Michael Dean

Notes from Charlie Bleecker’s podcast onpseudonyms.

• 1) Before her audience, she wrote a blog for 9 years and had an audience. Sometimes the freedom to write is worth sacrificing an audience that traps you in an old and rigid self. ...

• 2) Choose names that are pronounceable, spellable, and memorable! I dropped my long, Greek last name because you didn

• exaptation : when a trait arises through evolution, but then is later co-opted for a different use. For example, the tongue evolved for eating, but later become fundamental for speech. The word is about surveying what exists and questions what new combinations are possible.

• nickelodeon : the name of a theatre in 1888, and by 1909 it meant “motion p

Took two laps around a nearby lake, and ended up reflecting on where I’ve come since I’ve turned 17. At that point, I grew into my body, but not my mind. My second lifetime (18-33 yo)—which for most people is a convergence—was an divergent exploration. Feels like I’ve found a lane I cant commit to until my 50s.

36 definitions in 75 minutes.

Face death to dance through life, but don’t be so paranoid over the perfect dance that you sit on the side. Dance! You are in a field of patterns. See them, move through them, assume you’re in a dream.

My great grandmother wrote a poem in my aunt’s 6th grade yearbook. It always puzzled her, especially in context of the surrounding middle school antics. It went:

Honor and shame,
From no condition rise,
Do well your part,
There all the honor lies.

We asked GPT where it’s from, and it’s from a 1734 essay called “An Essay on Man” by Alexander Pope. It’s

It’s kind of wild that English words have no gender. It’s a whole layer of meaning that’s missing.

Substack for volcano brains (could be a neat video).

1. Thinking of your site as a full & adaptable encapsulation of yourself.

2. The concept of “soft publishing” and “self curating.”

3. The technicals: sections, tags, home page design.

Did not expect Jerry Seinfeld to be promoting transcendental meditation.