That day, in the lecture hall, none of us were serious. We were all doing a little pantomime on the theme of science. The speaker pretended to show us some results and the we pretended to think about them. As long as we all hit our marks and said our lines, the content didn’t matter—one week you’re doing “Guys and Dolls” and the next week you’re... See more

Some people don’t feel like journals require them to lie, and good for them, but some people seem to excuse their dishonesty by saying, “Well, it’s fine to lie sometimes because you only ever get, like, 72% of what you want in life, maximum.” No, when you’re serious about something, you get 100% of it, even if it means getting less of something... See more

Meanwhile, some of the most serious people I know do their serious thing gratis and make their loot somewhere else. My dad, whose photographs sit at the top of every Experimental History post, quit his job at the newspaper and went to work as a postal carrier instead. Why? As he puts it: “I could afford better lenses delivering mail than I could... See more

whenever I encounter someone who has endless explanations about why they have to compromise on their values, I know they’re not serious, because they have no answer for, “What’s the tiniest change you’re willing to make right now, today, and that you can make slightly larger tomorrow?”

So seriousness isn’t some kind of final reward, a golden watch you earn for a lifetime of operating in bad faith. It is, instead, one of those basic practices you gotta do to prevent your life from disintegrating, like getting out of bed and taking a shower and talking to people. That’s because seriousness is the great Orderer of Priorities, and... See more

Meanwhile, some of the most serious people I know do their serious thing gratis and make their loot somewhere else. My dad, whose photographs sit at the top of every Experimental History post, quit his job at the newspaper and went to work as a postal carrier instead. Why? As he puts it: “I could afford better lenses delivering mail than I could... See more

I had plotted and schemed and sweated to build the world’s best resume, hoping that someone would eventually give me permission to be serious, to start doing things that are good instead of things that look good. Instead, I got permission to go work for the company that does personal branding for dictators.

Meanwhile, some of the most serious people I know do their serious thing gratis and make their loot somewhere else. My dad, whose photographs sit at the top of every Experimental History post, quit his job at the newspaper and went to work as a postal carrier instead. Why? As he puts it: “I could afford better lenses delivering mail than I could... See more

Yes, of course! But the whole point of tradeoffs is to trade something you value less for something you value more . The thing you care about the most—that’s the thing you don’t compromise on!