“He’s like Jesus with a plow, and we’ve gotta walk beside him with our hands on that plow if we’re going to learn anything from him.”.
An apprenticeship in writing, with Wendell Berry. | Substack
‘Renaming Lake Ontario’ has the form of a classic mafia loyalty test. The Don sets an absurd, demeaning small task, to learn who’ll accept the subsequent steps. Google keeps passing. They don’t know their boundaries, which for a leading map-making company is ironic.
#Tech #TechEthics #Cartography
There's only make
The consistently inspiring online writer Brennan Brown ‘confesses’ to being a compulsive worker.
“Twenty sheets a day, or 2,000 words, or one essay every single day for eleven straight years… I don’t know if any of it is good, in the way Tellado’s editors meant good or the way Cervantes meant it when he called Lope a prodigy of nature. But I know the not-writing feels worse than the writing, and apparently that’s been true of every obsessive scribbler since at least the Spanish Golden Age, and there’s something comforting in that lineage. We’re not well, certainly. But we’re not alone, either.” — Compulsion – the writers who wrote the most in history
This compulsion to express oneself put me in mind of Coreta Kent’s rule number 6:
“Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.” – Coreta Kent’s Ten Rules for artists
It’s not so much that consistency beats quality. More that consistency is what produces quality. But even before the desire to make good work comes the simple urge to make something.
I’m the author of Shu Ha Ri. The Japanese Way of Learning, for Artists and Fighters, available now.
Thinking about the late Yayoi Kusama today. We remembered our visit to the art gallery in her home town of Matsumoto where we were moved to tears.
#YayoiKusama #JapaneseArt
Thoughts on The Mulai, a novel by Munir Hachemi
The Mulai, Munir Hachemi, tr. Julia Sanches (Fitzcarraldo Editions 978-1804272732, June 2026; Coach House Books 978-1-55245-519-7, July 2026).
I came across The Mulai by Spanish author Munir Hachemi because it was the pick for August’s Indieweb Book Club, and I’m happy I did.
As Jim Mitchell says, Indieweb is punk, and clearly I like spinning my own threads, but I do have a question: Since you still need to rent a domain name to get on the Web, isn’t there something more indie, like hosting your own server on a mesh network? Did I miss something?
#IndieWeb #Blogging
Watched: The Invite 🍿very funny and quite poignant, with some great performances. I’m now keen to see the Spanish original.
Is your note collection making or unmaking the world? A reflection on institutional collecting, personal note archives, and why output matters more than input.
#Zettelkasten #Writing #NoteTaking #PKM #Blogging
Collecting notes is just the start
“The British Museum is not a good thing in and of itself. It is good only to the extent that its influence in the world is for the good. The collection is a starting point, an opportunity, an instrument. Will the museum use it to influence the future of the planet and its peoples? Or will it continue to project the power of colonial gain and corporate indemnity?” — Ahdaf Soueif, On Resigning from the British Museum’s Board of Trustees Soueif2019resigning
As a resigning member of the board of trustees of the British Museum, novelist Ahdaf Soueif was in a strong position to understand the point of collecting. His words, written in 2019, stand for any form of collecting, from world-leading to extremely modest.
Soueif reminds us that any collection is only “a starting point, an opportunity, an instrument”.
His resignation follows what I take to be an increasing realisation that in spite of the PR, through its collection and curation the British Museum really does perpetuate a colonial worldview, and is an instrument of destructive power. In particular he calls out the Museum’s continued sponsorship by oil multinational BP, its lack of leadership on the issue of the repatriation of looted artefacts, and its reluctance to support fair work conditions for ancillary staff in the wake of the collapse of service provider Carillion.
He asked of the Museum, not entirely rhetorically, it is to be hoped,
“will it be involved in making a world that is habitable, just, interconnected and open for the next generation; or will it continue to collaborate with those who are unmaking the world before our eyes?”
I think that this might apply as a test of any collection, at least in the following sense: Is the act of collecting making or unmaking the world?
In some very small way, even my collection of notes must play its part. Is my act of collecting making or unmaking the world?
Hence: publishing is important. It’s not enough to keep collecting. The aim is to make something and to share it with others.
Further Reading
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A search for meaning in the palace of lost memories: Thoughts on Piranesi, a novel by Susanna Clarke
In this article I examine two opposing worldviews when it comes to collections and the environment: viewing the world as something to exploit instrumentally, versus recognising its intrinsic value. I guess I’m interested in whether our systems of gathering and keeping serve to honour the world or merely extract value from it.
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How to decide what to include in your notes
This article explores commonplace books, personal collections of information, and the deliberate choices behind what we collect (and what we discard).
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How to start a Zettelkasten from your existing deep experience
Here I warn against building a “magnificent but useless encyclopaedia” and I champion active, meaningful engagement over passive hoarding. Easier said than done, but I’m trying.
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This is where I reflect on how personal notes construct a library of interpretations, and I ask how we decide what’s worth preserving.
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The Toe of the Year and the Curious Case of John Donne’s Missing Commonplace Book
This article looks at the mechanics of commonplace collecting and reflects on the risk of collecting quotes without genuinely digesting them. And yes, there’s a poem about the toe of the year.
I wrote a book, Shu Ha Ri: The Japanese Way of Learning. It’s available now.