David Pennington
@dtpennington
I write stuff. I’d like to write more stuff. Currently: reclaiming my brain.
David Pennington
dtpennington.com
“A lot of writing consists of waiting around for the aquarium to settle so you can see the fish. Walking around muttering seems to hasten the process. Taking public transportation nowhere helps. Looking out the bus window lets the back of your mind move forward. Don’t listen to anything but natural sound. Don’t look at anything you have to turn on.... See more
Austin Kleon • The North Shore
Critics instead spent their time and word-counts thinking about culture with artistic intentions, which raised the profile of these artworks to define the era (despite being unpopular in terms of raw audience numbers). This resulted in culture feeling healthy as long as a few inventive artists were still doing good work.
The Missing Piece in Conversations about “Cultural Decline”
As content becomes more engineered than written, AI has stepped into the role of ghostwriter; fluent but fatally hollow. Tools like ChatGPT and its cousins can produce grammatically perfect, tonally inoffensive copy at scale. What they lack, of course, is experience. They have no stake in what they say.
Carl Hendrick • Ultra-Processed Minds: The End of Deep Reading and What It Costs Us
For the most part, I was using my vast expertise in productivity to... make more content about productivity.
Nat Eliason • Breaking Up with Productivity Advice Breaking Up with Productivity Advice
3. Invest in cyclical growth and sustainability
Digital gardens believe slow time is beautiful. They are designed to support us in reclaiming our time rather than being organized by it. Digital gardens reject the information highway for the clock where minutes are the lengths of easeful breath.
4. Reject linear time
Digital gardens believe time moves... See more
Digital gardens believe slow time is beautiful. They are designed to support us in reclaiming our time rather than being organized by it. Digital gardens reject the information highway for the clock where minutes are the lengths of easeful breath.
4. Reject linear time
Digital gardens believe time moves... See more
On Digital Gardens: Tending to Our Collective Multiplicity
Developing the digital garden
I should just write down and publish all of the best ideas I’ve ever had, as quickly and casually as I can, in succession.
Justin Murphy • On Idea Hoarding
Most of us have a hard limit on the number of focused sessions we can do each day.
Chris Guillebeau • Executive Functioning and the Limits of Hyperfocus
Deep literacy is what happens when a reader engages with an extended piece of writing in such a way as to anticipate an author's direction and meaning, and engages what one already knows in a dialectical process with the text. The result, with any luck, is a fusion of writer and reader, with the potential to bear original insight.
Adam Garfinkle • The Erosion of Deep Literacy
“Popular books such as What You Do Is Who You Are (2019) by the venture capitalist Ben Horowitz carry the implication that being and doing are synonymous. Busyness is a badge of honour, even a sign of moral superiority. Rest, in contrast, is often treated as if it’s passive and pointless. Indeed, I’ve noticed many people hardly think of rest as its
... See more