when i grow up i want to write a to do list - by jess

title of this essay is pulled from chen chen’s poetry collection, when i grow up i want to be a list of further possibilities Hey — I went to an amateur lecture series that Sheila Heti started many years ago and this guy talked about Wu Wei, which I didn’t know much about, and which the lecturer also didn’t know much about, but on purpose. He took out his digital camera and asked everyone to make the sound of an animal (a special kind of animal, like the animal you wanted to be, or were in another life, or the animal you’d see right before you die, something like that) for his video, and everyone did it very earnestly. He talked about the irresistible pull of walking past a bookstore twice. He wore sunglasses and everyone coveted them. He read from a folded piece of paper everyone thought was blank. dessin is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Upgrade to paid At the center of his lecture was pre-existin

title of this essay is pulled from chen chen’s poetry collection, when i grow up i want to be a list of further possibilities Hey — I went to an amateur lecture series that Sheila Heti started many years ago and this guy talked about Wu Wei, which I didn’t know much about, and which the lecturer also didn’t know much about, but on purpose. He took out his digital camera and asked everyone to make the sound of an animal (a special kind of animal, like the animal you wanted to be, or were in another life, or the animal you’d see right before you die, something like that) for his video, and every