On attempting to build extraordinary things
Learning is complicated.
While we’re doing it, it’s easy to imagine that those around us are completely sure of themselves, moving forward in a well-lit space.
In fact, if you visit a growing company, a useful school or anywhere that growth is happening, you’ll quickly see that everyone is stumbling forward in the shadows.
That’s part of the deal.
While we’re doing it, it’s easy to imagine that those around us are completely sure of themselves, moving forward in a well-lit space.
In fact, if you visit a growing company, a useful school or anywhere that growth is happening, you’ll quickly see that everyone is stumbling forward in the shadows.
That’s part of the deal.
Stumbling in the dark
Designing products for a single person
In business, there are countless examples of products invented for a single person that then became mass-marketable. Here are a few of my favorites:
In business, there are countless examples of products invented for a single person that then became mass-marketable. Here are a few of my favorites:
- Baking soda —invented in the 1800s by British chemist Alfred Bird so that he could make bread for his wife, who was allergic to yeast.
- The typewriter —one of the
Casey Rosengren • The Power of Designing for a Single User
Most of my field (along with most of our social and ethical systems and institutions) is focused on “raising the floor” of human functioning: lifting more people out of depression, anxiety, and trauma, and up to the mean level of wellbeing, resilience, self-efficacy, or whatever outcomes we’re trying to optimize. The methods and metrics used by the... See more
Gena Gorlin • The Psychological Needs of the Extremely Ambitious
We theorists are not fully aware of the extent to which the experiments we plan and carry out are biased to favor our theoretical point of view.
Daniel Kahneman • Adversarial Collaboration: An EDGE Lecture by Daniel Kahneman
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
Creativity is born of limitations, not freedom
Kieran O‘Hare • Following the ‘White-hot Fire Inside of You’
“Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. This is the trick. This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is... See more
James Clear • 3-2-1: On Endless Pursuits, the Value of Courage, and How to Buy Back Your Time
Ethnobotanist and mystic Terence McKenna on courage.
Know what you want to stand out for, how you’re different, what you can do that no one else can that can’t be captured by an algorithm or simple market signals, at least not yet.
There’s a market for almost everything.
The most valuable things will always be the ones that are hardest to price.
There’s a market for almost everything.
The most valuable things will always be the ones that are hardest to price.
Superhuman
Chores
seths.blog
The truth is that if we stop doing chores, we have to do real work instead. The things that aren’t repeatable or proven. The things that are emotionally difficult, creatively challenging or simply requiring exploration and guts to pursue. If we succeed at this work, there will be plenty of money to pay to get the chores done.
Doing chores cheerfully and with skill is a fine hobby. But it might not be what you need to do right now.