“The shortest distance between two people is a story.” ― Patti Digh

The disease of our times is that we live on the surface. We're like the Platte River, a mile wide and an inch deep. Real work and real satisfaction come from the opposite of what the web provides. They come from going deep into something - the book you're writing, the album, the movie -and staying there for a long, long time

— STRATSCRAPS v101

so tired of headline names. and before i hear “but that’s what gets people to click”, i don’t care. be authentic, be passionate, if you are just doing it for clicks, then i probably don’t want to read it anyway. /rant

“10 things…” sigh.
“5 things…” enough with the lists.
“82,327 things…” ridiculous.
“x that will blow your mind…” rarely.
“tried x and it’

I think “And what else?” is the best coaching question in the world. It does two things: It extends the period of curiosity, and it tames your advice monster.

“Your first draft isn’t an unoriginal idea expressed clearly; it’s an original idea expressed poorly, and it is accompanied by your amorphous dissatisfaction, your awareness of the distance between what it says and what you want it to say. That’s what directs you during rewriting, and that’s one of the things lacking when you start with text genera

Not only do we tend to rewrite our memories according to the narratives we believe in at the moment, we are also easily influenced by word choices e.g. using the phrase ‘a car that zoomed past’ versus ‘a car that drove past’ can cause us to believe different things.

Memory is less so a recording or a catalogue, but more like vapour.

Where have I seen this before?

"The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light."

- Nothing Personal, James Baldwin

Consumers are now increasingly segmented into semi-private digital spaces, whether unintentionally (via an algorithmic bubble) or intentionally (i.e., Discord, close friends stories, BeReal, etc.)

As a result, some brands are engaging with wildly varied audiences and subcultures to create mixtures of interests, values and identities that are totally