via www.creativereview.co.uk (404)
Client begins first meeting by making a big show of telling you that you are the expert. You are in charge, he says: he will defer to you in all things, because you understand the web and he does not. (Trust your uncle Jeffrey: this man will micromanage every hair on the project’s head.)
Daniel Lemire:
Highly productive people do not have more time, but they may have more energy, more method and better feedback on their progress.
"&"
Who do you see?
National Sarcasm Society
That’s what most people do. They keep waiting and waiting until they have enough saved up, find the right idea or until they’re in a position with more responsibility. But conditions are never perfect. And when we’re so focused on our plans, we lose sight of the openings in front of us. Instead of plans we need habits. Habits of taking risks. Habits of keeping our eyes open for new opportunities. Habits of putting ourselves in situations that force us to grow and change. We can all introduce a little chaos into our lives.
Maeda’s SIMPLICITY (404):
It’s not for others to recognize the fruits of your work; it’s for yourself. The desire is to complete a thought. So then … you can go on and find a new one to torment yourself with. The intellectual torment … is … fun? Hmmmm. Difficult to say. Perhaps it is a kind of acquired taste for an odd pleasure.
Casting the Runes
"A reasonable first step"
Scott Aaronson:
I see a world that really did change dramatically over the last century, but where progress on many fronts (like transportation and energy) seems to have slowed down rather than sped up; a world quickly approaching its carrying capacity, exhausting its natural resources, ruining its oceans, and supercharging its climate; a world where technology is often powerless to solve the most basic problems, millions continue to die for trivial reasons, and democracy is't even clearly winning over despotism; a world that finally has a communications network with a decent search engine but that still hasn't emerged from the tribalism and ignorance of the Pleistocene. And I can't help thinking that, before we transcend the human condition and upload our brains to computers, a reasonable first step might be to bring the 18th-century Enlightenment to the 98% of the world that still hasn't gotten the message.
"The most important reward of all"
Judson Jerome:
Like virtue, poetry is its own reward. … The immortality game, like that of getting into the circle of the two hundred, can be wicked and delusionary. … That leaves you with perhaps the most important reward of all: personal satisfaction. … You are more likely to succeed at poetry, as in love, if you get success out of your head. Concentrate on quality. Learn the joy of creating excellence — whether or not anyone else recognizes it.
"A really simple question"
We all know the one about the Emperor walking around with nothing on, while everyone admires the finery of his garments – garments so fine that only really clever and smart people like investment bankers can see them. The rest of us thought that debt, was, well, debt, but the bankers said no, debt is asset. It’s just that we couldn’t see it because we were so stupid…
... Yes, we need to stabilise our present situation, and then, perhaps, we could ask a really simple question – far too simple for the clever people – what is money for? At least that way it stops being an end in itself.
"The foxes, the badgers and the stars"
Then, the best thing of all – coming home in the dead of night to this beautiful place where there are no lights and no noise, and where the dog, the cats, the owls, the foxes, the badgers and the stars are more or less where I left them.
"And what happened then?"
It isn’t an inquisition; it’s an exploration, usually an exploration into the past,” he once said, explaining his approach. “So I think the gentlest question is the best one, and the gentlest is, ‘And what happened then?’
God's Trombones
"Structures that are human-shaped, not idea-shaped"
The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry:
In the end I like structures that are human-shaped, not idea-shaped and humans are great heaps of inconsistency, ambiguity and complexity.
"As barmy as the rest"
The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry:
I forebear telling him that the reason I do not find Mormonism especially ridiculous is because I find all pretend invisible friends, Special Books and their rules equally ridiculous. Mormon ideas about realms of crystal rebirthing and special underpants are no weirder than the enforcing of wigs and woollen tights on orthodox Jewish women or laws and dogmas about burkhas and Virgin Births. The religion of the Latter Day Saints is not deserving of especial contempt simply because it is newer. It is as barmy as the rest and I cheerfully treat it as such.
"Buffer zones"
I’ve never been able to grow a thicker skin, so instead I create buffer zones.
"Reminding him with a tap"
Anton Chekhov:
There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her claws sooner or later, trouble will come for him -- disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others.