Scree

noun : an accumulation of loose stones or rocky debris lying on a slope or at the base of a hill or cliff.

Joy or sorrow →

Published April 25  ·  All posts on Apr 25  ·  

In the Greek story of Sisyphus, the king was condemned for eternity to move a massive rock up a hill but never reach the summit. Albert Camus famously saw it as a parable of the human condition: Life is meaningless, and consciousness of this meaninglessness is torture. This is how I’d remembered Camus’ essay The Myth of Sisyphus, which describes an afterlife as devastating as that of Prometheus having his liver pecked out by an eagle anew every day. But when I reread it recently, I was reminded that for Camus, the king isn’t entirely tragic; he has some power over his existential predicament. Once he grasps his fate—“the wild and limited universe of man”—Sisyphus discovers a certain freedom; he gets to determine whether to face the futility of it all with joy or sorrow.

~ Gal Beckerman, from A Case for Sisyphus and Hopeful Pessimism

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It’s our choice.

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A lead lining? →

Published April 24  ·  All posts on Apr 24

Ironically, it is actually far easier for us archaeologists to investigate the monument now than it was before the fire. Although the fire released a lot of lead, making it necessary for researchers to don protective clothing and abide by procedures to avoid lead toxicity, we no longer face the obstacles presented by floods of tourists on the site, and materials damaged by the fire are now more available for analysis. Together, we have learned a lot about the building, its materials, and the possibilities for reconstruction.

~ Maxime L’Héritier, from Archaeology in the Ashes of Notre Dame

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But, metaphorically, a silver lining. Clearly some good is coming out of the fire at Notre Dame. What an amazing layering of history there.

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Wait wat →

Published April 23  ·  All posts on Apr 23  ·  

After ending on a startlingly inconclusive note in 1991, Twin Peaks returned in 2017 to extend the story for one more season. Yet audiences who’d hoped for a traditional ending were again denied one. Again, Lynch seemed to be imploring them to stop seeking clarity and embrace the moments whose overarching connections are far less obvious. What mattered to him, it appears, was the experience itself: the feelings they evoked, the uncanny images whose significance were difficult to parse yet impossible to forget. David Lynch didn’t want to leave his viewers with an interpretation, but with something more visceral—like the taste of cherry pie and a cup of hot coffee, black as midnight on a moonless night.

~ Emma Stefansky, from David Lynch Captured the Appeal of the Unknown

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I watched Twin Peaks in real time on ‘ol broadcast TV. It bent my brain in the best way possible. But . . . there’s another season?! Shut up and take my money— I was reading this, thinking it was simply interesting. Until I got to this line… excuse me while I run to whatever streaming service it takes . . .

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Potent paper and pen →

Published April 22  ·  All posts on Apr 22

Paper is good. Somehow, a blank page and a pen makes the universe open up before you. Why paper has this unique power is a mystery to me, but I think we should all stop trying to resist this reality and just accept it.

~ “Dynomight,” from Paper

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Paper is good is a colossal understatement. The magic of writing comes from being forced to slow down; One has to hold on to a single-sentence sized thought long enough to write it. You’ve never held one thought, clearly in mind, for 10 seconds… unless you were writing it down.

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Slow down →

Published April 21  ·  All posts on Apr 21

[I]t’s important to have a sense of urgency. But there’s a difference between urgency and rushing, hurrying, going quickly for the sole sake of speed. There is an old Latin expression that I think captures the balance here nicely: Festina Lente, which means, Make haste slowly. A sense of urgency…with a purpose. Energy plus moderation. Measured exertion. Eagerness, with control. It is about getting things done, properly and consistently. They like to say in the military that slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

~ Ryan Holiday, from These Are Leadership Ideas I Try To Apply Every Day

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This is just one, from a long list of great ideas. I’ve been thinking and mentioning festina lente ever since I first learned about it.

