How To Enjoy The Process
Britt Gage and
How To Enjoy The Process
If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The show was successful because I micromanaged it—every word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting. That’s my way of life.
Daniel McGinn • Jerry Seinfeld: Comedian, Innovator, Micromanager
Once you choose a project, you are confined to a relatively narrow band of impact (
Figure 1
B); barring an unexpected surprise, the solution to a mediocre problem will have incremental impact, whereas solving an important problem will have greater impact. Even if you execute well, it is hard to make the solution to a middling problem interesting. In... See more
Figure 1
B); barring an unexpected surprise, the solution to a mediocre problem will have incremental impact, whereas solving an important problem will have greater impact. Even if you execute well, it is hard to make the solution to a middling problem interesting. In... See more
Problem choice and decision trees in science and engineering: Cell
This Maria Popova quote stopped me in my tracks:
The reason we’re so increasingly intolerant of long articles and why we skim them, why we skip forward even in a short video that reduces a 300-page book into a three-minute animation — is that we’ve been infected with this kind of pathological impatience that makes us want to have the knowledge but... See more
The reason we’re so increasingly intolerant of long articles and why we skim them, why we skip forward even in a short video that reduces a 300-page book into a three-minute animation — is that we’ve been infected with this kind of pathological impatience that makes us want to have the knowledge but... See more
If not things like money, awards, honors, prizes, and medals—what should we strive for? “When we were writing Good Will Hunting ,” Matt Damon said, “Ben [Affleck] and I always talked about just wanting to love it. We would say, ‘If it’s just a tape on our mantel that no one ever watches, we want to love it.’ We kind of stumbled into a very wise... See more
Billy Oppenheimer • SIX at 6: Pacific Salmon, a Heartbreaking Thought, the .01%, the Pinnacle, the Nobel Prize, and the Work Itself
My entire philosophy of how I organize myself as a working painter can be summed up by something George Carlin said: “Just keep movin’ straight ahead. Every now and then you find yourself in a different place.”
You hear a lot in art school about how painters must continue to “grow” and “evolve”—but I think those are such bullshit words. There is... See more
You hear a lot in art school about how painters must continue to “grow” and “evolve”—but I think those are such bullshit words. There is... See more
Kieran O‘Hare • Following the ‘White-hot Fire Inside of You’
The art in “sheer persistence”
I wish when I was at my previous startups I had focused more on building and less on winning. Sure, I may not have done exactly what I had thought I wanted, but finding ways to love the process would’ve allowed for better outcomes anyway. What we want is such an abstract idea, built on a foundation of shifting sand, that it is pointless to try to... See more
Evan Armstrong • The Futility of Utility
“It’s the everlasting switching that’s the dangerous thing, not what they choose — while others actually build a life in which things gain meaning and significance, this is not true for the restless.” writes Sheila Heti in How should a person be. She continues with “The antidote — to build on things they have begun and not abandon their plans as... See more