Creation is about memory, concerns memory, gives and takes it. You don't have to be a memory champ; I'm not saying if it fails to last a century, it isn't art. But to create something, you have to remember you want to create it; remember what you want to create; remember what it is you've been creating and where and with which tools and pieces, long enough to actually create it, finish it, and share it. You do this because a thing made is a deeper memory, a future memory much deeper than the thing only considered. Our physical world has prints (leaves prints on surfaces) and is made of imprints, is possibly itself 1 momentous eidetic skyscraper, and what we create is our influence on traces.

I find one of the easiest ways out of polarized thinking is not to think in terms of "both sides." To be fair, there's nothing at all wrong—whatever people tell you—with scanning a POV that you find deeply faulty as if there might be something to it. There is something to it, no matter how wrong it may be in sum. Always. (I'm fully confident I can convince you of that, but it's another story.)

"One of the easiest ways," I said. There are others. But the fastest trick I know is to recognize that there are more than two sides to every story. If you're caught in the "A versus B and who is right" trap, find the door. Turn on the light, fumble in the dark if you have to. Get your hand on the door handle and turn.

To be blunt, it ain't A versus B. Those are two angles. We've counted to two. Find a few more, and nine of ten times you'll have left a false dilemma; you'll realize with some relief (and hopefully not too much embarrassment) how trapped you were by your own POV, even if it did happen to be "more right" than "the other" (ie, whatever other POV you felt confronted by).

We learn to count to ten before responding when angry, but we should also count to ten POVs before we suspect we've found a clear view of a scenario. This of course does not apply to an emergency that relies on split-second timing. But if you've got time to talk, and next week is about as good as this week, expand, expand, expand the horizon. Often you can do much of this yourself, simply by undermining your certainties, asking questions, seeking existing expertise, etc. But there's nothing quite like other people for catching oversights.

Decarbonization as an economic no-brainer may be good persuasion, but is that sell ultimately effective or even true? Anyone rational who can save mountains of money by polluting less—and better yet, without losing productivity or anything else—should want to sign up. But as we reflect on this, three colossal problems threaten to blow dragon breath on us - the hot kind.

First, can we claim, in all honesty, that decarbonization requires no sacrifice, additional hard work, or change in overall principles or approach?

Second, even if decarbonization usually could save money without major effort or sacrifice or change, what about when that falls through? What about when it costs more, takes more effort, requires major rethinking and retooling? Should we not, oh, I don't know, be prepared for that?

Third, and maybe most seriously, the purpose of focusing on decarbonization is helping populations prioritize a key crisis, not helping us all permanently forget that we're mired in dozens or even hundreds of ecological crises. Even if decarbonization were an economic no-brainer, where does that leave us regarding the other crises? Do we not need any plans for changes that aren't a budgetary delight?

The resistance of governments, businesses, and populations to the urgency of climate change has not, I think, stemmed from a long-term failure to recognize deep financial discounts and profits ripe for the picking. It has stemmed from the way this larger crisis reveals holes in economic—and arguably political—orthodoxy all around the world.

Listen, I'm not saying anything new. But why aren't many people saying it? Why is this still so far down the docket? It should be at or near the top. The news outlets should be helping drive constant, on-going public and legislative debate about the best options. These include, I would argue, more direct democracy, countermeasures against factions and polarization, upgraded education for all in debate skills and mental health, economic policies that focus on collaboration and legacy and beautifying the biosphere more than on toxic competitiveness, carbon and other resource taxes, efficiently measuring and raising health and quality of life across the global population, and so on.

Accountability is critical in human life, but too often when people call for it, they mean "I want to be allowed to be as mean as I want to this person because ABCD." Actually, accountability is simpler than "consequences." It means that whatever you do, that's what you did. Lie all you want, perhaps, but you'll never overturn the fact. No way out of it. Even if you aren't admitting something (would you admit to attending a synagogue in Nazi Germany, to a Nazi at your door? they don't deserve that particular truth), you must admit it to yourself, or you let yourself down. That's the beginning of accountability, responsibility, morality, and understanding.

