Matthew Jay
@mattj
Matthew Jay
- People read nonfiction to learn and to feel. My framework for ensuring a blog post accomplishes both is to start with a first draft that focuses on "novel" ideas.
A novel idea is one that's not just new to the reader, but also significant and not easily intuited. Think of it as new and worthwhile . I've identified five categories:- Counter-intuitive —
from What to Write About
Dear Mr. Nadeau:
... See more
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
Sailors have an expression about the weather:from E.B. White’s Beautiful Letter to a Man Who Had Lost Faith in Humanity by E.B. White
- Looking closely is valuable at every scale. From looking closely at a sentence, a photograph, a building, a government. It scales and it cascades — one cognizant detail begets another and then another. Suddenly you’ve traveled very far from that first little: Huh.
I’d say that that huh is the foundational block of curiosity. To get good at the huh i... See morefrom Looking Closely Is Everything by Craig Mod
- This problem is almost impossible to fix in a culture that relies heavily on algorithms. The algorithm is, by definition, a repeating pattern that always looks backward. It does something in the future based on what worked in the past.
So the algorithm that recommends music or videos on a web platform will never deliver a totally fresh and new expe... See morefrom How to Know if You're Living in a Doom Loop by Ted Gioia
This is another articulation of the problem I’ve found with music streaming following the demise of Rdio. Am I just being fed back more of the same, and how can I continue to find new things? I’m not sure an algorithm is the answer.
- LOVE AFTER LOVE
by Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your ... See more TRULY, I love this life of seclusion. Carrying my staff, I walk toward a friend’s cottage. The trees in his garden, soaked by the evening rain, Reflect the cool, clear autumnal sky. The owner’s dog comes to greet me; Chrysanthemums bloom along the fence. These people have the same spirit as the ancients; An earthen wall marks their separation from
... See morefrom One Robe, One Bowl by John Stevens
- 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 through the motions of doing what I am supposed to do, which is write — on that bankrupt morning I will simply open my notebook and there it will all be, a forgotten account with accumulated interest, paid passage... See more
from On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion by Joan Didion
Avoid Europe and anywhere that lives in the past. Places that resist change have no vision, only memories.
from How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion by Derek Sivers