Ocean Vuong

Maybe it was just two years ago.

Maybe it was 10 years ago.

Maybe they were just seven or 20.

Go back, find that person and collaborate with that person.

Bring that person into the room.

Because often in our linear progress in professional life, we often think our older self is not smart enough, naive, leave them back there.

But bringing that person in the room and asking that person, how are you so strong?

How was that intention so powerful that you didn't even know how to get here?

You didn't know how to get to NYU, but you sent me.

You, my younger self, sent me here like that little pebble in the pond.

I am the ripple.

You are the pebble.

I'm the ripple that have come from you.

So I need you.

When I am inundated by the pressure, when I'm asking, why am I doing this?

What is it for?

What's the point?

Why am I in this rat race?

When I'm about to give up, when I'm fading, I need to bring... So I tell them, every time you write, every morning you wake up, bring that person, have them sit right now, because they know more than you do.

They got you here without even knowing what a professor is, without knowing what the New Yorker is, without knowing what a curriculum vitae is, right?