This leaves us with some low-hanging fruit for humanness. We can tell richly detailed stories grounded in our specific contexts and cultures: place names, sensual descriptions, local knowledge, and, well the je ne sais quoi of being alive.
So the point of my keeping a notebook has never been, nor is it now, to have an accurate factual record of what I have been doing or thinking. That would be a different impulse entirely, an instinct for reality which I sometimes envy but do not possess.
How it felt to me : that is getting closer to the truth about a note book. I sometimes delude myself about why I keep a notebook, imagine that some thrifty virtue derives from preserving everything observed. See enough and write it down, I tell myself, and then some morning when the world seems drained of wonder, some day when I am only going... See more
“I suppose I have a really loose interpretation of 'work,' because I think that just being alive is so much work at something you don't always want to do.”
Except, in the process of regurgitation, writing does more than just reproduce experiences—it amplifies them. When we write, we apply our own seasoning, enhancing their flavor profiles and textures through the lens of whatever mood or mindset we are in the second time around.
New word I have stated to hear among startup folks: “zirpy.” An adjective used to describe a startup or VC’s questionable decision making or strategy that today now feels like a relic from a zero interest rate regime.
what if public libraries were open late every night and we could engage in public life there instead of having to choose between drinking at the bar and domestic isolation