On writing

But when Gertrude Stein declined to label her desire as lesbian, she was, as I understand it, saying something like this: thinking in categories would interfere with my ability to freely pattern-match for the particular type of individual I resonate with.

Some people think Stein was lying when she said she wasn’t lesbian. And they are disappointed... See more

Looking for Alice

As Paul Graham observes:

People show much more originality in solving problems than in deciding which problems to solve. Even the smartest can be surprisingly conservative when deciding what to work on. People who’d never dream of being fashionable in any other way get sucked into working on fashionable problems.

Henrik Karlsson • Cultivating a state of mind where new ideas are born Cultivating a state of mind where new ideas are born

Recently, I saw this question on Twitter: “What is the equivalent of a musician practicing scales for what you do?”

For me, it’s thinking and ideating. These are the activities of my core work. I seek to understand problems better, and develop my and others’ ideas further.

Saying “ideas don’t matter; only shipping products matter” to a product... See more

The merit of ideas and ideation

A blog post is a search query . You write to find your tribe; you write so they will know what kind of fascinating things they should route to your inbox

Henrik Karlsson • A Blog Post Is a Very Long and Complex Search Query to Find Fascinating People and Make Them Route Interesting Stuff to Your Inbox

I often see memes about how "everybody has a podcast now." The underlying message seems to be that having a podcast is overdone, or perhaps something only people with big egos pursue. But I believe in small p podcasting.1

I think podcasting, like blogging, will become increasingly mainstream. It will be completely normal to have a podcast intended... See more

Small P Podcasting

Very valid point

As an essay writer, your job extends beyond writing great sentences ( voice ) and putting them in the right order ( form ); you are also a cartographer of ideas : you sketch maps of your culture and put your story in context.

Michael Dean • Response

It makes me think of the quote by Vladimir Horowitz: "If I skip practice for one day, I notice. If I skip practice for two days, my wife notices. If I skip practice for three days, the world notices."

Who will teach me to write? a reader wanted to know.

The page, the page, that eternal blankness, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you