Natalie Audelo

Pretty privilege is a form of self-sustaining energy, in that way—all the positive feedback that attractive people receive instills a kind of self-worth in them that they are indeed deserving of everything they desire, which makes their endeavors that much more persuasive. After all, believing in yourself is necessary for others to believe in you t... See more

We don’t build community .

We build containers where community has a chance to emerge.

About half of my friends kind of hate their jobs, so they're moderately unhappy most of the time, but never unhappy enough to leave. This is the mediocrity trap : situations that are bad-but-not-too-bad keep you forever in their orbit because they never inspire the frustration it takes to achieve escape velocity.

The mediocrity trap is a nasty way t... See more

Even IRL socializing becomes a numbers game, where networking and schmoozing become the standard and everything needs to be a Brand Actvation or pop-up or pseudo- Community event with 3 fliers. True, quality intimacy seems to be going the way of cursive handwriting.

Self-actualization means, at least partly, that you have designed a life that fits you—that allows you to express your human potential. And as I talked about in the last part, to make a good design, to find a fit, you need to perceive the context you are designing for clearly.

I liked mattering. I can live with less money and with “regular” cars and without a job title ... it’s very possible to live a very nice life without those things. But mattering ... yeah, I miss that. I want to figure out how to matter again1. Let’s put a pin in that one, consider it a work in progress.

Women are in the midst of a revolutionary reckoning with our ambitions. We’re not resigning en masse—because who can afford to quit her job in this economy?!—but we are trying to figure out a new set of goals and guidance for our professional lives. Thanks to long-simmering inequality and stubborn sexism, clarified by the pain of the pandemic, our ... See more

The idea of research as leisure activity has stayed with me because it seems to describe a kind of intellectual inquiry that comes from idiosyncratic passion and interest. It’s not about the formal credentials. It’s fundamentally about play.