Steyn Viljoen
@steyn
Designer at CustomerOS. Gardener. Dad. Write at Viljoen Space about product, gardening and parenthood.
Steyn Viljoen
viljoen.space
If you consider yourself a technologist, here’s your imperative: build things that are unabashedly, beautifully tangled into all else in life — people and relationships, politics, emotion and pain, understanding or the lack thereof, being alone, being together, homesickness, adventure, victory, loss. Build things that come alive, and drag... See more
Create things that come alive
We create more than ever, but it weighs nothing.... See more
AI now promises results without the reckoning, but frictionless creation leads to weightless rewards. No one dreams of merely pushing a button to generate their magnum opus. The output matters, but the intention, the struggle, the care is what makes it count — what gives it weight...
Weight is
Tom White • When the Internet Was for People
When we are deprived of green, of plants, of trees, most of us (though evidently not all of us) succumb to a demoralization of spirit which we usually blame on some psychological or neurochemical malady, until one day we find ourselves in a garden or park or countryside and feel the oppression vanish as if by magic.
— Robert Harrison: Gardens: An
... See moreJust as someone with iron deficiency anemia craves ice (“pica”), I crave texture.
This is true of everything in the garden. Each flower, tree, and vine is seen in relation to the whole by the gardener so that the visitors can have unique yet coherent experiences as they find their own paths through the garden. We create the garden as a sort of experience generator, capable of infinite expression and meaning.
mikecaulfield • The Garden and the Stream: A Technopastoral
I think bookstores turned out to be weirdly sticky simply because people like being in bookstores. Going to a bookstore is an aesthetic experience. It's fun. It's something to do with your family. It is a pleasant feeling to be surrounded by physical books. It is a pleasant feeling to browse. It is a pleasant feeling to be the kind of person who... See more
An unkink hose feels like…
The freedom to know your version of enough. Take a pause, any kind of pause at any kind of time and not beat yourself up for it.
Light speed clarity.
The freedom to not set huge radical business goals just cos everyone else is, cos it's just not your time to over-hustle.
Spaciousness.
The freedom to politely decline the
... See moreOne way to spot people who are good at solving poorly defined problems is to look for people who feel good about their lives; “how do I live a life I like” is a humdinger of a poorly defined problem.