The Vs. Studio Blog

“More weight.” -Giles Corey from Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

Are you just too old or too young to carry?
Time stands in a duel and I stand for you
Are you just too old or too young to carry?
Time stands in a duel and I stand for you

Now lean and use your weight
That’s what a shoulder’s made for -lyrics from the song “Time Stands” by Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats

“I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.” -Atlas responding to Zeus

Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time
Boy, you’re gonna carry that weight
Carry that weight a long time -lyrics from the song “Carry That Weight” by The Beatles

When you get weighed down by life, sometimes all you can do is just carry that weight. Day by day. One day at a time. Carry that weight.

And if you’re fortunate not to be bogged down by the weight of life, then look around and see who is. And offer to help them carry that weight.

“Outcomes follow energy.” -Sahil Bloom

Looking for a simple, yet extremely fulfilling goal for 2026?…

Spend more time doing things you like and hanging out with people you like.

If you don’t know who and what those things are, then spend time each day figuring it out. Your energy level and feelings will be your guide.

P.S. – This energy tracking calendar.

When things are rocky and you’re going through a very uncertain time, it’s tempting to search desperately for certainty. And the more you try, the more it eludes your grasp and the more upset you get.

Instead, try flowing with uncertainty.

One day at a time my friend.

“Optimism is the belief that the future will be better, hope is the belief that we have the power to make it so.” -Chad Hellman

“To cultivate hope, people need three things: They first need to be able to envision a better future, either personally or collectively. Second, they need the willpower or motivation to move toward that future. And third, they must be able to chart a path from where they are to where they want to be.”

“It is hope that gives life meaning. And hope is based on the prospect of being able one day to turn the actual world into a possible one that looks better.” -Francois Jacob

“Hope” is the thing with feathers
by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

Wanna cultivate more hope?

First, believe you can make a difference in the world. Then, take continuous action to support and substantiate that belief.

Hope leads to action which leads to progress which leads to more hope. It’s a beautiful, virtuous cycle.

P.S. – This NYT article on Hope.

“Only the unsatisfied do things. The satisfied do nothing. Unsatisfaction is the stimulus to achievement. Satisfaction is destruction and leads down to the chamber of death.” -Jack London

if you’re feeling unsatisfied, but you actually do something productive with that feeling, then it’s a gift.

If you’re feeling unsatisfied, but you do nothing with that feeling other than whine and complain about it, then it’s still a gift. You just chose not to accept the gift.

Do something. Anything. Make it happen. This is the year.

Go make your art.

“Success is peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you’re capable.” -John Wooden

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” -John 14:27

“The ultimate source of my mental happiness is my peace of mind. Nothing can destroy this except my own anger.” -Dalia Lhama

Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure?
Must you value what others value,
avoid what others avoid?
How ridiculous! –Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)

“After enlightenment one is still the same as one was before. One is simply free from unreality and delusion. The ordinary person’s mind is the same as the sage’s, because Original Mind is perfect and complete in itself. After you have had this recognition, please don’t lose it.” -Pai Chang

If you’re trying to cut through all the numerous hopes and dreams and resolutions you might have and just come up with one single goal for 2026, then here’s one for you:

Peace of mind.

What’s great about this one is that it’s not dependent on circumstance or things going your way.

It’s entirely within your control. You can have it anytime.

And when you do, you wouldn’t trade it for anything else in the world.

P.S. – This song.

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response…Everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” -Viktor Frankl

There is a Buddhist proverb that goes something like this:

The Buddha once asked his student, “If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?”

The student nodded, yes.

The Buddha then asked, “If a person is struck by a second arrow, is that even more painful?”

The student again nodded, yes.

The Buddha then explained, “In life, we cannot always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. The second arrow is optional.”

The first arrow is impossible to avoid. As long as we’re alive and walking this earth, we can expect some pain and suffering to enter our lives. Some arrows will come our way and pierce us and it will f-ing hurt.

The second arrow, however is entirely up to us. It reflects our beliefs and thoughts about the injury. We believe we didn’t deserve it. We wish we didn’t get struck by it. We wonder why it ever happened in the first place. We fear another arrow will come our way.

