Alex Dobrenko

Just because somebody shouts loudly in your inbox does not mean that that they are entitled to be heard. Often, it is in fact a good indicator that they are not worth listening to.

When the planning fallacy meets the optimism bias — a surprisingly common occurrence — we wind up overpromising and underdelivering. We imagine best-case scenarios and overlook potential obstacles, leading us to believe we'll have more time than we actually do or that we’re capable of more than is possible. We set unrealistic expectations for... See more

Then along came Curt Herzstark, a young man who in the 1920s regularly traveled through the former Austrian Empire selling mechanical calculators to banks and other businesses. It was on these travels that he heard the same complaints from his customers.

“We do have the capacity to step out of past conditioning, but as anyone who has consciously attempted it can attest, it’s a difficult project. One of the reasons for this is that doing something truly new—actually moving off those habitual tracks—feels like some combination of weird, unfamiliar and wrong.

The trick is to learn to stay with the

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To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings.

When we think about these platforms at their best: they're about connection, meaning, friends, sparks of delight and provocations and resonance.