Steyn Viljoen
@steyn
Designer at CustomerOS. Gardener. Dad. Write at Viljoen Space about product, gardening and parenthood.
Steyn Viljoen
viljoen.space
A chief gladness of gardening comes from its dual nature, from how it salves our longing for making order out of chaos but also frustrates it. There is elemental satisfaction in the reminder that we can never fully control nature — that, in fact, any sense of control is a childish fantasy, for we ourselves are children of nature, made by the selfsa... See more
Following this logic, our brains reward a kept garden because it staves off wilderness, because in the wilderness there is death, and thus by keeping nature controlled and orderly, we keep death away.
Landscape maintenance is, therefore, an exercise of fear.
Landscape Maintenance and the Fear of Death - Wonderground
The uninterrupted continuousness is critical. As soon as you get in a car or hop on a train, the strange spell of the walk is broken. The point of the continuous uninterrupted walk is to be ensorcelled by its strangeness, to fully inhabit the walk and engage with what the walk delivers, good and bad.
Craig Mod • [RIDGELINE] Contniuous Uniterrupted Solo Walks
So, to create something truly alive and nourishing, we must be willing to immerse ourselves in the rich, fertile soil of our own humanity – the depths of our emotions, experiences, and connections to the world around us.
Steyn Viljoen • Beautiful, boring, and without soul 🕌
Startups solve for efficiency. Places solve for thoroughness. Startups solve a specific problem as profitably as possible. Places manage all aspects of being human as thoroughly as possible. Startupping is a finite game. Placemaking is an infinite game. Trying to run the same playbook for both is a mistake.
Venkatesh Rao • Placemaking vs. Mission-Shaping - By Venkatesh Rao
The most important question for me is, "How do I want to spend my days?" And the answer is: I want to spend my time thinking, creating, and ideating with a small group of people to build a beautiful, creative, values-aligned business. I am not interested in 14-hour work days, back-to-back meetings that deplete my energy, can’t catch a breath to-do ... See more
Sari Azout • Sari Azout on Building Emotional Capital
A home is so much more than a structure. It is your life and refuge. Sometimes I go back and forth in my mind, "is design just vanity - or does it matter and what's its proper place?" I know beauty matters. I am an unabashed advocate for that - we don't have nearly enough of it. But home matters a LOT - and good design is just simply making a beautiful functional home. Where is the line between your home and your life? Impossible to define, they are woven together. That's why design matters.
Just as someone with iron deficiency anemia craves ice (“pica”), I crave texture.