On my landing page is a link to the greatest thing I followed last year: Robin Sloan's workspace for 2019, Year of the Meteor. Once a week his newsletter arrived, usually on the early afternoon of a lazy East Coast Sunday, perfectly timed to follow his sage advice to "always click the links." You never knew what would appear, but at a minimum you would tumble into a universe of brilliant, unexpected, and even-just-weird links for a while. Sadly, “The Year of the Meteor” was just that — unexpected, brilliant, and too brief. (The site may be live through January, 2020, but will then be archived. For what it’s worth, it would win the Pulitzer for 2019 if I was Awards Dictator.)

In case you missed it, I’m hoping you go spend some time looking through it and that it offers you something you may not realize you need – a brilliantly curated guide through a Museum of Curiosity for an hour or two.

For me, Sloan's guide was among the most generous artistic things I stumbled on in a long time. I'm not sure how to properly thank him. (One small way would be to send one of his books to someone who emails or texts me at 917-838-0966. No. Really. Please send me a note and I’ll send you a book.)

Receiving Robin's newsletter became the highlight of my week and I'm incredibly thankful for the paths it opened. In one issue, a quote that stood out was, "whatever weird thing you imagine, whatever you want to create, there are people ready to receive it.”

I love how he seamlessly transitioned into discussing the difference between creating for yourself and reaching others. The point seemed to be to try to understand what you hope for out of the making. And an acknowledgment that there is a great distinction between the making and sharing of things.

It made me think of two questions that I wrote down, carried around, and which offered some clarity:

What do I really want?

and

What do I really need?

And for something far more helpful than those two questions, go read Heather Havrilesky's latest book on a similar idea: enough.

I found her latest collection via Austin Kleon and it may have been the book of the year for me. (If you're more of a watch than read person, here she is talking with PBS about it.)

One small wonderful piece of advice she offered seems to echo Sloan’s — try to to look at your path, and the way you might get to you purpose or goals, differently. And begin doing it as soon as you can.

Just start. Create something that YOU wish existed. Then, as Sloan puts it, “do not doubt the number and quality of extremely cool people in the world.”

Try to believe that some of them — even just a few who are cool just like you — will find it.

Which is exactly what he did with his newsletter. He packed it with rabbitholes that readers could lose themselves down. He showed us the secret passages. And he welcomed us into his world with open arms, kindness, and joy.

It was fifty-two weeks of presents. And now that it’s over, the most important gift remains. A reminder that life is messy, strange, brilliant and ends far too soon. Remember to “always click the links.”