The Atlantic: moving through the world at once effortlessly and effectively
“Trying hasn’t gone out of style. It was never in style. Cool is in style, and cool means moving through the world at once effortlessly and effectively.
Woven into most of our natures is a cumbersome desire to be accepted and liked. At odds with that is the equally natural tendency to be turned off by people who wear that desire on their sleeves. If you, like me, essentially reek of effort in all that you do, such that people can sense it blocks away, and it makes you unattractive socially and intellectually, and it makes babies cry, can you practice and learn to cultivate a genuinely spontaneous approach to life? Is it possible to be deliberately less deliberate?”
James Hamblin, “How Not to Try,” The Atlantic, March 21st 2014.