Reminders for myself

I think we have to choose to go into situations where we don’t know how they might pan out. Be willing to talk or engage with people who don’t share the carefully calibrated views that we broadcast online. In addition to making the effort with friends — new, old, promising acquaintances — and asking for the kind of help and support we need, as well... See more

Which is to say: lots of people think they need to get better at writing, but nobody thinks they need to get better at thinking, and this is why they don’t get better at writing.

As an experiment, for one continuous month, make the focus of one in every three things you share on social media — wherever you normally share, however regularly or irregularly you do, however many people you reach — something other than yourself or your own work: a friend’s art project, a stranger’s poem, a record by a musician you love, the tree... See more

Avoiding playing pretend during your valuable learning time is important and psychologically difficult. A lot of people’s learning is limited by their insecurities and need for their social status to be reinforced. It often feels amazing to pretend to learn things, and unpleasant to actually learn. People are drawn to activities that make them feel... See more

If this strategy is good enough for Žižek, it’s good enough for me. Writing: it’s simply notetaking! It’s simply reading, and being interested and invested in your reading, and accumulating reflections and reactions to the reading, and then synthesizing that into a work.