Self-Awareness

Your attention, please →

Published October 16, 2023  ·  All posts on Oct 16  ·  ,

I’ve a strong drive to seek attention. I’ve a desire to be seen as clever. Being clever isn’t the problem; The desire is the problem. Being clever is, sometimes, just the right ingredient to help someone solve a problem. But more often than not, being clever is not helpful.

It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that my work is really about attentional design.

Becoming aware of attention. Shaping and directing it. Shifting its quality and inner experience. Leveraging it to produce work of real value.

~ Tiago Forte from, The Topology of Attention – Forte Labs

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Magic happens when I’m able to cleave the attention-seeking from the useful clever. When I’m able to remove stressors (stressors which invariably are of my own creation) then I’m free to frolic and create. Exhaustion can be a limit. Day-dreaming can be a limit if in excess. But ruminating is a certain road to ruin, every time. I regularly need to aim my attention inward: What specifically am I ruminating about? …and how, surgically, can I cut that out?

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Flattery →

Published September 25, 2023  ·  All posts on Sep 25  ·  ,

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter.

~ Denis Diderot

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Reality →

Published September 13, 2023  ·  All posts on Sep 13  ·  , ,

People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.

~ Carl Jung

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Transformative →

Published August 27, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 27  ·  , ,

I’ve never seen any life transformation that didn’t begin with the person in question finally getting tired of their own bullshit.

~ Elizabeth Gilbert

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Eyebrow raised. Chuckle stifled. →

Published August 11, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 11  ·  , ,

Once I learned how to be a good sport, I began to appreciate getting my delusions busted as the target of a well played, real life, condescending Wonka. I’m too often condescending, and being the recipient is potent medicine.

It is to my great pleasure that such a fine example of 18th-century punking is related to typography.

~ Martin McClellan from Letters From the Hellbox: Caslon, Baskerville, and Franklin: Revolutionary Types – McSweeney’s Internet Tendency

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Typography is a field which I find intriguing. People spent tremendous time and effort understanding readability and utility of little bits of lead type, printing presses, and optimizing everything. I find it sublime that someone so into type (go read the essay) was so oblivious about something they held so dear. Yes, do tell me more about that typography minutiae.

At which point I began doing that sort of squinting, glancing side to side, I’m feeling suspicious thing. I’m not a typography nerd, but there are a couple other fields where I could probably use a good punk’ing.

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Perspective →

Published August 6, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 6  ·  , ,

Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world.

~ Miyamoto Musashi

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Make the time →

Published August 2, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 2  ·  , , ,

Nine years ago (journaling for the win!) I went from zero to rock-climbing in just a few weeks in preparation for a spontaneous, multi-week trip to Colorado. I was staring at my calendar leading up to the trip, and trying to imagine how I’d empty the weeks; how would I stop doing all these things that I do every day to make room for being away.

So I started chopping. This was the turning point where I started getting clear about what I was allowing into my life. First I figured out how to work ahead, or push off work—that’s the usual thing to do in preparation for going away. But then I unsubscribed from countless emails to avoid them piling up, then I unsubscribed from notifications from various services, then I entirely dropped services, and then I started getting intentional about what I was gathering to engage with.

How can I get more cultured / interested in things? I constantly feel I am missing out on conversations as I just don’t have any drive towards joining in. Everything looks meh.

~ Gavin Leech from, get hype

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All of my efforts to “make time” over the last nine years have made me realize that I clearly do not have the problem Leech is discussing. I have the other problem. I seem to already be naturally doing all the things he suggests. And I’ve no idea how to stop doing any of that stuff.

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Honesty →

Published August 1, 2023  ·  All posts on Aug 1  ·  , ,

Honesty always gets my attention. Not particularly someone who is honest to me, but someone who is honest with themselves.

~ Heath Ledger

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Self study →

Published July 26, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 26  ·  , ,

Useless to possess an obedient mind unless one profits to the furthest possible degree by its obedience. A prolonged primary course of study is indicated. Now as to what this course of study should be there cannot be any question; there never has been any question. All the sensible people of all ages are agreed upon it. And it is not literature, nor is it any other art, nor is it history, nor is it any science. It is the study of one’s self. man, know thyself.

~ Arnold Bennett

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Nouns or verbs? →

Published July 23, 2023  ·  All posts on Jul 23  ·  , ,

We are not nouns, we are verbs. I am not a thing… an actor, a writer… I am a person who does things… I write, I act… and I never know what I am going to do next. I think you can be imprisoned if you think of yourself as a noun.

~ Stephen Fry

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