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i swear the most effective way to get good at anything is to find comfort (or even joy) in not being good at it yet
(then many playful reps, but that's inevitable after step 1)
I want to do something that I haven't done for a long time, which is to write (or dictate) a stream of consciousness. Whatever's coming up for me. And then probably post it.
So many thoughts competing to be the first thought.
So, we'll start somewhere and we'll see what happens.
_(section headings and formatting and this sentence added afterwards, everything else is unedited stream)_
Even noticing now - the part of me that's worried that if I do that I'm going to lose or forget some part of it - and that that's bad somehow!
Layers upon layers.
### apartments, cities, spaciousness
**So the first thing that comes up is I'm really enjoying the apartment I'm in right now.**
There's something I don't love about cities (especially American cities) where they're not built for community and connection first.
I want to be living my life in, like, a commune kind of vibe.
Default outdoors.
Default other people around.
Default spaciousness for serendipity or connection or collaboration.
Rather than everything being scheduled, and life dragging people along.
But even in a city right now, New York City, I'm noticing that there's a type of apartment that I really love. And it's nothing complicated. It's just - I want tons of natural light. And it's clean and spacious. There's a desk set up. Again, it sounds so simple, but when I've spent five years being pretty nomadic… I think this setup with a desk and a second screen, and a nice simple background behind me, is just so refreshing.
And it's pointing me towards this desire for being settled in one place. It would not have been what I needed the last couple of years, but I will absolutely thrive on it now.
Having a routine, having a schedule, being able to consistently run the workshops that I want to be running because I know that I'm going to be in a certain place at a certain time in a certain time zone just sounds so lovely, and I'm so excited to have that.
No idea where, but I trust that that will become clear.
Just like everything else becomes clear when you're willing to sit in the uncertainty. That's one of the biggest learnings I've had.
### to sit in uncertainty
**My life is so much more aligned, contented, I feel a thousand times more at peace and at one with myself than I did a few years ago.**
And I don't know what's cause and what's effect (because, lol, those don't exist) but alongside that contentedness what I see is this willingness to sit in uncertainty.
To not need to have an answer to everything. That's been so powerful for me. Being willing to say "I don't know," and feel okay with that.
The "I don't know" never stays for that long. When we sit in the uncertainty and actually _feel_ the tension of it without trying to shut it down, like, things just shift in the most awesome ways that I couldn't have predicted or manufactured.
### impress vs express
**Even sitting and writing this. Creating something for the sake of self-expression, not because it has to land a certain way.**
That shift from impress to express has just been a journey and a half, and, I keep falling deeper and deeper into layers of what that means. And the world is responding in kind.
Reality is shifting around me. As I change it changes. Reality isn't real. The whole thing is fucking mind blowing. I don't get it. Lol. But I love it. I love the world. I love my place in it.
And I love the imperfections and confusions and the places where a voice in my head tells me that something is not perfect.
### gratitude
Right now I just feel so much gratitude.
I'm grateful for the crazy light show outside my window right now.
I'm grateful for light.
I'm grateful for sound.
I'm grateful for my shoulders, my body, my health, my joy.
My apartment. Technology. My hands, and feet.
Pens, and thoughts, and feelings.
And the things that humans create.
And that chair.
The funny random little moments. I'm like 85% sure this apartment doesn't have ceiling lights and 15% sure that I've just completely missed how to activate them.
### writer's block and self expression
A couple of years ago, when I would do these streams of consciousness, I'd sit at the blank page for the longest time because that voice in my mind that was telling me that I had to create something "good" and "right" and that everyone would like and that was the "right" way to go about this was so prevalent that there was no other path.
**And what's interesting now is that voice is still there.**
I just don't find myself taking it seriously, taking it as truth, and I don't feel hostile towards it, and it doesn't feel like it's hostile towards me.
It's just, it's a whisper of a life ring that I used to need, and it's still there bobbing on the water.
It's like if a little kid came and told me that there's a dragon on the roof that we need to go and deal with. Like, I can hear it, and entertain the idea, without it legitimately panicking me. I can see it for what it is. It's play.
(It would be super ironic if there was a dragon on the roof right now.)
### the goal
**There's the voice again. It's worried that nothing I'm writing is valuable, that people will laugh at me, that people will judge me, that I shouldn't post this.**
I'm choosing differently.
I have enough internal safety built from rep after rep that I'm able to have a different goal now.
The goal doesn't have to be to get all those things from everyone around me.
The goal in this moment is to express.
