provocations

Put a bag of cookies in the break room and it might sit for days.

Open the bag and leave it out, and within an hour, all the cookies will be gone.

We are happy to take a tiny slice off the thing that’s being shared, but we hesitate to open the bag.

The same is true with all of the initiatives in our culture. Design, movements and ideas are all... See more

The “drowning child” thought experiment involves seeing a child drowning in a pond on your way to work. Most people would jump in the pond to save the child, not thinking twice about the laundry bill from getting their clothes dirty. And yet, the amount of dollars spent on the dry cleaning bill could be spent on saving a child from starvation in a... See more

Mothers with the most education report the highest stress and tiredness and the lowest happiness and meaning

The ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make differently. -David Graeber

“Man is the most insane species. He worships an invisible God and destroys a visible Nature. Unaware that this Nature he’s destroying is this God he’s worshiping.” ― Hubert Reeves

If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The show was successful because I micromanaged it—every word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting. That’s my way of life.

As a practical matter, I think it's easier to see ugliness than to imagine beauty. Most of the people who've made beautiful things seem to have done it by fixing something that they thought ugly. Great work usually seems to happen because someone sees something and thinks,

I could do better than that.