Quote
- What is the real work of serendipity?
- A library of good neighbours
- The Dewey Decimal System pigeonholes all knowledge, like cells in a prison
- Harrison Owen, creator of Open Space Technology.
- Tiago Forte’s summary of How to Take Smart Notes, by Sönke Ahrens
📷 Photo challenge day 19: equal.
💬 “I exist in a fractally connected, self-organized universe where everything relates dynamically to everything else” - Jeremy Lent, The Web of Meaning.
Yes, we all do.
#mbjune #zettelkasten
💬"When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway." - James Baldwin. Paris Review, The Art of Fiction No. 78. no. 91, 1984.
Worth repeating and re-repeating:
“the evidence shows that regularising migration is a positive-sum game, in economic, social and security terms.”
A definitive study of a hotly debated phenomenon: migration into Europe and America, its socioeconomic impacts, and the eternal policy efforts to stop the inevitable.
#migration
“The rapid passage of time is a complete antimeaning machine. Doesn’t life absolutely require tactical slowing down if a person, even a smart, serious, concerned one, is to find the time and space to make meaning?” - Eric Maisel
Tactical slowing down is great, but then writing slowly is a whole strategy.
“You only come to know these things in hindsight – when you look back and see the precarious chain of events, happenstance, and good fortune that led to wherever you are now. Before you reach that point, you have no way of predicting which idea will make a difference and which will die on the vine. That’s why you record them all. No matter how random, how small, how half-baked, how unfinished it may be; if you have a thought, record it right away.” ― Antony Johnston, The Organised Writer.
“It is surprising how much one can produce in a year, whether of buns or books or pots or pictures, if one works hard and professionally for three and a half hours every day for 330 days. That was why, despite her disabilities, Virginia was able to produce so very much."—Leonard Woolf. Source.
My take: Choose your own race and finish it. The image is an example of how AI already looks unfashionable.
From tiny drops of writing, great rivers will flow
A river is made of water droplets. Breaking large writing projects into smaller parts makes the task more manageable and less daunting. Who knew?
To understand the future of AI, look to the past
The hype about AI isn’t new. In his day, Victor Hugo was breathless about the book.
Some say that due to AI, “the vast majority of human beauty that will exist has already been created”. I’m pointing out the opposite:
It’s a great time to be writing the future.
Why? Well, by nature humans innovate. Humans equipped with AI?
They just innovate harder.
💬 This is a quiet space…
Moving to Sydney offered cheap train travel compared with Europe. “Never mind arriving,” I would say, “it’s great value just for the view.”
Looks like they’ve finally worked out the real value proposition.
I’m always comparing my sloppy first drafts with other people’s heavily-edited published work. So it’s no wonder I’m down on my own stuff; this is a completely unfair contest of my own making.
That’s why I’ve found Dan Harmon’s advice enduringly helpful:
💬 Switch from team “I will one day write something good” to team “I have no choice but to write a piece of shit.”
In other words, ‘perfect’ is for editing, not for writing.
💬“I had in my mind to write three books about the world as it was, using concepts and images almost like characters. But I ended up making a long detour.” — Italian author, Roberto Calasso. (Source).
“Long detour” is an apt summary of a writing life, and fitting inspiration for my latest project.
💬 “It was mainly a matter of transcribing and rearranging my notes… My notes were like plans for a bridge. Writing the book was like building that bridge.” - John Gregory Dunne, The Studio, 1968.
Maybe you can create coherent writing from a pile of notes after all. writingslowly.com
Maybe you can create coherent writing from a pile of notes after all
“My notes were like plans for a bridge”.
I’ve argued that you can’t create good writing just by mashing your notes together and hoping for the best. That’s the illusion of connected thought, I’ve said, because you can’t create coherent writing just from a pile of notes.
Well, maybe I was wrong.
Perhaps a strong or experienced writer can do exactly that. Here’s John Gregory Dunne, the journalist husband of Joan Didion, in the Foreword to his 1968 book on Hollywood, The Studio:
I imagine he wasn’t just a good writer, though.
Surely he was first a very good note-maker.
I’d like to hear about people’s experiences, good and bad, of using their notes to create longer pieces of writing. Was it like building a bridge, or perhaps like building a bridge out of jelly?
HT: Alan Jacobs, who draws a different but very valid lesson from the anecdote.
Stay in the Writing Slowly loop and never miss a thing (unless you don’t get round to opening your emails, in which case, yeah, you might miss a thing. Anyway:
💬"The note you just took has yet to realize its potential." - Bob Doto, A System for Writing
Why not let your reading be a smorgasbord of serendipity?
Yes indeed, why not let your reading be a smorgasbord of serendipity?
Here’s Anna Funder, author of Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life, on working at the University of Melbourne English Department library as a student:
“It sounds prehistoric now, but I sat at the front desk, typing out index cards for new acquisitions or requests from staff for books or journals — anything from the latest novel, to psychoanalysis, poetry or medieval studies. I read things that had nothing to do with my studies: a smorgasbord of serendipity. Despite my time there, I have never understood the Dewey decimal system: how can numbers tell you what a book is, to a decimal point?” - Every book you could want and many more
My take on this?
HEAJ:Mundaneum by Marc Wathieu is licensed under CC BY 2.0
💬“Peace of the sort that brings wholeness, harmony, and health to our lives only happens when chaos, confusion, and conflict are included and transcended.”
Work as if writing is the only thing that matters
“Work as if writing is the only thing that matters. Having a clear, tangible purpose when you consume information completely changes the way you engage with it. You’ll be more focused, more curious, more rigorous, and more demanding. You won’t waste time writing down every detail, trying to make a perfect record of everything that was said. Instead, you’ll try to learn the basics as efficiently as possible so you can get to the point where open questions arise, as these are the only questions worth writing about. Almost every aspect of your life will change when you live as if you are working toward publication. You’ll read differently, becoming more focused on the parts most relevant to the argument you’re building. You’ll ask sharper questions, no longer satisfied with vague explanations or leaps in logic. You’ll naturally seek venues to present your work, since the feedback you receive will propel your thinking forward like nothing else. You’ll begin to act more deliberately, thinking several steps beyond what you’re reading to consider its implications and potential.”
💬 “The real issue with speed is not just how fast can you go, but where are you going so fast? It doesn’t help to arrive quickly if you wind up in the wrong place.” - Walter Murch, In The Blink of an Eye.
Found at Austin Kleon’s post, Hurry Slowly