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containers

i’ve had a puzzle that’s been bothering me for about as long as i’ve been writing, though maybe i didn’t begin to prop

kenny werner

I’m gonna throw it open. If you have a question on anything involving anything in the world, I can answer it. You know,

lentil

it’s been almost 2 months since my last post and I just wanna spend maybe 30 minutes writing something and hitting send with

vannevar

just for fun, collecting mentions of vannevar bush’s as we may think (1945) tbc

beautiful noisy messes

i’m tired and i don’t have much time. i need to publish something or i’m going to go mad. i have a lot of tabs open. one

contemplate

I’ve spent a lot of the past two years thinking about how to do these substack essays. Recently, I was getting so frustrated

win_loop

have a draft of an essay i’ve sort of lazily idling on titled “win loops” and i might as well just tweet it

all the channels 2

all the channels 1 i wrote a whole book about introspection, in part because i believe i’m pretty good at it, and i believe

packaging problem

I was doing the dishes last night and listening to some year-old youtube vlogs of myself doing my monthly status updates. One

behavior change

One of the central questions of my life is, how much control or influence do I have over my own behavior, really? A lot of my

writing on commutes

writing on commutes From 2013 to 2018, I used to write diligently on my phone on my commutes. I’d write both on the way to w

aladdin

I woke up from a dream that was set in something like my brain’s remix of the old video game, The Prince of Persia. It remin

kwml

I heard about this book a long time ago, but I can’t remember where exactly. I do remember it being mentioned by Elliott Hul

writing involuntarily

I have fond memories of times I used to write. Right now it’s 755am on a Sunday morning – it’s the day of my wedding ann

blog overview 2023

I feel compelled to go to the start of my blog and start commenting on it. Visa Reacts to his own blog. (this is a janky mess)

wildest dreams

I have to laugh sometimes at how my life has turned out. In some ways I am living a life that is beyond my wildest dreams, at

2023 worklog

dec23 very productive day deleting and merging blogposts on /blog/, then reading about ulysses dec9: earlier, thread about ppl

improv

I like writing, so here I am. I don’t have a particular thing in mind that I want to write about, so I’m going to improvis

suffering from misunderstandings

i tend to start in the middle was watching some stuff about toyota on youtube been thinking about processes lately. Particular

can’t or won’t?

what’s the difference between unwilling and unable? lots of people do have poor reading comprehension and are lousy list

give it a minute

It’s been 4 months since I published my last substack post. Is that a long amount of time? It depends on how you see it. I t

covid

i took this pic in feb 2020 and i knew it was going to be interesting/relevant somehow

one-foot introspect

I wrote a 300-page ebook titled Introspect that I’m really proud of. Over 2,500 people have bought it so far. I’d estimate

one-foot FAN

Throughout history there have been “exceptional” people who seemed to have the near-mystical ability to ‘walk through th

histories

draft/notes thing? For starters, I recommend everybody watch bill wurtz’ history of the entire world, i guess for a nice ove

mcluhan

Malcolm McLuhan has been on my radar for a long time, but I’d always been kinda avoiding him, the way I had previously avoid

repetition

simplistic but feels right: good repetition is mindful, bad repetition is mindless meta: mindless repetition isn’t all that

blogosphere

collecting some tweets and notes… Neilsen blogosphere study 2012: Buzz in the Blogosphere: Millions More Bloggers and Bl

ayy players

someone asked what I mean by A+ talent I personally define it as the ability to step into a situation, figure out what’s

how to market

“How do I market my <community> substack? There are thousands of <community>-curious people out there and only a t

unstuck

(original thread) meant to write an essay today but got distracted by twitter lol and now its bedtime so maybe i’ll blur

unsolicited advice

“I’ve noticed a few recent tweets that seem to deviate from your ‘brand’. If you want to continue to g

reality

This post was a stub that evolved into “reality is unrealistic” substack essay a few months later. “But please r

self-bullying

(og tweet) idk if i’ve framed it like this before when talking about trust and freedom etc: a person who bullies themsel

