Jason Shen

IF A GREAT MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?

It’s an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or... See more

To be effective, we must act decisively on decisions we disagree with. This may seem obvious, but it remains one of the most challenging tasks.

twelve years a slave, from his birth, in Dallas County, Alabama, in 1853 or so, until Union cavalry swept through the cotton plantation where he was owned, in 1865. Sixty-four years later, in 1939, homeless on the streets of Montgomery, he became an extraordinary artist, making magnetically beautiful, dramatic, and utterly original drawings on... See more

One small thing I try to do out of respect to artists is never use individual artists as part of my prompts, e.g. "painting of a couple in a warm embrace in the style of Artist Name" which is often used by people looking to achieve a specific "effect".

This may be a controversial take, but I'd rather look for ways to compensate or support people of

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If you’re totally lost on what to focus on getting better at, focus on braiding.

Narrative-style writing (fiction and nonfiction) has four major components:

1. Action: Things happening


2. Dialogue: What people are saying


3. Description: The environment around the people and events


4. Interiority: The characters internal reactions to the place and action

And you... See more