Charlie Gedeon
@charliegedeon
Reflecting on how learning and creativity are shaped by technology and our interactions with it. Co-founder of Pragmatics Studio, a small digital design studio in Montreal.
charliegedeon.comCharlie Gedeon
If you’ve ever felt that you can’t focus on a task when you’re hungry — or that all you can think about is food — the neural evidence backs you up. Work from a few years ago confirmed that short-term hunger can change neural processing and bias our attention in ways that may help us find food faster.
quantamagazine.org • The Brain Has a ‘Low-Power Mode’ That Blunts Our Senses | Quanta Magazine
Anyhow, the older I get, the less impressed I become with originality. These days, I’m far more moved by authenticity. Attempts at originality can often feel forced and precious, but authenticity has quiet resonance that never fails to stir me.
Elizabeth Gilbert • Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
Template for helping onboard new team members. Helps discussing working conditions and culture.
If you're small, you're in a position where it's to your advantage to be weird—you can have a point of view that the big tech companies never could. In the world of chairs—you're not going to build a cheaper chair than Ikea. Why not build something they couldn't—like a more interesting one?
(Not Boring) Software Inc. • No More Boring Apps | (Not Boring) Software
Psychology was focused on measurable, outward behavior then. I thought to myself: That’s not what I want to understand about my thoughts. What I want to know is: Why do they come, where do they come from, and why do they persist even if they interfere with attention to the here and now?
Tim Vernimmen • The science of a wandering mind
Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.... See more
David Foster Wallace,
Nix 🕊 • carry yourself lightly
I'm not talking about anything as narrow as ambition. After all, ambition eventually wears out and probably should. But you can keep your zest until the day you die. If I may offer you a simple maxim, "Be interesting," Everyone wants to be interesting -- but the vitalizing thing is to be interested. Keep a sense of curiosity. Discover new things.... See more
pbs.org • John Gardner : Education and Excellence
“If a person does not even know when sunrise is, that tells me they don't go outside very often, if at all,” says Sutton. “That is a huge indicator of their level of disconnection from the natural world—of which we are a part as natural biological creatures—so, therefore, how disconnected they are from themselves.”
Anna Brones • What Time is the Sunrise?
From reading over 100 business books and running a startup for over a year, here's a 2-word summary of communication that might save you years of reading: Contrast, Potential.