We are always telling stories, whether we realize it or not. We might as well get good at it. Good stories win people over. They provoke and inspire and inflame the human spirit. It’s a tremendous source of power.

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share.

Build a world. Make your projects and work a vessel for self-expression. Make your software match your vibe. Make reading your book feel like it feels to talk with you. Customize, make it bespoke, put yourself into it instead of doing what you feel you should. This has all kinds of benefits (reducing burn out for instance) but especially helps with... See more

“If you want a new world, start making it right now, in whatever you are doing.” This is the best advice I ever had, it came from Brian Eno. If you imagine the world you would like to be in and start making objects, systems and collaborations that belong to that world, that world comes into being.

Still, I think something more fundamental has been lost for all of us as social media has evolved. It’s harder to find the spark of discovery, or the sense that the Web offers an alternate world of possibilities. Instead of each forging our own idiosyncratic paths online, we are caught in the grooves that a few giant companies have carved for us al... See more

We think in questions. If knowledge is a complex web inside the mind, each node is a question, and each connecting line the information you’ve picked up on the journey from node to node. The pursuit of knowledge is the accumulation of questions. They shape our identity as much by being asked as by being answered.