On interesting
Cultivating a point of view, finding ideas, understanding what Interesting is.
On interesting
The only way I found to resist that homogenized view of the world was to make myself part of something larger than myself.
A Question of Class by Dorothy Allison
People often ask me how I got the courage to put my work into the world.
I’m not sure I have any courage, but I do have rage .
This may come as a surprise to readers of my books, who tell me they’re rather helpful and upbeat. (Not words my friends and family might necessarily use to describe me!)
My secret is: the books are positive because I take a n... See more
I’m not sure I have any courage, but I do have rage .
This may come as a surprise to readers of my books, who tell me they’re rather helpful and upbeat. (Not words my friends and family might necessarily use to describe me!)
My secret is: the books are positive because I take a n... See more
Austin Kleon • What to do with your feelings - Austin Kleon
“If your world is not enchanted, you’re not paying attention.”
Alex Dobrenko • The Bucket Theory of Creativity
When I have a piece of writing in mind, what I have, in fact, is a mental bucket: an attractor for and generator of thought. It’s like a thematic gravity well, a magnet for what would otherwise be a mess of iron filings. I’ll read books differently and listen differently in conversations. In particular I’ll remember everything better; everything wi... See more
jsomers.net • More People Should Write
“I want to do a different thing. I want to actually improve over time. I want to develop my own takes. I want to understand everything. And this is how the podcast improves over the long run too - by me becoming smarter and learning more shit. That is the underlying beta. Everything else is a temporary benefit at best (and more often, a total
... See more“When it comes to business and careers, the more interesting people will succeed and capture more upside than ever before.
Because the uninteresting ones will get commoditized (hello 🤖).
And by interesting I mean being capable of analyzing, deciding, and executing in a way few others can.
Generating more
... See more“I came to understand the [meditation] task not as emptying your head of thoughts, but rather resisting the tendency to narrate things to yourself in words. I noticed that this interior monologuing would lead me along familiar, superficial trains of thought, to recent memories associated with certain feelings, say, and soon enough back to mundane a
... See moreAlicia Kennedy also talking about the need to limit social media to do good work:
“The slowness I’ve forced upon myself—when it comes to how many essays I’m writing per year, how much I can use social media—has brought my brain back from the brink, to a place where I am excited and invigorated to be myself. “
“The next day we had a late breakfast and Susie and Lucy began reminiscing. I excused myself and wandered around the grounds, eventually coming upon a high hedge that surrounded a swimming pool. I lay down on a lounger next to the pool and took out my pen and notebook to write, but it was hot, and I soon fell asleep.
After a while, I awoke
... See more“The process of making art is the process of becoming a person with agency, with independent thought, a producer of meaning rather than a consumer of meanings that may be at odds with your soul, your destiny, your humanity, so there’s another kind of success in becoming conscious that matters and that is up to you and nobody else and within your re
... See more