Things that made me stop and think
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getpocket.comOne 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.
... See moreAlex Tan • #032 Peeling Back
This brings us to the deeper point: the value of reading lies less in retention than in integration. A good book tweaks your internal models and you begin to see a familiar problem in a new frame. You revise the assumptions behind a mental shortcut or you absorb a phrase that becomes part of your vocabulary of thought.
These changes are easy to... See more
These changes are easy to... See more
You’re Not Supposed to Remember the Book
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
... See moreJames Somers • JamesSomers – More people should write
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new... See more
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new... See more
This is for you if you've had some feelings this week
I heard on a Peloton ride (Jess King): It isn’t that no matter what you do that I will love you. I will love you no matter how I FEEL. And that is the hard, important work.
Caroline Chambers • i found the perfect reading for a wedding ceremony or toast
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
I’d say that that huh is the foundational block of curiosity. To get good at the huh... See more
Craig Mod • Looking Closely Is Everything
When two people work on a shared project – a joke, a product, an essay, a story – and are able to understand and build on each other, that’s the peak of the human condition.