Things I Like
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People are spending less and less time on the web because websites are becoming worse and worse experiences, but the publishers of websites are almost literally trying to dig their way out of that hole by adding more and more of the reader-hostile shit that is driving people away.
Gruber is referencing another post here, but I have to agree with him. I try to read most of the longer form web articles by saving them to Feedbin so that I can read them without all the noise. I also stop reading things the minute it becomes too annoying, it's not worth it, there's a lot of content out there I shouldn't have to fight to read the words.
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I have never been a workaholic, even when I really like my work. I enjoy creating things, and I take pride in a job well done. I like learning and solving problems, and I like interacting with other smart, creative people (within reason; I do get peopled-out and need to recharge with alone time). I like making websites and I was glad I got to do it for a living. But never a day went by when I wouldn’t have rather been doing something else.
I relate to this piece more than words can say. Although I don't say a ton about certain parts of my life publicly anymore, let me say that I agree with the author so much about what web work has become, unnecesarily so. I like the web, but there are so many other things I'd rather spend my time on at this point in life.
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If we could think locally, we would do far better than we are doing now. The right local questions and answers will be the right global ones. The Amish question "What will this do to our community?" tends toward the right answer for the world.
I don't agree with this entire list of Berry's, from 1991, but I do think so much of it is worth thinking about and I especially like the way he thinks of locally versus globally.
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An article that is somewhat infuriating about how women's clothing is sized and how utterly awful it is for everyone. The big thing sewing has taught me is how unique absolutely every body is. The fact that women outgrow the sizing so quickly is really astounding. Not everyone can or should sew their own clothes, but it would be nice if those who make the clothes understood women's bodies better and tried to fit clothes to them rather than whatever it is they're doing now. This is a well done article, I especially liked how the author showed the custom bodice block she made over the standard bodice block.
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...[T]his basic stance toward life – the anxious attempt to scramble to a place of psychological safety, to avoid being condemned to disaster and cast into the void – goes back a long way with me. So it all feels rather personal, and important for me to say that you don’t, actually, have to live like this. It won’t make you happier. It probably won’t even aid your career. You have the option of living with vastly more creativity and calm than the anxiety-merchants would have you believe – provided you can summon the strength of mind to screen them out.
I've really enjoyed Burkeman's way of talking about AI and creativity and this is no different. I say this as someone who isn't being pushed to use AI or worrying about losing a job to it, but I do think the idea that all creativity is going by the wayside hard to believe. I feel alive when I'm creative and I don't know that everyone is going to give up that feeling.
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In times of social and political crisis, especially when new and often contradictory bulletins are arriving on our ICDs (Internet-Connected Devices) at a second-by-second rate, you and I need to step back. We need the relief. But at the same time, it is impossible, for me anyway, not to think about what’s happening. Just saying “I’m not going to read any more about this” is an inadequate response; it has a tendency to leave me fretful and at loose ends.
I appreciated Jacobs words this morning. I've been trying to be offline and not attempt to keep up with the firehose of information, but it's been hard lately as the place I grew up is brutalized. What he says rings true for me, I've been reading a lot of older works and history to try and make sense of what I'm feeling and thinking now.
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As I committed more time to this pursuit, I considered just listing my patterns on a couple of different platforms, but honestly, ownership of my content remained in my crosshairs.
Jen is selling her patterns! Also I love that she's doing so on her own site. If you're a knitter, get on it, they're wonderful and I've bought Vines on a Trellis to knit at some point this year.
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I think that’s what I like the most about this concept: YAMA recognizes that missing out is a fundamental part of the human condition. Rather than fighting this reality or trying to optimize around it, YAMA suggests simply accepting that we’re finite creatures in an infinite world.
I've pulled back from being online over the last month so I'm missing things all the time. I've also realized that people using more content to tempt me towards a paid subscription doesn't work as I already feel completely overwhelmed with content. It's made me feel calmer to not know, to let it go. This article was helpful as a way to think about content and what matters and that my feelings lately are normal.
