favourite questions

you should collect whatever you fancy. And some things are obvious: images, quotes, facts. But there are non-obvious things that will come in handy one day. Analogies, metaphors, ideas, models, assumptions, habits, patterns, vibes, objects that express ideas, images that evoke occasions, things you don’t understand yet but that you feel will mean

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Often, there’s a desire to cling onto how we thought life should go, sometimes until it outweighs the reality of how it is going — what makes us happy, versus what we feel should; what is truly stimulating or fulfilling, versus what we’ve been told should be chased and sacrificed for. A question I ponder is: How do we untether ourselves from the... See more

“Why is this so hard? Because you’re utterly habituated to steady progress—to completing things, to producing, to solving. When progress is subtle or slow, when there’s no clear way to proceed, you flinch away. You redirect your attention to something safer, to something you  can  do. You jump to implementation prematurely; you feel a compulsion

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Years may pass before you feel like you’re onto something, and this process will likely involve plugging your ears to the siren song of trends until you realize you actually have the same sensibility you had as a kid, it’s just grown up now. I like the word sensibility, I’ve started using it instead of taste when I’m trying to tap into something... See more

The question isn’t how do you balance work and life, but how do you create a healthy relationship among work and the various other important areas of life?

To return to information overload: this means treating your "to read" pile like a river (a stream that flows past you, and from which you pluck a few choice items, here and there) instead of a bucket (which demands that you empty it). After all, you presumably don't feel overwhelmed by all the unread books in the British Library – and not because... See more