Michael Brooks
@mike
Michael Brooks
this hurdle I have to jump over each time I write: How can I say this more crisply? When I write (which is really just to say: when I think) it all boils down to one simple, but utterly excruciating question: What am I really trying to say here?
Isabel Hazan • distillation
I think of writing a lot like walking. It’s rarely the most popular, the most effective, or the most efficient way of getting to your destination. I don’t always want to do it, and it’s not always technically enjoyable; sometimes it’s boring or slow, sometimes it’s tiring and pointless, sometimes it’s cold or wet or windy and I’m retracing the same... See more
Rayne Fisher-Quann • Choosing to Walk
on writing and ideas
Ideas come from noticing gaps in what we believe is established thinking.
“Yego’s rise was enabled by YouTube. Yet since its founding, popular consensus has been that the video service is making people dumber. Indeed, modern video media may shorten attention spans and distract from longer-form means of communication, such as written articles or books. But critically overlooked is its unlocking a form of mass-scale tacit... See more
YouTube: The Learning Machine
Housing Should Be Affordable Except When I Sell My House for a Million Dollars
Devin Wallacemcsweeneys.netThe mathematical genius Alexander Grothendieck once had a metaphor for solving problems. He suggested that instead of forcing open an impossibly hard kernel with a hammer and chisel, one should simply let it sit in water and wait. Over time, the shell softens and opens with ease. This is also true in writing; time is the only non-substitutable... See more