Brian Wiesner

Thanks to the power of this myth, many of us take the safe route in life. We become lawyers instead of actresses, bankers instead of poets, and doctors instead of painters. We hedge our bets and hide from our true calling, choosing less risky careers, because it seems easier. Nobody wants to struggle, after all, so we keep our passion a hobby and... See more

You must become so ruthless with your time that it borderline pisses people off. Otherwise, all you are is a people pleaser.

Good writing is about teaching.

Unless you’re writing a novel, good writing is about teaching. Most of my friends who make their living from writing wouldn’t necessarily consider themselves writers. Instead they are developers, freelancers, hobbyists, marketers, designers, and business owners.

They just realized they had valuable skills and started... See more

The convenience built into socialising in Spain makes it a low-effort ritual. It’s why the “living for the weekend” mindset doesn’t exist, and why the perennially semi-formal look of the average Spaniard makes it difficult to tell the day of the week by their clothes. Dressing correctly daily, they resist wardrobe categories such as weekday wear... See more

Rarely do we think of creatives as wealthy or successful, even cracking jokes about the wastefulness of art degrees and theater classes. We have heard how pursuing creativity is not a safe career move, whether that means chasing an interest in literature, music, or some other endeavor.

I think anemoia is partly why we’re seeing a rise in sales for flip phones in the United States, particularly among young people. I think that’s why Gen Z is moving away from dating apps

I was not able to find any other Western country that has the combination of long summer breaks, no mandated paid vacation time, minimal subsidized options, and a dominant cultural belief that kids need constant supervision, especially in public places. Clearly articulating all of these factors really helps me understand how we find ourselves in... See more

language models are not intelligent in the ways that even small children are intelligent, but they are already superhuman at tasks like summarization, translation (both linguistic and conceptual), and association. And when you apply those skills to artfully curated source material written by equally, but differently, gifted humans, magic can... See more

That piece by Patrick Brown cites a whole bunch of data that questions the assumption that urban form necessarily leads to neighborliness. He writes, for example:

Small towns, lauded by Putnam for their high rates of civic engagement, often boast the kind of low-density development and heavy automobile reliance associated with the much-maligned

... See more