FAN thesis take 1

All right, hey friends! So what I’m going to be doing is I have a speech that I’m giving in a couple of weeks. Tod

everything is sexual

(og thread) maybe this is jarring for me to say in context here because i inhabit a different vocabulary entirely but i think

irritation with others

(og thread) i hold on to my irritation with other people in large part because i want to think of everyone as peers i want to

mysteriously winning

(og thread) When you’re starting out, it feels like you don’t have a lot of value to contribute. but as you get be

aesthetic conformity vs being distinctive

(og thread) a lot of recommendations on how to look/sound better goes something like “here’s how to conform better

map of human conversation

“art is never finished, merely abandoned” – da vinci “every book is a failure” – orwell From time

free agent reflections

its been about 4.5 years now since i’ve worked a “proper job”, in another year or so i will have been a free

eggshells

(og thread) in my 30s i’ve been coming around to learning that most people are quite forgiving. i got burned really hars

aesthetics of earnestness

Aesthetics of earnestness  Earnestness doesn’t have to mean you pick up the language and aesthetics often associated wi

new guy navigating group norms

(og thread) every group of people develops some set of norms, and there is typically friction when a new entrant joins the gro

abdication

(oct2022 thread) a thing I haven’t quite been able to connect the dots on properly, but have an increasing felt sense of: th

external meaning structures

(og thread) people who are bad at generating their own meaning get much more troubled by disruptions and turbulence in externa

behavior change requires addressing copes

(og thread) vague intuition that a critical factor of why behavior change/redesign is so unsuccessful so often is: insufficien

power

(original thread) experimenting with a frame, not sure if I’m entirely behind it but let’s see how it feels: iR

trivia

Erasmus Mersenne Jadav Dashrath Wang yinji abdallah  Chola Jane jacobs, mixed uses, wealth creation, sidewalks, strangers

100 greatest products of all time

Work in progress.

you can just not do the thing

(og thread) “The entire internet gaslighting itself into watching Morbius is one of the most hysterical things I’v

language

A big part of why I write is so I can think clearly without all of the inelegant clutter of most people’s words, and mo

filters and boundaries

(og thread) i dont feel like anybody ever talked to me about filters and boundaries in the way that i’d have liked to he

broscience stress theory

(original thread) my big broscience medical conspiracy theory is that tonnes of things are downstream of stress (which have to

socially inherited bloatware

(2019nov thread) had several conversations w/ friends who’ve been incapacitated by the burdensome bullshit obligation to

naming ceremony

this was me just freestyling and jamming about my substack Naming ceremony This is an associative exercise, just listing out t

wooten

Don’t think about the bass, think about the drums I asked him to take the attention off the bass, and you heard it get bette

taskmaster: do you deserve joy?

(og thread) looking back, one of the major anxieties of my teens and most of my 20s was caused by this unhelpful, unhealthy be

2050 predictions

I was asked by @mold_time to make some predictions for 2050. Now, that’s a wack thing to do, because 2050 basically 30 years

hyperinflation

everybody owes each other stuff, we call this society then people invented coin to represent this debt and trade it around, we

better explanations

(dec2021 thread) throughout my life I recurringly find myself thinking the thought “nobody explained this to me the way it o

calendar rehab, aversion to containers

(original thread) might as well talk about it out loud: i experience a deep aversion to putting stuff to do on my calendar (ot

better explanations

(2021dec3 thread) throughout my life I recurringly find myself thinking the thought “nobody explained this to me the way it

my compulsive people

(og thread) hypothesis: a thing abt “my people” is they each have some way in which they are oddly compulsive, at

mayor

This was Aug2021? doesn’t seem that long ago. Was discussing with malcolm how we would do things differently.  It’s m

just hit your target

This is the same core principle for starting a business or becoming an author, or anything really just sell one product, then

coleridge moment

(og thread) Just had a Coleridge moment. i took a nap, and in that nap i was on vacation, and on that vacation i was perfectly

