Pay attention to what you’re paying attention to
One of my (many) contrarian beliefs is that we do not have strong enough preferences. We often blame social media or the speed of information as the reason why we’re easily distracted, but the real reason behind our inability to focus has less to do with the sheer quantity of media and more to do with our laziness when it comes to distinguishing... See more
In the end, the only thing that matters is the quality and care of work you put out into the world
the very capacity for joy and wonder that makes life worth living — for, as Annie Dillard memorably put it, “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”
Maria Popova • 17 Life-Learnings From 17 Years of the Marginalian
But this isn’t really about the software. It’s about what software promises us—that it will help us become who we want to be, living the lives we find most meaningful and fulfilling. The idea of research as leisure activity has stayed with me because it seems to describe a kind of intellectual inquiry that comes from idiosyncratic passion and
... See moreWho gets to write shapes what gets to be written, which shapes what is remembered — that is the making of the collective selective memory we call history, and it is made of words. We invented words to name the world and invented power to apportion the named. It is our inventions that tell the fullest story of our nature. The range of them — the... See more
