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Tag: Readwise

Today’s Thought: Power of Anger

Craig Cheslog Craig Cheslog
September 3, 2022
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Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection is a reflection on the power of anger when properly used from The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

Molly Knight is hosting a book club for subscribers to her The Long Game Substack about the book. I may have subscribed for her baseball writing, but I am really enjoying this extra perk. Molly is likely to do this again in the future, so that’s another great reason to subscribe and support her work.

“Anger is meant to be listened to. Anger is a voice, a shout, a plea, a demand. Anger is meant to be respected. Why? Because anger is a map. Anger shows us what our boundaries are. Anger shows us where we want to go. It lets us see where we’ve been and lets us know when we haven’t liked it. Anger points the way, not just the finger. In the recovery of a blocked artist, anger is a sign of health.”

Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

Today’s Thought: Refrain from the Judgment of Others

Craig Cheslog Craig Cheslog
June 22, 2022
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Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection is from Amanda Knox’s Atlantic essay about how people continue to exploit for profit her identity and the lies told about her.

As someone who has been falsely accused, reading this impacted me in a significant way.

So now I also try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. We don’t know the whole story about any other person.

I know how it feels for a group of people to be wrong about me. That is a pain I don’t wish on others. So I work to refrain from the judgment of others. I don’t want to make that same mistake.

All of this has made me extremely skeptical of those who easily pass judgment. It has made me allergic to the impulse to flatten others into cardboard, to erase their human complexity, to rage against things about which I know only a snippet. Judgment only gets in the way of understanding. Refraining from judgment has become a way of life for me. Call it radical empathy, or extreme benefit of the doubt. I know how wrong people were about me, and I don’t ever want to be that wrong about another person. The world is not filled with monsters and heroes; it’s filled with people, and people are extraordinarily complex.

“My Identity Continues to Be Exploited,” by Amanda Knox in The Atlantic