Agency
Everything in our world is there because someone decided it needed to exist. We all have things we know need to exist. What stops us from making them exist?
Agency
This is one of the greatest displays of the creative process I’ve seen.
It perfectly illustrates something many of my favorite artists have described.
When you go to the studio, Mayer was asked, what do you do to generate ideas?
“Well, I don’t always do it,” he... See more
Billy Oppenheimerx.comCreativity demands agency
Agency is the capacity to act. Gaining agency is gaining the capacity to do something different from the rigid path of events that simply happen to you. Remarkable people typically go off-script early, usually in more than one way. Carnegie becoming a telegraph message boy is one opportunity; asking how to operate the telegraph is another. He was
... See moreSimon Sarris • School Is Not Enough
Ask culture and guess culture are vastly different in behavior and expectations. Here are some highlights:
Ask culture expectations
Ask culture expectations
- Ask for what you want, even if it seems out of reach or like a big unreasonable request
- Take care of your own needs, and others will take care of theirs
- It’s fine to make requests that people will probably say no to
- People
Jean Hsu • Ask vs Guess Culture
There's obviously a balance to be had here. But it you want to accomplish things that are hard, you should lean towards ask.
Why is this?
Hard things require overcoming a lot of obstacles. It requires diligence and time. If you're going to hear a lot of no’s, it's better to hear them upfront than hope there's a yes lurking around the corner. There usually isn't.
Discipline is fighting yourself.
Wasted energy. Wasted creativity.
Put that instead into figuring out what you actually most want.
Solve problems in doing what you want with reason, not force.
Lulietwitter.comIt's easier to give/apply advice to a thing that exists
2020 Letter to Shareholders
aboutamazon.com
To go with the flow is to seek equilibrium.
Excerpt from a remarkable final shareholder letter:
“Staving off death is a thing that you have to work at. Left to itself – and that is what it is when it dies – the body tends to revert to a state of equilibrium with its environment. If you measure some quantity such as the temperature, the acidity, the water content or the electrical potential in a living body, you will typically find that it is markedly different from the corresponding measure in the surroundings. Our bodies, for instance, are usually hotter than our surroundings, and in cold climates they have to work hard to maintain the differential. When we die the work stops, the temperature differential starts to disappear, and we end up the same temperature as our surroundings.”
It's tempting, sometimes, to idealize the trope of the "lazy genius."
I decline to do so. There is a great deal of tedious maintenance work someone needs to do to keep the world running, and an inability to consistently do so is not praiseworthy.
Some smart, low-conscientiousness people... See more
TracingWoodgrainstwitter.comWell written thread on discipline / tenacity / sticktoitiveness
Related to this, I’ve been thinking a lot about obsession, relentlessness, and near-unachievable goals. What makes someone able to reach heights others view as impossible? What makes some better suited for pursuits involving a singular focus?
The answer seems to be: a capacity for intensity. Intensity is a derivative of focus. The word intense is
... See more