Natalie Audelo

The thing that no one ever tells you about your calling is that it’s boring. Oh, everything is interesting if you’re interested… shut up. Yes, it will be exhilarating and fun and fluid and and natural and meaningful. It will also be tedious. It will hurt. You will encounter obstacle after obstacle until you feel like you’re in a video game with alg... See more

Many people who are talented in their various fields have access to insight they can’t share with others. They simply see something we can’t. They try to describe it—picture any Paris Review interview—and often hearing them talk about their process is interesting and informative. But they’re unable to describe the core thing—what gives them the sto... See more

A big problem with bubbles is the reflexive association between wealth and wisdom, so a bunch of crazy ideas are taken seriously because a temporarily rich person said it.

"To be an artist, you don't have to compose music or paint or be in the movies or write books. It's just a way of living. It has to do with paying attention, remembering, filtering what you see and answering back, participating in life."

Desire Infrastructure

I'm playing on the term "desire paths" here, the paths that show up where people actually want to walk, not just where the planners of sidewalks and roads want them to walk.

He offers a thought experiment: what if the brief to design a new train connection was given to Disney instead of railway engineers? The latter immediately focuses on speed, time, distance and capacity. With Disney, the goal wouldn’t be to shave minutes off the journey. They may ask a different question: “How do we make the train journey so enjoyab... See more