Don Cheadle | Off Camera with Sam Jones
slip:4uoaiu2.
This is awesome cover-to-cover. About midway, this turns into a masterclass on “doing the work”. If you like—or haven’t yet seen—the movie Miles Ahead, about Miles Davis, this gets into that in the later 1/3.
ɕ
How do we navigate the balance between starting, sustaining, and stopping creative or personal endeavors?
The conversation examines the tension between perfectionism and the courage to share unfinished work.
It’s such a shame to have all these [things] on the shelves in the back of our minds or folders in our computers, all these things that we’ve kept back because they’re not perfect, or because we think they might not be right— We never know who will be changed by the things we make.
~ Robbie Swale (22:35)
The discussion covers challenges in managing creative processes and personal goals, focusing on a mission to appear on 100 podcasts. The complexities of handling output from such a challenge and the importance of deciding when to stop or persist are examined. This is tied to the broader question of balancing effort with strategic decisions in any endeavor.
Another key topic is overcoming perfectionism and fear of sharing creative work. Using quotes from poets and authors, the conversation emphasizes the importance of releasing work even if it feels incomplete. The necessity of starting projects and creating habits that reduce resistance to action is also highlighted. Tools like activation energy adjustments and reminders are presented as practical aids for staying focused and intentional.
(more…)You cannot sell your talent, your genius; as soon as you do, you are a prostitute. You can sell your work, but not your soul.
~ John Ruskin
slip:4a1002.
That’s the thing about aggregation: one can understand how it works, and yet be powerless to resist its incentives. It seems foolhardy to think that this might be true for economics and not true for ideas, even — especially! — if we are sure they are correct.
~ Ben Thompson from, The Current Thing – Stratechery by Ben Thompson
slip:4usate3.
Sometimes I read things on the Internet and I want to throw my keyboard (my title is a reference to 1980s console games where one might get furious, and rage-quit by throwing the game’s controller.) Partly, my urge to rage-quit is from exasperation that Thompson keeps cranking out these great articles (and his podcasts Dithering and Exponent and this other thing he did that is awesome but you wouldn’t understand because I can’t explain it well) while I’m over here plinking away writing snarky blog posts when I should be earning a living.
But also because of the point of the article which is found in my pull-quote of the entire final paragraph.
ɕ
False ideas which gain currency can easily be recognized by the loud fanfare with which they are accompanied. Real truth does not need any other embellishments.
~ Leo Tolstoy
slip:4a1001.
That’s not because Rudin did a bad job. It’s because there ain’t no way to re-write mathematical analysis as a “list”. When you do write a list, you are promising that you’ve figured out a way to cover the subject in that way without losing essential detail. Provided that you deliver on that promise, it’s a powerful thing.
~ “Dynomight” from, How I learned to stop worrying and structure all writing as a list
slip:4udyli1.
ɕ
The way to fame goes through the palaces, the way to happiness goes through the markets, the way to virtue goes through the deserts.
~ Chinese proverb
slip:4a999.
Building models is a fundamental part of trying to understand the world in any systematic or organized way. The world has too many details and complexities to be taken in all at once. In order to really understand a particular phenomenon, we need to focus on certain essential details while ignoring others.
~ Todd Hargrove from, Models of Pain and Movement — BETTER MOVEMENT
slip:4ubebo1.
I often remind myself that all models are wrong, but some models are useful. Maps, metaphors, similes, and even some storytelling are all models.
Two things top of mind: Why oh why!? doesn’t similes pluralize via -ies? (Say the singular and plural forms of smile and simile… wth English?) And second, I use a related-to-models test for what I mean by, “I always tell the truth.” (To tell the truth, I always say the thing which helps the other person build an accurate model of reality.)
ɕ
We feel something, and reach out for the nearest phrase or hum with which to communicate, but which fails to do justice to what has induced us to do so. We hear Beethoven’s Ninth and hum poum, poum, poum, we see the pyramids at Giza and go, “that’s nice.” These sounds are asked to account for an experience, but their poverty prevents either us or our interlocutors from really understanding what we have lived through. We stay on the outside of our impressions, as if staring at them through a frosted window, superficially related to them, yet estranged from whatever has eluded casual definition.
~ Alain De Botton
slip:4a998.
Wow. Here’s the 1,000th quote added to my collection:
The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think that it’s real because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills, and it’s very brightly coloured, and it’s very loud and it’s fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question – is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us. They say ‘Hey! Don’t worry, don’t be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride.’ And we… kill those people.
~ Bill Hicks
slip:4a1000.
I don’t “use” the numbers in simple 1, 2, 3, … order. Often I find several quotes from one person at the same time. I don’t want 20 quotes in a row from Leo Tolstoy in the daily quotes podcast. I space them out and end up with a smattering of numbers used out of order. So I keep a little list:
Each time I find a quote, I look to find the next number. When I used 999 for a proverb I thought, “I wonder what quote will be next?” And promptly forgot all about the milestone.
Today I bounced on my take-me-to-a-random-post link (see About this site) and landed on a very old post from 2013. It was a very large block of text, much longer than what I usually quote. I trimmed it down to what’s show above and copied it into my collection. I looked up the number and …surprise! 1,000.
ɕ