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The tech industry wants you to believe the only path forward is more—more AI, more platforms, more subscriptions, more integration, more data sharing. But maybe the actual path is less. Smaller tools, more ownership, fewer intermediaries, more intention about what you let into your life.
This is one of the reasons why this site is so important to me along with RSS. The more I walk away from the tech world, the calmer I find I am. I've also found in the last year that I've been making some connections with new people through this site and following theirs and that's been really lovely.
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But filtering out unwanted noise is not being left behind. It is prioritizing attention on what matters. It’s protecting a level of focus that becomes rarer with each new notification and version update.
A bit of a theme here with some of the things I'm reading and thinking about in these links. I've not had issues shutting out notifications, ever, but I do think that when we set aside the things that distract us, whatever they may be, we start to get clarity and focus in new ways. These pocket size computers can be great, but they can also be awful.
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I don’t mean politics isn’t incredibly important; clearly, it’s often life-or-death. What I mean is that when you go to dinner at a friend’s house, or work on your novel, or help your elderly neighbor with the groceries, or saunter through the park, you’re not somehow participating in reality less than if your head were stuck in politics. Indeed, the opposite might be the case. Every time I glimpse again that politics is just one conceptual overlay, I’m plunged back into the larger reality that contains it. And I’m freer to engage in life, including political life, more effectively than before.
This entire newlsetter from Burkeman is quite good, but I especially liked his reframing of politics and the role it plays in our reality. I can get very caught up in the minutiae of the current political situation so starting about 2 weeks ago I stopped going to any news sites at all. I read one news magazine that comes out on Fridays and is a recap of the events of the previous week, it's free through the Libby app via my library. What I've realized is how much time and energy I put into things that made no difference in my day-to-day life and that I have no control over. Slowly but surely I'm getting better at putting up really helpful boundaries and this reframing was super timely for me.
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The premise at the heart of these conversations is that websites deserve and require a mass readership to be important or worthwhile. But what if they don’t?
This entire idea, that maybe we don't all need to be read by all the people is so good. I don't track anything about this site so I have absolutely no idea who reads it or even how many people do. It's freeing. I post and don't think much about it later unless someone contacts me about it.
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Perhaps the reason the idea of an “interesting” life feels like a cop-out – compared to, say, a wildly successful or influential or joyful one – is that it lacks any sense of domination or conquest. We want to feel as though we were handed the challenge of a human lifetime and that we nailed it, that we grappled with the problem and solved it. Whereas to follow the lead of interestingness is to accept that life isn’t a problem to be solved, but an experience to be had.
I really enjoyed Oliver Burkeman's latest on following what interests you. Doing so usually leads to good things, but those things may not be promotions, money, fame, or whatever particular thing you want to put at the end of this sentence. That being said, it leads to more satisfaction and I think it leads to more stimulation of the brain and excitement about what you're doing. I've been following what I find interesting more and more and it's leading me to all sorts of places I didn't expect to go.
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I can’t help having the compulsion, but I can redirect it. So instead of scrolling down the news websites, I read a few pages of a book, or exercise for a few minutes; I pick up the ukulele, or simply be, with permission to be bored.
I'm keenly interested to read the book mentioned in this piece and found the idea of never reading the news interesting as well. I've been curbing my time just idly scrolling the past two days and while I haven't suddenly gotten a ton more done, I have let my brain rest and allowed myself to be bored and sit in quiet more. We'll see where this leads me.
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This consistent misread is that no positive change is worth making unless you make it in a pristine, completely consistent, platonic final form. No. Not only is this characteristic of the main problem of progressivism today, this is also fundamentally untrue. No change is made in a vacuum, and no step forward in history comes perfectly. Believing it is true extricates you from your own responsibility and your own autonomy. It reduces your individual volition and humanity to a tool of large business. It is obedience in advance. It is an obscene mode of infantilism and not an honest position.
A good piece on how the choices we make do matter, they matter to us as individuals. I've been making a lot of small moves for years and I like feeling better about the way I'm spending money and the way I'm supporting (or not supporting) certain companies.