sparks
Sam Kriss is great
Of course the thing about beginning again — about starting over midway through is that you have to be willing to watch yourself die.
I learned that from writing this newsletter.
Next week, it will be three years since I launched the cereal aisle, and I think the most important thing I have learned in the time since is that rebirth is on the other... See more
I learned that from writing this newsletter.
Next week, it will be three years since I launched the cereal aisle, and I think the most important thing I have learned in the time since is that rebirth is on the other... See more
Leandra Medine Cohen • Three years of cereal
Leandra Medine reflecting on three years of her newsletter - touches on fame, rebirth, meaning…
What’s Missing Says More: The Semiotics of Omission
We spend our lives surrounded by signals. Most of them are obvious—what someone says, what they wear, the metrics a company puts in a slide deck. But some of the most telling information comes not from what’s there, but from what’s missing.
A woman on a dating app with only headshots is probably... See more
We spend our lives surrounded by signals. Most of them are obvious—what someone says, what they wear, the metrics a company puts in a slide deck. But some of the most telling information comes not from what’s there, but from what’s missing.
A woman on a dating app with only headshots is probably... See more
What’s Missing Says More
I hope the sense of struggling, rather than knowing, is palpable here.
Rayne Fisher-Quann • the ends of empathy
love the honesty here - it’s not write what you know, it’s write to understand what you don’t know
Today, I can barely tell anyone apart. Many of the Substacks I follow use these big, figurative words that don’t really make sense in an attempt to go viral, which on this platform means getting subscribers and notes and comments. It’s like there’s this internet language that “works” for engagement (literal language, but also sense of style, and a... See more
Emily Sundberg • The Machine in the Garden. - By Emily Sundberg - Feed Me
everyone is boring
I keep hearing a voice in my head that says, “The second half of your life doesn’t have to look anything like the first half of your life. The first half was bound; the second half is free.” Free, free, ever more free. Free from my own distorted thinking, free from any lingering shame and fear and resentments, free from expectations. This what I... See more
Sari Botton • This is 54: Author Elizabeth Gilbert Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire
Ideas from George Mack:
1. Subprime audience - A creator optimising for size of audience and ending up with a junk audience. They end up producing content they themselves wouldn’t consume.
2. The forgetting paradox - Wordle outperformed every headline in society's consciousness for 2022. All the news everyone was worried outlasted by a novelty
... See moreThe first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation!
JK Rowling commencement address
you can rest assured that whatever kaleidoscope of stimulation (or even intoxication) AI conjures, you will get bored of it; getting bored is what we do, and it turns out to be a rather profound feature of our consciousness