If Experience Is the Goal, Then You Always Win
The essay explores the idea that viewing experience as the ultimate goal liberates you from the fear of failure and enables constant reinvention. It draws on Miles Davis's anti-nostalgic approach to music, Lichtenberg's 'waste books' as a metaphor for creative process, and Cate Hall's concept of agency as opportunism. The author reflects on their own shift from personal writing to collaborative projects, emphasizing that waste and experimentation cultivate the mind itself.
Being an artist was not about finding a sound and staying with it…it was about listening for the next sound.
- wxw
> More broadly I’ve observed that as you grow older and gain experience in any domain, you’re rewarded for staying in your circle of competence and deepening the gyre. You don’t charm anyone by constant pivots, lest you seem unserious, un-devoted.
Yea I feel that.
Really enjoyed this essay. I feel like “you can just do things” is so true yet has been twisted into a hustle-culture/opportunity-vulture phrase, and this piece is a much healthier way to view agency.
- acidhousemcnab
Yes, I prescribe to this, but if you've experienced technologically-augmented attempts at "suiciding", sustained Zersetzung, and a peculiar British invention which is to be "Black-Mirrored", after whistleblowing, then it must be balanced with PTSD, trying not to become an alcoholic, and still trying to sound the alarm about the hell world which exists, is growing, and soon to take over fully.
- lnenad
It's a great mindset to have, *if* you're able to control your emotions.