A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor (The Carls, #2)

by Hank Green

“I can smell that kind of ambition. It’s not about making the world better, it’s about using marvelous potential and intelligence to . . .” She paused to think. “To feel like they matter. I won’t work with people like that, because if they don’t think they matter despite being some of the most successful, important, influential people on earth, what must they think of the rest of us?”

“You are a story that you tell yourself, and even if it is not always accurate, it is who you are, and that is very important to you.

Slowly, I said, “What gives you that right?” Carl responded immediately, their amber eyes hard but sad. “Only that I have the ability.” “What?” I had been expecting Carl to defend themself. “Power is just a lack of constraint.”

But I think there’s something inside of us, something at the seed level, something that blooms in us in adolescence and never leaves . . . and it’s just . . . want. Some people have more of it than others, but I think we all have it. And the most amazing tool that I think anyone in the world can have is the ability to control and direct that want. Some people work to minimize it with mindfulness and meditation; some people let it grow and run free and take over their lives. But some people, and I consider myself one of them, study their want, refine it, and build an engine that burns it.

You will always struggle with not feeling productive until you accept that your own joy can be something you produce. It is not the only thing you will make, nor should it be, but it is something valuable and beautiful.