissatisfaction here is also likely to be beneath those lights over there.

 Thirdly, write the truth as you see it. You have your perspective, another has theirs, and the two can co-exist.

 Fourthly, despite the lesson we’re taught, art is not competitive. I don’t read one book but hundreds in a year. I don’t want one essay in my life but thousands. That’s another way of saying there’s room for you and everyone else, including me.

 Fifthly, complain if you must, criticise, but no more than thirty per cent of the time. Anymore and I suspect a shutting-down spirit more than the collaborative.

 Sixth, though we have absorbed this lesson and it’s in the air and water here, money is not the greatest thing in the world. It is something else. What that something else is becomes entirely your own choice.