1. Fragmentary style of writing for different purposes:

Pascal to underscore that total and complete knowledge is God’s alone.

Nietzsche to underscore human perspectivalism.

Others to emulate the ancients (or rather their surviving linguistic ruins.)

Kabballah to emphasize the task of the righteous to collect and reassemble these fragments of God.

2. Ma... See more

I never start a new project without "building blocks."

The first thing I do when I sit down to work is looking for what I already have that can help me complete my project. This might be research, meeting notes, a voice recording of a call, screenshots, templates, quotes...you get the point.

There's always something I can use.

So here's my challenge f... See more

Whenever I'm ready to write a new article, I open my phone and spend a few hours walking around town while capturing random ideas in my notes app until I have so many ideas that the first draft feels easy.

David Perell 12.20.2021

They focus less on consuming as much information as possible and more on cultivating the deepest possible understanding of the ideas that resonate with them most.

David Perell 5.2022

I don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions. —Lucille Clifton

Write a few words at a time. Write. One sentence. A few lines at a red light. For real. A page when the kids are at school. A page on lunch break. That's all it takes. Poetry happens in the seams of life.

@SeanLemonhead 11.19.2022

a form I turn to from time to time: a loosely structured list of associated thoughts and reflections. I’m glad this approach has resonated in the past, and I hope it does so again. I’m drawn to it, I think, because it reflects the provisional and associative nature of thinking. It also reflects the way fragments of thought, often surfaced from anot... See more

As he researched, he copied out quotations from this host of writers and thinkers in addition to his own observations and notes, that he then fit under konvoluts (literally sheaths, or “bundles”) — fashion, idleness, iron construction, museum, mirrors — that reflected the cultural structures of the time. ... It was essentially a card catalog; a dat... See more

here are some of the ideas and concepts I’ve found most inspiring this year.