Life design

Most people want to be fit, most people aren’t.

Most people want to build a successful business, most people won’t.

Most people want to be the best version of themselves, most people aren’t.

Most people have dreams they want to fulfill, most people won’t.

Everyone wants to quit something, build something, be something, do something. Most people won’t.

H... See more

A large percentage of people’s problems in work, love and life are due to some combination of vagueness and passivity. You don’t know what you want to spend your time on; you don’t know what kind of person you really get along with; you don’t know what kind of clothing looks good to you; you don’t know what you value in a city; you don’t know how t... See more

The ‘90s version of not selling out meant refusing to play certain spaces or not letting your song be in a beer commercial. The ‘20s version of selling out means making things in limited quantities to play against mass culture. Though different, the responses come from a similar place. They’re both sensing a culture where, to quote Claire L. Evans ... See more

Artists are agents of invention who attempt to change the dominant conventions (although many individuals operating under the rubric of "artist" have much more pedestrian and commercial goals.)

1.9.1 The avant-garde exposes, devalues, and alters existing conventions in search of new cultural arrangements that could provide new aesthetic experiences... See more

There’s a tremendous friction that arises when you don’t allow yourself to do what you really want to do with your life. You make a lot of halfway decisions to negotiate your competing priorities: what you want, and what you want to want.

Our bias is to always add more. More rules, more procedures, more code, more features, more stuff. Interdependencies proliferate, and gradually strangle us. Systems want to grow and grow, but without pruning, they collapse. Slowly, then spectacularly.

When a piece of trash drifts across the beach, it is our duty to pick it up so the next person can ... See more

Czech president and writer Vaclav Havel:

“Hope (...) is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we ... See more