Every Wednesday, I share a short newsletter that lists the ideas I’ve been particularly struck by that week- hopefully, with most of them fitting into the ‘change-the-way-you-see-things-forever’ camp.
They can be big or small, philosophical or practical.
Below, I’ve outlined the ones from this first year that have stuck with me most.
AUSTIN KLEON
Not knowing is the first step.
I visited Austin, Texas last year, and was hoped to attend a Q&A event with another 'Austin': Austin Kleon, the author of 'Steal Like An Artist'. Sadly the festival changed the line-up last minute, so his talk happened roughly six hours EARLIER than advertised. No hard feelings... 😐
A recent edition of his newsletter featured a blacked out newspaper collage of his, which says:
"We don't know. And not knowing is the first step,"
DAVID SENRA
Belief comes before ability.
David Senra spends his time reading the biographies of high achievers and distilling the practices and values that defines them, as well as what they have in common:
"What pops up in these books again and again is that belief comes before ability. …society [says] 'show me'... 'prove to me your confidence is deserved'. No, you don't understand... the belief comes before the ability."
CHARLES DE GAULLE
There's no such thing as half a risk.
Charles de Gaulle, speaking near the end of his life:
“Character is above all the ability to disregard insults or abandonment by one’s own people. One must be willing to lose everything. There is no such thing as half a risk”
I discovered it via Ryan Holiday’s ‘Courage is Calling’ where I also learned that the opposite of courage isn’t fear or cowardice. The opposite of courage is despair.
FLAUBERT
Orderly makes original possible.
Rediscovered a quote by Gustave Flaubert this week:
“Be regular and orderly in your life like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work,”
EMERSON
The only way to have a friend is to be one.
A Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, from 'Billy No Mates' by Max Dickins:
“The only way to have a friend is to be one,”
DEREK SIVERS
The past is not true.
This short blog post comes in at about 400 words, so if you don't have time for that, you don't have time for much of anything.
Derek Sivers revisits a shocking moment from his own life, and outlines the difference between a single objective moment in our past, and the decades of subjective interpretation we tend to pile on to it:
“When I was 17, I was driving recklessly and crashed into an oncoming car. I found out that I broke the other driver’s spine, and she’ll never walk again..."
KEVIN KELLY
Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.
From Wired founder Kevin Kelly’s ‘68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice’:
“Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points,”
SLAVOJ ZIZEK
Boredom is the beginning.
Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavok Žižek, on the true source of creativity:
“I think boredom is the beginning of every authentic act. Boredom opens up the space for new engagements. Without boredom, no creativity. If you are not bored, you just stupidly enjoy the situation in which you are.”
JAMES HOLLIS
Growth or security: choose one.
Jungian analyst James Hollis:
"Choose growth or security. You can't have both."
SETH GODIN
AI defaults to surrender.
This riff of Seth Godin's:
“If you ask an AI a question and it’s not confident in the answer, it should say, ‘I’m not sure’. That could be followed up with, ‘do you want me to guess’ or ‘if you could give me more context…’
But proudly and confidently bluffing isn’t helpful.
I'd noticed myself when toying with ChatGPT that it rarely asks for clarification to any given prompt. Instead, it generally just plows into the task, often returning with less than ideal results.
When I started working in advertising, I was self-conscious about the reputation myself and my Art Director seemed to be generating for 'asking questions', (i.e.: '...too many questions')
But from our perspective, they were required.
We were on the hook for providing the right solution to a problem or brief, and we needed more context. We didn't mind the discomfort of a potentially negative reputation, if we could make the work better.
Surrendering by default is what hacks do. And if AI doesn't want to ruffle any feathers, or risk asking 'too many questions' it won't be able to do our work better either.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Taking offense is not a critique.
I disagree with Christopher Hitchens on a number of things, but not on this:
“If someone tells me that I’ve hurt their feelings, I say, ‘I’m still waiting to hear what your point is,"
TALEB
Skin in the game makes a second brain.
Really enjoyed a tweet from Nassim Nicholas Taleb, quoting a section from his book 'Skin In The Game':
"When you have skin in the game, dull things like checking the safety of the aircraft because you may be forced to be a passenger in it, cease to be boring. If you are an investor in a company, doing ultra-boring things like reading the footnotes of a financial statement (where the real information is to be found) becomes, well, almost not boring.
[...] A confession. When I don't have skin in the game, I am usually dumb.
[...] When there was risk on the line, suddenly a second brain in me manifested itself, and the theorems of probability became suddenly clear,"
ME
We're all just a psyche dreaming of a physical world.
This one was my own. 'Taking drugs' is a misnomer. Our brains are drugs, if they even exist.
Read that again slowly, and go for a walk... 😎