Don’t compound the first arrow with a second arrow. Instead, take a pause, reset and then when you’re ready, choose an empowered response. Lean into your resiliency. You will overcome this arrow and come out that much stronger.

That’s a wrap on 2025 folks. Thank you for reading, for commenting and for sharing. I hope this blog has brought you a little bit of joy and inspiration on your artistic and overall journey through life. May 2026 bring you much love, good health, happiness and creative fulfillment. I’m rooting for you!

Go make your art.

“Every memorable act in the history of the world is a triumph of enthusiasm. Nothing great was ever achieved without it because it gives any challenge or any occupation, no matter how frightening or difficult, a new meaning. Without enthusiasm, I am doomed to a life of mediocrity but with it I can accomplish miracles…Enthusiasm, the love for whatever it is I am doing at the moment, works in marvelous ways I ned not even understand but I do know that it will give additional vitality to my muscles and my mind.” -Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman In The World, Part 2

“If you don’t do the work when you don’t want to, you’re not going to be able to do the work when you do want to. End of story.” -Twyla Tharp

“Stop using motivation as your only fuel, It’s a short-term fuel source. That’s why the vast majority of people who start anything—diet, fitness, new projects—don’t finish. They run out of gas. The only lasting fuel is routine. And you only get a routine by dragging yourself on the days when you have no motivation. Over and over. I know that’s not the answer anyone wants. I wish I had a magic pill for you. But the only thing that works long term is showing up for yourself even when you don’t want to.” -Arnold Schwarzenegger

No doubt enthusiasm is a powerful fuel. But what to do when it runs low or completely out?

Enter…Discipline.

It’s the fuel source that never runs out. That isn’t dependent on feeling or emotion. It runs solely on commitment. The commitment that you made to yourself and the goal you want to achieve.

But to access and harness this limitless fuel source, you do need to show up and ask for it. Day after day. Especially on the days you don’t feel like it.

“You’re welcome to spend your day with your face buried in your phone. Just don’t expect to also create interesting and meaningful things with that day. Expecting tech companies to quit distracting you is like expecting a dragon to quit spitting fire. That’s what dragons do. Your job is to figure out how to slay the dragon.

Of course it’s hard to turn off your phone for an hour. It’s also hard to start working out, to learn how to cook your own meals, to go on a first date with someone who nmmmakes your heart flutter. Everything worthwhile is hard, at first.” -Paul Shirley

Two questions to ask yourself before giving your attention (your most precious asset) away for free (e.g. picking up your phone, reading a news article, looking at social media post, etc.):

(1) How will this help me make the change I want to make in the world?

(2) How will this make me feel?

Be intentional with your attention.

(If you don’t know the answer to either or both of the above questions, then perhaps you need to spend quality time figuring those out.)

“I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” -from Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

“The quality of your life is a direct reflection of the quality of the questions you are asking yourself.” -Tony Robbins

Answers are boring. Questions are potent.

If you want a better outcome, then ask a better question.

I came across this excellent NYT article which discussed Amanda Seyfried’s new film and how much she loves Donna Tartt’s novel “The Goldfinch.” So much so, she has the last page framed in her house. Here’s that page:

… the space where I exist, and want to keep existing, and to be quite frank I hope I die in, is exactly this middle distance: where despair struck pure otherness and created something sublime.

Whatever teaches us to talk to ourselves is important: whatever teaches us to sing ourselves out of despair. But the painting has also taught me that we can speak to each other across time. And I feel I have something very serious and urgent to say to you, my nonexistent reader, and I feel I should say it as urgently as if I were standing in the room with you. That life — whatever else it is — is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random. That Nature (meaning Death) always wins but that doesn’t mean we have to bow and grovel to it. That maybe even if we’re not always so glad to be here, it’s our task to immerse ourselves anyway: wade straight through it, right through the cesspool, while keeping eyes and hearts open. And in the midst of our dying, as we rise from the organic and sink back ignominiously into the organic, it is a glory and a privilege to love what Death doesn’t touch. For if disaster and oblivion have followed this painting down through time — so too has love. Insofar as it is immortal (and it is) I have a small, bright, immutable part in that immortality. It exists; and it keeps on existing. And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand-to-hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next.