Matthew Jay
@mattj
Matthew Jay
- 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
A short story discussed by George Saunders, Sept. 29, 2024
- "We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." - Ray Bradbury
- 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
- 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
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
