Jay Matthews

“All that is known. It proves nothing; its demonstrative value is destroyed by the habit of thinking in terms of advantages and disadvantages, the most evil of all ways of looking at life. “Everything has its advantages and disadvantages.” Once that is said, the unbearable becomes bearable—a mere disadvantage, and what after all is a disadvantage... See more

Within these sorts of schedules, there is little tolerance or space for the things we say we want to nurture in children: creativity, imagination, spontaneity, the patience borne of extended boredom, space to really feel your emotions, or any activity that can’t be boiled down into a potential line on a future college application. (There’s also... See more

I believe the best way to describe this shift is as a shift from legible ambition to illegible ambition. The reason so many people cling to default metrics of success is that other people understand them. Legible ambition is a story that your parents can tell their friends. We fear that not having such legible ambition means we will be cast out of... See more

I believe that we are in the early days of what will be remembered as one of the greatest times to be alive for hyper-curious people who are willing to be creative, connect with others, and share their ideas online.

Things follow their natural course. They grow, they ripen. I must graft. I must water, as with lettuce. Ripening goes on in my mind. So I’m always working at a great many things at the same time.

Throughout history, people have risked death for the ability to share their ideas. Now almost everyone has unfettered access to the internet and most people are sitting there and thinking “eh, I’m good.” People will look back at us and wonder what the hell was wrong with us.

When approached with caution, labels can genuinely be useful to us and others. We just have to periodically check in with ourselves to make sure we are not being controlled and consumed by our labels.

The colonists followed the same trails to expand governance, and on the other hand, they required fine colonial engineering that eventually including land surveys, anthropological and topographic investigation, and cartography. In this land of hardship, the implementation of governance techniques needed to create a fictional collective... See more