The system work as follows:

1. Choose a schedule of work hours that you think provides the ideal balance of effort and relaxation.
2. Do whatever it takes to avoid violating this schedule.

This sounds simple. But think about it for a moment. Satisfying rule 2 is not easy. If you took your current projects, obligations, and work habits, you’d probably fall well short of satisfying your ideal work schedule. Here’s a simple truth: to stick to your ideal schedule will require some drastic actions.

I often turn to Cal Newport for glimpses of maintaining sanity while being bombarded with responsibilities.

I revisited this blog post recently and it is fascinating to see how his theory from 2008 about staying productive evolved into full books like Deep Work.

I’ve really gotta start saying “no” to more things.

This is not meant to be a happy story about the need to get out of the bubble of like-minded coastal elites; I think it’s totally OK, recommended even, to stay far far away from people who think you are going to hell. But I guess I think it’s also OK to touch the hot stove occasionally if you want to, to pretend that this time you won’t let it hurt you.

Instead of crowding your attention with what’s already going viral on the intertubes, focus on the weird stuff. Hunt down the idiosyncratic posts and videos that people are publishing, oftentimes to tiny and niche audiences. It’s decidedly unviral culture — but it’s more likely to plant in your mind the seed of a rare, new idea.

Examples of idiosyncratic communities in which I’ve been trying to increase my participation:

• an offshoot of a online community I was very into back in the early 2000s
• a YouTube series where a guy rewatches old episodes of Monday Night Raw and Monday Nitro and compares them head-to-head, deciding who won each week of the Monday night wars
• a Reddit community who cares deeply about dates being expressed in the ISO-8601 date format
• another Reddit community that posts highlights from a mobile app football game that I am really into

Ursula Franklin wrote, “Central to any new technology is the concept of justice.”

We can commit to developing the technologies and building out new infrastructural systems that are flexible and sustainable, but we have the same urgency and unparalleled opportunity to transform our ultrastructure, the social systems that surround and shape them.

Every human being has a body with similar needs, embedded in the material world at a specific place in the landscape. This requires a different relationship with each other, one in which we acknowledge and act on how we are connected to each other through our bodies in the landscapes where we find ourselves.

We need to have a conception of infrastructural citizenship that includes a responsibility to look after each other, in perpetuity.

And with that, we can begin to transform our technological systems into systems of compassion, care, and resource-sharing at all scales, from the individual level, through the level of cities and nations, all the way up to the global.

My children will live a story that I cannot write and cannot control. It will be their story. To become a parent is to feel, every day, the weight and hope and terror of that fact. I can’t tell you whether it’s the right choice for you, but no climate model can, either.

If you, like me, have seen those initial pictures from the Webb telescope and thought, “Well, those are really cool looking but I'm not nerdy enough to get why they're such a big deal”, then this is the article for you!

YouTube’s algorithm brought this video to me and my wife’s attention tonight.

For as many faults as you can place on Google and their algorithms, I sure am grateful they surfaced this.

Two observations:

First, the stunning artistry, my god. The song “Green Eyes” is like listening to an emotional onion being peeled. You start with denial, which fades into anger, which fades into loneliness/lust/regret. What an amazing commentary on heart break.

Second, I never appreciated recorded concerts much until now. I always thought the in-person factor made more of a difference for experiencing music than what could be accomplished via a recorded medium.

It must be what it felt like to listen to a vinyl record in the sixties, or an orchestra in the 1800s, or a gospel chant in the 1400s. Simply an ethereal experience that makes you happy to be alive.

I found this article to be so delightful. Someone made a detailed observational post about all the various modes of transportation that help people move throughout Japan. Well worth your time.

I know, I know, it’s another 10 Reasons Why list… but dang nabbit, there are some solid pieces of financial advice in here!

My personal favorite:

When someone gives you two reasons or excuses for not doing something, neither one of them is true and both are invalid. You haven’t gotten to the truth yet. Imagine asking a friend to go to a baseball game and he says “I can’t, my in-laws are coming over tonight.” Then you tell him it’s actually a day game. “Oh, I’m also sick. Not feeling well.” His in-laws aren’t coming over and he’s not sick either. There’s something else going on. If you understand this aspect of human nature, you are equipped to talk to investors.

With greater access to news on social media and the internet, Americans are more deluged than they used to be by depressing stories. (And the news cycle really can be pretty depressing!)

This is leading to a kind of perma-gloom about the state of the world, even as we maintain a certain resilience about the things that we have the most control over.

Beyond the diverse array of daily challenges that Americans face, many of us seem to be suffering from something related to the German concept of weltschmerz, or world-sadness. It’s mediaschmerz—a sadness about the news cycle and news media, which is distinct from the experience of our everyday life.

I’m really not sure how my journalism friends maintain their sanity.

I’m also not sure how to interpret this theory other than “this is what I’ve been trying to articulate for two years now, but with some data.”

Turn off the news, delete your social media accounts. Your weltschmerz and mediaschmerz will thank you for it.