curating obscure social medias

To be transformed by a book, readers must do more than absorb information: they must bathe in the book’s ideas, relate those ideas to experiences in their lives over weeks and months, try on the book’s mental models like a new hat. Unfortunately, readers must drive that process for themselves. Authors can’t easily guide this ongoing sense-making:... See more

It seems that most people can remember only a few high-level details of a book weeks later—if that. A typical reader might spend hours finishing some serious non-fiction—then maybe it comes up at a dinner party, and they find you can remember like three sentences. Basically no detailed recall.

Sharing the books you read with others can be an intimate invitation into your brain — what you are drawn to, what you think about, and the life experiences that shaped those interests and thoughts. Even a book chosen based solemnly on aesthetics or its cultural context is still a choice that says something about its owner, or at the very least,... See more

When you choose whom to follow on Twitter, you’re choosing what types of mindsets and aesthetics to expose yourself to on a regular basis. You’re choosing what types of conversations to have. You’re choosing to be reminded regularly of certain things, and not of others. This is a kind of Programmable attention.