Things that made me stop and think

One of the most intelligent case studies in design is the Chinese tea cup. They’re made without handles simply because if it’s too hot to touch, it’s too hot to drink.

Humans naturally want to add more. Add a cardboard sleeve, add a warning on the outside of the cup, add a handle. The result of all these things never cools down the actual contents.

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Likability is evaluated before confidence.

Looking closely is valuable at every scale. From looking closely at a sentence, a photograph, a building, a government. It scales and it cascades — one cognizant detail begets another and then another. Suddenly you’ve traveled very far from that first little: Huh.

I’d say that that huh is the foundational block of curiosity. To get good at the huh... See more

When I have a piece of writing in mind, what I have, in fact, is a mental bucket: an attractor for and generator of thought. It’s like a thematic gravity well, a magnet for what would otherwise be a mess of iron filings. I’ll read books differently and listen differently in conversations. In particular I’ll remember everything better; everything

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People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their futures.” —F. M. Alexander

Aldous Huxley on approaching life with lightness, even in the face of difficulty:

"It's dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you're feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them. I was so preposterously serious in those days, such a... See more

Here’s what has worked for me over the years to stave off boreout :

• Leaning into digressions: Passion projects (like this very one) and side hustles, whether they’re directly related to your work or completely unrelated, create the crackle of energy that boreout can stamp out; rather than be afraid of these things taking time away from your team’s

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