The old-school arcade games were light on plot compared to the home console games of today.

Mostly, as you progressed in a game, the bad guys did the same basic thing, but faster or more. There were more bullets, more aliens, or the ghosts were more bloodthirsty. The blocks fell at an unmanageable pace.

This is a convenient way to make the most of the available RAM. It's also not so different from real life. We do tend to confront the same problems and challenges over and over, but at a higher difficulty setting each time.

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My brother, otherwise normal, runs ultramarathons.

The thing about ultramarathons is that they are so darn long that you better really enjoy running if you run one. It’s the quintessential experience of learning to enjoy the journey—or at least, to stay focused on the process instead of the outcome.

Even though ultra runners push themselves to finish, they'll never make it if they’re focused on the end of the race. They have to be focused on each step, each breath. Take enough steps and enough breaths, and you'll get to the finish line.

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It's taken some time, but I finally understand that the act of knitting is only part of the process of knitting.

It's possible to spend dozens of hours knitting a sweater only to find that it is about five sizes too big (it's happened to me). If you want to avoid that, you swatch.

A swatch is an opportunity to see how a given stitch pattern is going to look in a given yarn, using a given needle size. You can sometimes get away with skipping this process if you are knitting a scarf or something where the size doesn't really matter, but that's short-sighted.

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When I’m working on a particularly challenging project, I keep a document open to capture thoughts along the way. Below is an excerpt, embellished and expanded a bit — but entirely real.

***

Okay! I’ve set aside the time to write. Here we go.

Whereas I thought last summer that I needed to get my makeup and lighting right and just start shooting, I now realize that I have to start with a script. So here I am, blinking cursor in front of me.

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When faced with an overwhelming mess — I have one in my living room right now, the result of literally emptying the contents of a pickup truck, including a table saw, onto the floor — it is sometimes reasonable to take drastic measures. Let’s shove it all into a closet or call the junk people to haul it all away.

And when the mess is more of an intangible one — a broken process, a difficult relationship, a cluttered schedule — we likewise might seek ways to metaphorically shove it in a closet or send it to the dump.

But sometimes, the elements are too valuable to discard. We must salvage what we can. In these cases, we have to use a more deliberate process. At the very moment when we most want to rush and just be done with the whole thing, we have to slow down and be present. When we do, we might discover a much more satisfying experience and outcome.

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