reminders to trust the process
- The irony of organizing your life around mistake-avoidance is that, rather than making you feel calmer, it keeps you in an anxious state, ratcheting up the stakes of your life until you’re moving through it like you would a decision tree, each notable occurrence redirecting you toward a different destination. We’re meant to be. Wait no, we’re doome... See more
from #181 Dear Baby: Am I fit to be a parent?
Agalia Tan added 4mo ago
- “The feeling of progress is one of the best feelings of all. This is true even when progress is small.”
from 3-2-1: On progress, friendship, and how to improve your writing
Agalia Tan added 5mo ago
- If I look at things that have turned out well in my life (my marriage, some of my essays, my current career) the “design process” has been the same in each case. It has been what Christopher Alexander called an unfolding .1 Put simply:
... See more- I paid attention to things I liked to do, and found ways to do more of that. I made it easy for interesting people
from Everything That Turned Out Well in My Life Followed the Same Design Process by Henrik Karlsson
Agalia Tan added 2mo ago
- If I look at things that have turned out well in my life (my marriage, some of my essays, my current career) the “design process” has been the same in each case. It has been what Christopher Alexander called an unfolding .1 Put simply:
- Creativity requires connecting the dots, and connecting the dots requires allowing time for my subconscious to consolidate my ideas and make associations. This means that, from time to time, I need to just stare out the window and do nothing.
This doesn’t feel productive, even though it is.from You’re doing better than you think. Here’s why. - Ozan Varol by Ozan Varol
Agalia Tan added 2mo ago
- a lot of times ideas and projects are formed out of a more ambient kind of thinking and talking and doing. Research is not always this thing of sitting down and concentratedly looking through archives or something.
from An Interview with Spencer Chang | Are.na Editorial
Agalia Tan added 3mo ago
- Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
from How calligraphy shaped Steve Jobs and Apple’s typographic legacy - TypeRoom
Agalia Tan added 3mo ago
- The mathematical genius Alexander Grothendieck once had a metaphor for solving problems. He suggested that instead of forcing open an impossibly hard kernel with a hammer and chisel, one should simply let it sit in water and wait. Over time, the shell softens and opens with ease. This is also true in writing; time is the only non-substitutable ingr... See more
from Epiphanies Come From Waiting
Agalia Tan added 5mo ago
- "Whether you are an adult or child, your first attempts will often seem unimportant or foolish.
- The open mic night at a nearly empty bar.
- The early blog posts that get ignored.
- The dance recital on a little stage.
Early attempts are easy to dismiss because they don't seem to amount to much. But you have to do the low stakes stuff to prepare for the ... See morefrom 3-2-1: When to be patient, why we procrastinate, and the importance of early attempts
Agalia Tan added 4mo ago
Separate the processes of creating from improving. You can’t write and edit, or sculpt and polish, or make and analyze at the same time. If you do, the editor stops the creator. While you write the first draft, don’t let the judgy editor get near. At the start, the creator mind must be unleashed from judgment.
from Interview: Kevin Kelly, Editor, Author, and Futurist by Kevin Kelly
Agalia Tan added 4mo ago