My family and I visited the Charles M. Schulz Museum up in wine country the other weekend. What began as an unassuming detour — to the “Snoopy Museum,” as we called it — left me unexpectedly moved and deeply inspired.

A person who is able to contribute something to the world is a fortunate person, and each of us should be able at least to ‘brighten the corner’ where we are.

— Charles M. Schulz

For nearly fifty years, the enormous cultural phenomenon of Peanuts essentially came from one person’s hand and mind. From his little corner of Northern California, Schulz reached the whole world.

His was a creative life built through practice, repetition, and constraint. He said, “Sitting down in the same place each day turns on the creativity.” Find a constraint deep enough, and you can spend a lifetime discovering what’s inside it.