Collections

We see something that works, and then we understand it “We see something that works, and then we understand it.” (Thomas Dullien) It is a deeper

I find that changing mediums is always good for my writing, so often I will go from the manila folder to a sheet of paper to a Word doc to a Scrivener

I have said that releasing certain work is like having a pap smear in public. This still feels true but before you can even get to the point of choosi

So much of making creative work is not actually being in flow, but it’s getting yourself there.

i think too many people are assuming that they can turn on a "artist" switch after years of making money doing something. probably most confusing whil

Stuff happens. Your stories about it determine whether it’s manageable or not.

“Every group of people who think for a living is going to be sad. Ignorance is bliss. So what’s the opposite?” – Chris Rock

Yes > Prestige is a brain worm, and its shape changes all the time. Keep your identity small, and don’t fear starting over. The people who will win

completely crazy the extent that the world is bottlenecked by motivation

Moral clarity creates market opportunities. Notion thrives by enhancing users' ability to organize their thoughts rather than maximizing time-in-app—i

one thing LLMs have over social media is that you can't really use an llm without an intention you can't doomscroll an llm

Don’t forget this: Nothing is truly ever ordinary. I’m telling you, Protect the truest things about you and it will become easier to hear the truth ev

Have you ever told a lie and then forgot it was a lie? When you tell a story for long enough, you begin to believe it. We adorn ourselves with any num

If you want to decipher who you are, it’s good to begin with the question of what stories have been told about you. Do this not because they are true

Simone Weil said, “Man only escapes from the laws of this world in lightning flashes. Instants when everything stands still, instants of contemplation

The way to find what that emotional blind spot is is to ask yourself: “If I couldn’t feel judgement at this moment, what emotion would I have to feel?

Imagine waking up and feeling curious about what the day might bring. Imagine feeling that subtle excitement about getting to know yourself more. Imag

Stop assuming that people are mad at you. Stop attempting to read people's minds. Stop trying to manage the thoughts and emotions of others. Let peopl

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer. – Simone Weil In 1989, when I was selected as the ne

Conversational Canyons

The Key to Love Is Understanding

i think too many people are assuming that they can turn on a "artist" switch after years of making money doing something. probably most confusing whil

Similarly, I wonder whether the creator economy, as it matures, will resemble less of its original promise (a way for people to do the things they lov

The only proof of practice is the quality of your most intimate relationships. Everything else is noise.

The cleanest signal of healthy presence I know: how curious someone gets about you, now. Separate from what they need you to be. Free from what they t

Might be a hot take but starting to think intellectualizing relationship (writing, thinking, theorizing, etc) is somehow antithetical to what real rel

if you treat someone like they are a good person with a good heart they will often work to make you correct

Mastery is not a function of genius or talent; it is a function of time and intense focus applied to a particular field of knowledge.

No amount of productivity will quench our inner fears about self-worth and helplessness.

My most effective life hack has been to learn to be with my inner experience, just as it is. It changes everything. Unfortunately, most people want

Non-dual thinking: Sometimes the answer isn't this OR that but this AND that. Hard work AND rest Stability AND change Acceptance AND problem solving

Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to cho

The value of a position in chess consists of its probability of victory for the player. Moves are evaluated according to how they affect this probabil

I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about

We need more vocabulary around the experience of thinking, as in: -thinking qua “directing my inner monologue along certain pathways” - thinking qua

Tesla is the first US car manufacturer to mass-produce vehicles without going into bankruptcy in the past 100 years (and now has a larger market cap t

Pessimists see problems. They worry about what could go wrong in the future. Optimists see possibilities. They focus on what could go right in the fut

“Notice that, while lots of people are happy to tell you about Golden Ages, nobody ever seems to think one is happening right now. Maybe that’s becaus

Decades later, scientists are starting to unravel how our wet, spongy, slippery organs talk to the brain and how the brain talks back. That two-way co

For instance, studies on meditators have shown that their somatosensory perception is more sensitive to subtle internal sensations, potentially leadin

Distractions divert you from your goals, while opportunities align with and propel you toward them. For example, Americans spend an average of 11 hour

re: many genAI apps can do 'anything and everything' i used to tell this funny story to a lot of consumer founders: when one-shot TTS first started

A lot of companies don’t make it because in the process of trying to get many things right, they don’t get anything right.Why are they in such a hurry

Startup Marketing Resources | SYSTM

Learned helplessness, the failure to escape shock induced by uncontrollable aversive events, was discovered half a century ago. Seligman and Maier (19

the nervous system is not only a biological entity but also a complex network highly responsive to personal interests. This concept suggests that when

Making systems resilient is fundamentally at odds with optimization, because optimizing a system means taking out any slack. A truly optimized, and th

The problem (or at least one of the problems) is that the twin edicts to simultaneously optimize your team and life and to be flexible in light of an

But you can’t optimize systems in a context that’s changing, especially if it’s changing in unpredictable ways. Removing inefficiencies when circumsta

Against Optimization