The New Romantics

The only antidote I've found to the madness of my own brain is to talk to other people and be around other people. Somehow, through conversation and through seeing and being seen, I feel less terrible. I wouldn't say I feel great neccessarily, I just feel less bad.

For the most part, I was using my vast expertise in productivity to... make more content about productivity.

Buying used books is the absolute antithesis of the subscription model that is destroying everything I love.

It is a mistake and a misreading of nature to think that you, a living creature, will be flourishing all the days of your life.

Myles helped me avoid an easy error:

Putting the tool before the craft.

We are never as good as we should be; and neither, it seems, are other people. A life without a so-called critical faculty would seem an idiocy: what are we, after all, but our powers of discrimination, our taste, the violence of our preferences? Self-criticism, and the self as critical, are essential to our sense, our picture, of our so-called... See more

in 2020, only 268 titles sold more than 100,000 copies, and 96 percent of books sold less than 1,000 copies. That’s still the vibe.

Collecting and archiving are ways to reclaim and own our attention—they are acts of meaning-making. These practices are rituals: habits and skills that demand time, patience, and a willingness to look beyond the surface.

To collect well is to resist algorithmic influence. A true collection reflects deeply personal values and a genuine desire to... See more