Language and Thought

Looking at the connections between the language we use and the thoughts we have

We often think of language as a means to an end, but rarely take the time to consider whether language in itself is influencing our thoughts, not just enabling the sharing of them.

Steph Smith • Gaining Perspective Through Untranslatable Words

Does language influence our thoughts? How can we minimize (or maximize) that influence?

Finally, we must do away with far and away the largest occupation, the one with the longest hours, the lowest pay and some of the most tedious tasks around. I refer to housewives doing housework and child-rearing. By abolishing wage-labor and achieving full unemployment we undermine the sexual division of labor. The nuclear family as we know it is... See more

Bob Black • The Abolition of Work

Damn…

Curse of Knowledge : The inability to communicate your ideas because you wrongly assume others have the necessary background to understand what you’re talking about.

Morgan Housel • 100 Little Ideas

Learn to simplify if you want to connect.

Confidence is a necessary ingredient for success in any area of life. So is humility, but if you’re not careful, humility can morph into a kind of imposter syndrome that stops you in your tracks.

(Con)fidence Man

Humility in actions and language can lead to imposter syndrome in thoughts

Believing in magic can be an irresponsible thing to do if it leads you to disengage from your material responsibilities– but if you’re a responsible person trying to get meaningful work done, and there’s a real possibility that something wonderful could happen and make everything tremendously better, it’s worth making a little space for, isn’t it?

if i'm honest with myself

Be magical

Like most social and political theory, the story Hobbes and his successors told was really unacknowledged autobiography.

Bob Black • The Abolition of Work

It’s possible to paint an dishonest picture of reality without telling a single lie.

if i'm honest with myself

The difficulty of valuing information.

If you have an apple and I have an apple, and we exchange apples, then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea, and we exchange ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

George Bernard Shaw

Ideas are most valuable when shared (AND ACCEPTED) - Twitter bad example, because of the second part

Freelancing is one of the best ways to make money in a strong economy, but it’s also one of the quickest things to disappear when companies are cutting costs.

Paul Millerd • Designing Your Own Infinite Game In The Creator Economy - Boundless

This seems to imply that creating the impression of a strong economy is a self-fulfilling prophecy that creates more work.