weekly Go Flip Yourself

Objects that expose their “marks of making”, or artifacts of how they were constructed, are a reminder that everything is made. Nothing simply appears. In a time when most people are wholly detached from making anything they consume, it’s easy to lose sight of that fact. I’m not necessarily lamenting this disconnect, but I appreciate any design which reminds us (whether intentionally or not) that it was made.

In my conversation with Crowley, we discuss his latest startups, convergence of new technologies, and what it means for the future. We get into a conversation about AI, our children, and entrepreneurship. He talks about attempting to make sense of it all while staying true to his original mission: building things that help people better experience the world around them.

• the act of handwriting is powerful

• mental model of your thoughts in space

• notebooks as the first sociel media (Netherlands back in 1600s)

The distinction between the two modes I’m trying to define is that one side takes the position that being fascinated with something or someone in the world has a benefit that is self-evident. Being able to feel love towards something or someone is a gift in and of itself. The other side (the side that annoys me) orients fascination or association or effort towards a direction with the primary goal of having some kind of quantifiable reward. But if you’re really focusing on the moment, on something you love, on something in the world that feels like it’s made for you, you can’t be thinking about how it will benefit you, or how it will reflect back on you. These two modes are at odds with each other. True attention requires that you don’t view something in the world through the lens of “what can this thing do for me?”

Getting new things feels exciting. Simply having the things you already have, even if those things are immensely valuable, doesn’t usually feel like anything. The relative view only allows new acquisitions to feel strongly rewarding for a brief time, before you fully assimilate your new identity as an iPad-haver or Blundstone-wearer.

Feeling the full wealth of what you’ve already got is possible only when you measure that wealth from zero. Then you can feel its absolute value, rather than its relative value.

relationships are stories.