Time Spent
I don’t particularly enjoy the process of making a podcast: there are elements of it I find fulfilling and this process allows me to produce things I want to see in the world, while also contributing to my livelihood. But…
Social Tangles
For about a decade-and-a-half, beginning just after the arrival of smartphones in everyone’s pockets and the subsequent deployment of social media platforms on those devices, we’ve benefitted and suffered from shared, digital social spaces. As with most things, the fruits…
Mini-Vacations
Over the years, I’ve often waxed poetic about my love for slow-paced, long-term travel, but I’m also a big fan of what I’ve come to think of as “mini-vacations” as both alternatives and supplements to deeper, more involved explorations of…
What We Take In
I tend to believe that a balanced informational diet is important. That means trying to engage with a variety of different sources, different mediums, different types of information, and making sure to include hearty helpings of concrete reality, compelling (not…
When the Ground Moves
I’ve been working for myself, running a collection of publications and small businesses and “weird internet projects,” since 2009. That’s a long time ago! Smartphones were still a new thing, the world was still recovering from a global financial crisis,…
Meant To Be Used
Our brains and bodies default to conserving energy. This energetic setting made a lot of sense in primordial history, as the creatures that could accumulate and save more energy tended to outperform (and thus, out-survive and out-procreate) their competition. It…
Places to Put Things
When I think about work, I sometimes visualize a collection of little boxes in which I can put things. This is true of paid work—the projects that help me make rent and buy groceries—but also the sort of work I…
What I’ve Got
It can be useful to embrace your limitations when you feel stuck, uninspired, or unable to make any progress on some task or undertaking. Sometimes you’re missing what feels like a vital component or data-point, and the slow-down is related…
Energetic Expenditures
There are countless ways we might visualize our portfolio of intrinsic resources, but one metaphor I find to be useful is that of electrical production and expenditure. You can produce electricity in all sorts of ways, ranging from the burning…
Motivation Sources
To what degree is what I want shaped by how I think others will treat me if I get it? This is a question I ask myself semi-regularly, as I think it helps me focus on what’s truly important to…