Life

when you get rid of life’s annoyances, you also have gotten rid of life. Small nuisances provide texture, repose, form, cushioning. Also, a lot of our social bonding is created out of shared annoyance—much of what connects us is our small, similarly timed miseries. The more you opt out of our collective material imprisonment, the more you opt out... See more

when someone tells me to keep writing, it feels like a command to keep living.

In life, there’s you — the omnipresent Protagonist — and then countless Other People. Most of them are bit players, but some of these Other People are major characters in your story. They might spend quite a lot of time onscreen, but they always remain Other People. You never get to see inside their heads, you don’t get to choose their behavior,... See more

some of the biggest challenges faced by computers and human minds alike: how to manage finite space, finite time, limited attention, unknown unknowns, incomplete information, and an unforeseeable future; how to do so with grace and confidence; and how to do so in a community with others who are all simultaneously trying to do the same