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Many good ideas look bad at first. To increase the rate at which you understand the context, you want to develop a certain detachment. When the context thrashes one of your ideas, you want to say, “Oh, that’s interesting.” It takes practice. But it is worth getting better at. Reality is shy—it only reveals itself to those who, like honest scientist... See more

You observe the context (when applying to university, trying to figure out what my career should be, this would have meant, among other things, observing what kind of tasks I liked doing again and again and again; what kind of people I want to surround myself with; how the job market looks; and what I am interested in).

Two things happened for me over the holidays five years ago: I went to rehab, and I acquired a cyberstalker. These were not entirely independent events.

The new knowledge system will be built on these human values. Technology will be forced to serve it—or it will get locked into a losing battle with the new “softer and gentler” knowledge system.

If you cycle through this feedback loop ferociously for ten years, you will end up with a well-designed life. It will not look like you imagined it would. It will have unfolded around you, and you will struggle to wrap your head around how you ended up where you did.

we’re always told to list what we want — but often, what we don’t want is easier to access. make a running list of things you know drain you: obligations, environments, people, aesthetics, even clothes. do it without guilt or justification. over time, this list becomes a protective field. it shows you what you’re allowed to outgrow, and what no lon... See more

Most of the time, I am only loosely connected with my deeper values and so can’t assign things their proper place. I lose myself in whatever comes my way.

Johanna often asks me a question that helps when I’m lost like this. She says, quite simply, “What is the problem you should be working on now?”

It sounds too simple to work. But when I’m in my office and ask myself the question, I nearly always realize I’m working on the wrong thing. And if I ask it again half an hour later, guess if I haven’t drif... See more

The opposite of an unfolding is a vision. A vision springs, not from a careful understanding of a context, but from a fantasy: if you could just make it into another context your problems will go away.2