prioritization defeats anxiety

observation: A person who is prioritizing is still not succeeding at the impossible task of doing everything they want to do,

how to scenius, draft

(scenius thread) a more general version of this is my dominant preoccupation, so here are some riffs and thoughts broad stroke

kurosawa

Aspiring directors #1- expensive, hard, you must learn and experience things, it’s not easy  But if you genuinely want

postratmusings

“Trying to sell ebooks to not have a job” well first of all, yes, I don’t want a job. I personally hate jobs. Second: in

i miss writing

I just had the thought that I miss writing. Which is a funny thought to have, considering how much time I spend every day twee

FAN reader takeaways

Quotes from the book in normal text. My thoughts in bold. (JR) “FRIENDLINESS is about being a nourishing presence. It’

the invitation: stop fussing

There are few things I dislike more than people telling me what to do. So this is not a directive. This is an invitation. You

naiise

I have been too tired/busy with other things to do very much these few days, but I promise I will never shut up about the stor

no scolding

(og thread) I seldom articulate this explicitly but one of the cornerstones of my approach to peopling is “no scolding&#

arrogance

(og thread) When I was a teenager, the dominant criticism my closest friends had of me was that I was too arrogant, and they w

leadership and responsibility

prev: do whatever the fuck you want I didn’t grow up wanting to be a leader. I grew up wanting to have fun. And leadership o

Do Whatever The Fuck You Want

(written ~Dec 2020?) When I was a teenager there was a Singaporean band that I really liked called Ronin, and one of their son

gender stuff

I wanna try tweeting like my most straightforward honest feelings about gender stuff; my thinking itself seems to be convolute

turning 30, 31

30 I just turned 30. I kinda try to do an update every year, though I’m not sure if I’ve been super deliberate about that.

handover protocols

“Political visions are fragile. They appear—and are lost again. Ideas formulated in one generation are frequently forg

pre-installed personalities

(original thread) with each passing year I get more and more convinced that people are practically born with most of their per

mkt1000

1000 blogpost ideas. There may be a few repeats. 0121013243069365911100013371000000s1d1st2010s2020s2nd3d3rd48laws4chan50s50sha

psychographs

(original 2019 thread) You know how people sometimes go to sleep thinking about a problem and wake up with the solution? I wen

dismantling obsolete beliefs

(2019 thread) there’s a sort of bullshit detector in my brain, which contains a set of beliefs about how the world works

sensitivity

sensitivity is a superpower – IMO sensitivity + smarts + strength is the holy grail. We have many cargo cults that worship s

Narcissism

many cultures have anti-narcissist defenses that, kinda unfortunately, seem to end up discouraging everyone except actual narc

Slingshot

The following post is a copy-paste of a Twitter thread. It will take some time before it turns into an essay of its own. I’v

make friends

Warning: This “blogpost” is currently just a messy, meandering collection of thoughts and notes. If I can only pic

threads

Here are a list of my threads.

memex

People keep asking me about the memex in my Twitter header. You can download a PDF of it if you like. Make friends. It is dang

assemble the mindcity

(original thread) Now that more of us are playing the threading game: As we compete+collaborate effectively articulate things

mkt content ideas 2017

Origin Stories I’d like to do a post exploring the origin stories of all the popular marketers and marketing thought lea

you can’t get everything you want

getting what you want isn’t always a good thing “I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they e

first day of work

This was me on my first day of work. It’s been 4 years now.   Here’s what I remember… I was terrified. It was

Turn curiosities into essays

This is an old note that’s interesting because it was from a while after I left my job, but before I started really succ

the boy who wouldn’t behave

“Why is nobody helping me?”  Amos Yee isn’t the first person to say the things he’s said. He isn̵

lsd quotes

LSD quotes “Psychedelics […] dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and informa

The public is insufficiently educated on how to be a good public

The public is insufficiently educated on how to be a good public. I think this is civilisation-specific (ie not an issue for e