Getting to Gnome Mode

The only way out from this rat race I can see is to re-create a safe space. When you are no longer consumed by the worry that is career sustenance and growth, at least a subset of folks might choose to work on what they think is important. Signalling will never fully die of course, but perhaps we can dampen it.

Its not a pure argument to reduce the ... See more

You might wake up in the morning with your psyche firmly on the bottom of the tower, feeling like a lone individual. You head to work, where you brainstorm a project with five other people, becoming part of a six-person thinking machine. After work you join a political protest outside, losing your sense of self in the exhilaration of being a tiny p

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the principles of efficiency and speed and optimization and profitability, recurring themes here of late, increasingly dictate how we act and interact in many if not most of the social spaces we inhabit. Thoughtless automaticity, which demoralizes all parties, becomes our default mode

Described elsewhere as a “full-on rejection of self-betterment”, goblin mode is the antithesis of being “that-girl” who embodies productivity, wellness and aesthetic perfection. It is an unapologetic unleashing of the creature within, and a complete lack of aesthetic.