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Consider: How do you handle the tension between quality and consistency? →

Published April 20  ·  All posts on Apr 20  ·  

We’re told to “just ship it,” but also to “make it great.” Where do you draw the line? When do you prioritize polish, and when do you hit publish?

I had to learn—the way you learn to ride a bicycle: do it over and over, the “principle” of the thing doesn’t help you do the thing—that the tension is a good sign. Now when I feel the tension between quality and consistency I know I’m in the correct place.

This morning, I’m thinking about a rowing metaphor: One oar is quality and the other is consistency. Pull evenly and the boat goes straight-ish. Also, if you try to row too hard, you get exhausted. The best way to make long-term progress is to row these two things, in balance, at a sustainable pace.

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First, balance →

Published April 19  ·  All posts on Apr 19

Well, I trust that if I’ve got a night’s sleep, if possible, and have had something to eat, and have worked on the part, I can kind of just show up. It’s of course a case-by-case basis, depending on the part and the scene. But just put some attention and some good honest effort into trying to solve the puzzles of the scene and it will work out, without overly trying to inflate my condition, my inner thinking and feeling — without overly abusing myself.

~ Jeff Goldblum, from Jeff Goldblum – The Talks

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I do love that the first item on that list is sleep. But yes, absolutely, there’s magic in preparing, and then letting go of that preparation. In thinking: I’m prepared, smiling, and looking forward to this adventure.

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On the other hand →

Published April 18  ·  All posts on Apr 18

Along the way, over years of practice, I lost faith that awareness was always curative, that resolving childhood trauma would liberate us all, that truly feeling the feelings would allow them to dissipate, in a complex feedback loop of theory and practice.

~ Niklas Serning, from I am a better therapist since I let go of therapeutic theory

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I read somewhere that what likely makes any therapy work is the effort one puts into creating the relationship with the therapist. Striving to be a better person seems to lead to—wait for it—slowly becoming a better person. To that end, I recommend deploying tools like discovery and reflection to attempt to ground your self-assessment in reality, and to give yourself a force multiplier for the incremental insights.

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Difficult is not easy →

Published April 17  ·  All posts on Apr 17  ·  

When companies face real competitors, then some enshittificatory gambits are unprofitable, because they’ll drive your users to competing platforms. That’s why Zuckerberg bought Instagram: he had been turning the screws on Facebook users, and when Instagram came along, millions of those users decided that they hated Zuck more than they loved their friends and so they swallowed the switching costs and defected to Instagram. In an ill-advised middle-of-the-night memo to his CFO, Zuck defended spending $1b on Instagram on the grounds that it would recapture those Facebook escapees.

~ Cory Doctorow, from Pluralistic: Enshittification isn’t caused by venture capital (20 Jan 2025)

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There’s a lot of value in being able to just hop onto some platform and do what you need or want to do: easily organize a group of friends, say, while not having everyone know where your baby shower will be. It turns out that building complex systems is difficult, not easy. Any time you find something is easy to do (using some piece of technology) first, marvel at that. Because doing the difficult work of building that whatever-it-is enables the other things you want to do to seem to be easy.

And the second thing should do it think about why would anyone want to do all that difficult work and perhaps you should (at least sometimes) just directly do that difficult work yourself.

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Immersive →

Published April 16  ·  All posts on Apr 16  ·  

You stand back and in a way, the reason it’s interesting is because it stands out, it doesn’t fit in, it doesn’t look like anything you’ve seen. But this is not really my position — generally. There might be moments where such a performance is necessary but we like to find a stronger relationship between the familiar and the unfamiliar. My feeling is that when a building is too self-referential, the audience is distanced; architecture becomes something that you look at. [Like in a cathedral or a monument?] Right, it’s a spectacle — whereas I think for 99% of the time, architecture is something that you should be inside and absorbed by. It’s something which convinces you by experience more than impresses you by image.

~ David Chipperfield, from David Chipperfield – The Talks

I think that tension exists in any creative endeavor. Perhaps, the existence of that tension is what defines something as being creative?

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