David Pennington

Collecting and archiving are ways to reclaim and own our attention—they are acts of meaning-making. These practices are rituals: habits and skills that demand time, patience, and a willingness to look beyond the surface.

To collect well is to resist algorithmic influence. A true collection reflects deeply personal values and a genuine desire to know... See more

In this frivolous new world, everything must be pleasing and inoffensive. Everything and everybody gets marketed like an exciting new product—even old, creepy politicians, or ancient film actors, or 80-year-old rock stars.

They all get repackaged and rebranded—thank the digital gods for those apps that make old stuff look new! Everything is now eas... See more

Roland Allen’s The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper . Allen points out that “people often start diaries in times of upheaval,”

So far, 2024 isn’t giving me any joy.

Mary Oliver said, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

But E.B. White, one of our last great idealists, was eternally right when he asserted half a century ago that the role of the writer is “to lift people up, not lower them down” — a role each of us is called to with increasing urgency, whatever cog we may be in the machinery of society.

So this is what’s happened to the world: optimization trumps human preference. The people who want to win the argument are effectively prepared to ignore human truths to preserve the integrity of the artificial model.