Is this my favourite piece of writing I've ever done? In terms of my perception of its quality? Absolutely not.
But the quality of its truthfulness, its expressiveness? 100%, no notes.
We don't choose our thoughts.
We choose how much to filter them.
I love this world.
I love all the mixed feelings within me right now.
I love me, and I love you, random person on the internet.
Til next time ✌️
crying was shamed out of me growing up. i suppressed it altogether from age 13–27
now i'm on a plane casually tearing up at toy story 5
life's a billion times better this way
feel your feelings bro
The issue is that abundance of resources was never the issue
We already had an abundance of resources after the industrial revolution, and arguably other times before that
People as a whole don't want to distribute them in a way where everyone gets plenty
I'm curious what will happen here on the individual level, and on the collective level. They're not necessarily the same
There are people like Pieter here who are taking the free time to be outside and be with loved ones and feel more contented than ever.
And there are others who are feeling the pressure to fill the extra time with more productivity and more grind and they are more stressed than ever.
In each case the productivity boost from AI is shining light on (and accelerating) the proclivity of each individual.
Does the world collectively have enough of the former type of person that society itself will orient around living more than grinding?
I'd love for the answer to be yes, but I predict it's no. I think many individuals will thrive, and it's my life mission to increase how many people this is true for… but in the short term I don't see society as a whole taking this win; it would violate too many people's (subconscious) need for stress and discontentment and overwhelm.
Yes, I have so much time now
I honestly feel like we're entering a new time of leisure where people are just talking to their agents to steer the direction of our work, while they work in the background 24/7
Like @felixrieseberg did while building his new homepage literally on a bike ride while talking to Claude on iOS
I already kinda did this with scheduled cron jobs for years, my sites were almost fully automated, but I still had to add features or fix bugs sometimes, but now for a year or more that part is also fully automated by AI
So then we just have so much leisure time suddenly available, that we can spend time with the ppl we love, do more fun things, play games, work on our health/fitness, be outside more, etc.
Some of that freed up time now goes into new projects, but there's a certain level of creative expression for me where it's sufficient and I am starting more and more to see I am spending that way from a computer screen too, and prefer it that way
Maybe this is the new time where we can finally live not work, as it was predicted 96 years ago by Keynes. That prediction never really came to fruition though because the automation that was invented just moved the work up to higher level (like from making actual things to financial, managerial, administrative, etc.) and people chose to just consume more, so they had to work more again!
But maybe now is different though, it definitely feels different to me
Shai Schechter retweeted
Why would I pay $15/month for your software when I can plan, build, review, improve, host, launch, scale, secure, patch, monitor and debug it myself?
it's fascinating that the rise of all these robots is forcing us to adapt to something more human
you can't hack engagement any more
the one thing that's working is reverting back to true service and true relationship and true creativity
the best things imo
i'm excited
Every creator is feeling this, but no one is saying it:
A lot of the strategies that used to work for creators aren’t working anymore.
It’s harder to get the same attention you used to.
And you have two options:
→ You can pack it up and quit
→ Or you can adapt, meet the moment, and keep going
For me, adapting means two things:
1.) Focus less on the outcome
2.) Change what I’m optimizing for
Instead of focusing my attention on how many people see something, I’m focusing my attention on the people who do.
Attention is harder to earn right now. But you can still make something worth paying attention to.
I feel like this is an underappreciated way to do life.
So much of how we do life—what we build or create or how we act—is modelled on how we've seen other people do life. And we get used to dismissing any ick feelings as "how I feel about this is wrong" instead of "there's another way I could do this that would feel so much better".
You can just do things, yes… and, you can just do things the way you'd most enjoy doing them
Before I started @theboardtalks, I went to about 50 events in a short stretch and made a rubric.
An actual document.
What did I hate. What did I love. What does nobody do that I wish somebody would. And more.
I designed my event by subtraction, taking out every single thing that made me want to leave early, and then adding a few wildcards that just sounded fun.
That's the whole methodology. I didn't read a book on community building. I just paid very close attention to my own boredom, dissatisfaction, or cringe.
Most of helping people who are struggling to create/accomplish a thing is simply giving them a space where it feels safe to make a "shitty first draft" and then reflecting back to them the 90% of it that's already awesome. The only skill issue is the relentless self-criticism
We build metal tubes and fill them with people and set them on fire and throw them through the air and then those people can hang out on the other side of the planet and some of you still don't believe in magic???
Shai Schechter retweeted
‘How lucky we are, when we’re spared what we think we want.’
- Lionel Shriver