Usually, in speech, when not a cover for instincts toward revenge, "accountability" calls for open admission and submission to correction. It doesn't mean agreeing to anything and everything that's asked or demanded. If you're in a cast and I step on your foot in a crowd and hurt you, perhaps you think it's more than fair to stamp on my foot in turn. Perhaps that is fair, and perhaps that is not fair. But there's an enormous difference between my admitting to myself that I stepped on your foot, and my not admitting it to myself. And there's another enormous difference between my admitting to you that I stepped on your foot, and my not admitting it to you. There's yet a third enormous difference between my accepting the task of making it up to you or at least making sure it doesn't happen again, and my not accepting that task. And there's a fourth enormous difference between following through on that task enough to repair the situation and prevent any repeat, and not following through. All of these fall under "accountability." Revenge and punishment do not necessarily.

There's a trick you will often need when writing, or communicating in almost any format. Anything could be misunderstood, or at least not understood. At what point do you let go and allow that? When do you step back and trust your audience?

Sooner or later, you may have to—almost certainly will have to—say to yourself, "If someone doesn't understand this, are they actually experienced or alert enough to understand the overall point, or the rest? I am writing for—talking to—someone with humanity's deep intelligence. That person will understand without my clarifying this detail, which would be a mistake and bog down the piece. And if the person is smart enough to criticize me harshly for the 'error' of leaving in this possibility of misinterpretation, but not aware enough to realize why, and that they too know the meaning without unnecessary clarification, then maybe that person is not in my audience."

I forget which famous writer recommended writing for intelligent but not over-discerning readers.* Write for people who will understand, and help them. Don't write for people who will understand but vindictively pinion you because they imagine you ought to have been more precise here for the sake of propriety, or their personal tastes, or so on. In short, I wouldn't worry too much about readers who'll con themselves into feeling better about themselves by caviling the moments in your work when you trust the intelligence and open-mindedness of your audience.

Ideally, everyone will understand, but you can't expect it. Let a few people misunderstand if they will insist.

*(Ah, it was Friedrich Nietzsche, as I remembered the next time I went into the Scrivener settings, where his quotation stands as an example for trying out formatting options: "Good writers have two things in common: they prefer to be understood rather than admired; and they do not write for knowing and over-acute readers.")

(By knowing and over-acute, I think he means they know what you're saying, but they want to roast you for a lacuna or solecism.)

I love dialogue and complex stories, but I've been noticing most authors make what I consider basic mistakes by trying to jam too much into dialogue. This takes two most common forms.

In one form, they're so eager to "show, don't tell" that they insert background facts into dialogue that simply wouldn't be spoken. (Or, worse, they tend in this direction enough that a reader begins to hear every spoken factoid with suspicion.) They're afraid to say anything in the narration. They want everything spoken, even if it sounds unnatural and clunky. Let the narrator tell me it's the third bomb threat this week. When two people standing next to each other for all three threats exchange "That's the third bomb threat in one week!" it almost doesn't matter anymore whether it's realistic. It already sounds like bad exposition. There's no shame in narrating the awkward corners of dialogue if they probably wouldn't be said out loud in that moment.

In the other form, writers make the same kind of mistake with dialogue tags and interstitial action. They're again too eager to "show, don't tell." The author is so afraid to directly address how a character seems to another that everyone's constantly blanching, stammering, gawking, blushing, etc. In real life, most people rarely stammer, and when they do, it might mean nothing or not at all what you would suspect. Fiction gives us this illusion that involuntary activity is obvious, stereotypical, and reliable. Often it's none of those things, though it's always interesting.

"Show, don't tell" is great advice, but it isn't a hard and fast rule like "never drive head-on into an approaching truck." These errors I mention are hardly gigantic, but they'll break the spell, and then the writer and reader have to start over and cast it again together. Fortunately, this is avoidable.