As I’ve gotten better at finishing what I start, I’ve run into a conundrum.
My problem going into a project used to be I had no idea what to expect. How long or complex would the project be?
The solution was to start lots of projects. I’d get in over my head on many, but I’d learn from those false starts to make some finishes.
I still often misjudge how complex a project will be. But now I can usually persevere to complete it anyway.
So the project takes more time and resources than I had expected, and I’m often in the midst of one project, thinking of all the others I want to work on once I’ve finished.
When I had finished little, it made sense to start a lot. Analysis would only lead to paralysis.
But now that I’ve finished a lot, I need to be more careful what I start. Each project is a commitment of several months or years. As I get older, I have fewer months and years to do all I dream, and less energy to fill a large portion of that time with effortful progress.
Paradoxically, when you can’t finish what you start, you should start more. When you can, you should start less.
Aphorism: “The less secure and confident you feel in the direction, the more surprises and excitement you will have in store.” —Jerry Seinfeld
Book:Youth In Revolt (Amazon) is another modern-day Catcher In the Rye.
Having a good network is powerful. But you don’t build your network in the obvious way.
The obvious way would be “networking.” Go to events, hand out business cards, and scan QR codes.
I wasn’t born in a hip place, didn’t have ambitious parents, and was too feral in my youth to even consider attempting to go to a prestigious university. But I have a great network, though 99.9% of anyone who has helped me succeed, I met after the age of 26.
I’m not a very outgoing person, but I’ve read How to Win Friends, and have learned some basic networking skills. Those are worth knowing. But I’ve never found a better networking tactic than this:
Put your head down and make something other people will respect.
Write a book or write a blog. Build a company or a short campaign. Make something tangible others can look at and see that you care about something and have done something about it.
When you meet someone face-to-face, the old saying is correct, “Be interested, not interesting.” But before you meet anyone, don’t be interested. Be interesting. There is no better way to build a network than to do the work.
Instead of “networking,” put your work on the ‘net.
Aphorism: “It doesn’t take much to be a successful artist – all you need to do is dedicate your entire life to it.” —Banksy
Cool: This inflatable neck pillow (Amazon) design is the best I’ve found for sleeping in coach class.
Best, David P.S. I’ve collaborated with Sudowrite to make some AI-powered plugins that improve your writing with my favorite techniques.
You “wrestle” with a problem. You “wring” water from a towel. If iron has been bent, it has been “wrought,” perhaps with a “wrench,” on a car that’s been in a “wreck.”
Wr words are about struggle, and writing is often a struggle.
But it doesn’t have to be. Journaling is writing that doesn’t feel like writing.
You just write what you’re thinking and feeling. It doesn’t have to be good. It probably shouldn’t. Most of what you write in your journal doesn’t seem important.
Sometimes you have a breakthrough, but the true effects of journaling happen gradually, outside awareness.
Book:The Scout Mindset (Amazon) is Julia Galef’s guide to critical thinking.
Cool: The Western Canon Starter Kit is a YouTube series prescribing reading of the most-influential literature of western culture.
While my journal-writing sessions are relatively effortless, there is another type of writing session that is very effortful.
Those are the sessions in which I’m repeatedly hitting mental roadblocks. In which I’m not limited by my knowledge with the subject nor comfort with the truth, but but by my ability to find an insight.
I sense something is there, and methodically approach the subject from various angles. But that source of irony, that contradiction, or that surprising juxtaposition remains elusive.
It’s when I’m regularly doing effortful though not always fruitful writing sessions something else happens. While on a walk or talking to a friend or in the shower, I’ll have frequent aha! moments. Not always about what I’ve been writing about, but about any random thing.
The more hours I spend effortfully forcing myself to write, the more seemingly-random moments of inspiration I experience.
Inspiration is a muscle. You must perspire to be inspired.
Aphorism: “We’re smart enough to invent AI, dumb enough to need it, and still so stupid we can’t figure out if we did the right thing.” —Jerry Seinfeld
Book: Nobody should read Sex at Dawn without also reading Sex at Dusk (Amazon). It’s a less engaging yet more rigorous takedown of the former.
I’ve been journaling for seventeen years now. I’ve amassed quite the stack of full journals.
When I flip through these, I sometimes find something interesting. But most of it is boring, and almost all of it is poorly-written.
But my journaling habit has improved my writing immensely. Mostly because it shows me what it’s like for writing to be easy.
Writing in a journal is easy because you just write what’s on your mind. After enough practice you realize, something is wrong when writing is hard. Sometimes writing is hard because you don’t know the subject. But sometimes it’s because you refuse to acknowledge what’s on your mind.
In this way, journaling helps you practice the most basic but important writing skill: writing what you know.
Aphorism: “Write when there is something that you know; and not before; and not too damned much after.” —Ernest Hemingway
If you want to be a productive person, it seems you should have an elaborate task-management system.
It seems you should choose goals, formulate a plan to carry out actions that will lead to those goals, then execute that plan with your flawless discipline.
But the world changes too fast to stick to a plan, and who among us can perfectly execute what we plan?
People who you think have elaborate project- and task-management systems often merely have an array of habits, routines, and rules that keep them moving in the general direction their goals lie.
Don’t pick the perfect plan, install systems for strategic stumbling.
Aphorism: “You do not need anybody’s permission to live a creative life.” —Liz Gilbert
Cool: These indoor bug zappers (Amazon) are effective at attracting and killing mosquitos in your house.
One of the most fascinating displays of the follies of the human mind is the cargo cult.
In WWII, the U.S. military landed on various islands in the Pacific. To the previously-isolated societies who lived on these islands, these soldiers were like aliens from another planet, arriving through never-before-seen technology.
After the soldiers left the islands, cargo cults cleared forest areas to make runways, and made headphones out of coconuts and air-traffic batons out of sticks.
They believed if they recreated the scenes they had seen, planes would once again land with food, clothes, and equipment.
One such cult is the “John Frum” cult. To this day, on the island of Tanna, there are festivities, worshipping rituals, and even false prophets claiming to be the reincarnation of “John Frum.” (A now-mythical American serviceman whose name apparently derives from introducing himself as “John, from…[place].”)
The bizarre beliefs of cargo cults come from the same wetware with which we in industrial society are equipped. So, cargo-cult thinking is everywhere:
Dating: Searching for a set of qualities we imagine we want in a partner, rather than thinking what it would be like to be with such a person.
Politics: Choosing candidates based upon appearances and sound bites that fit an ideal, rather than asking what makes an effective leader.
Productivity: Looking and feeling “busy,” regardless of whether it produces the results we desire.
Entrepreneurship: Following trends and hype. Copying style, not substance.
We often merely mimic appearances, without understanding what will cause the effect we want.
Do you see cargo-cult thinking in other areas?
Aphorism: “Anyone who in discussion relies upon authority uses, not his understanding, but rather his memory.” —Leonardo da Vinci
It’s an anxious feeling to not be on top of things. And it’s a vicious cycle.
When I don’t have a clear view of what needs to get done and how I’ll ever do it, suddenly more needs to get done and I have less time and energy.
If anything, there’s less that needs to get done when I feel on top of things. Because when I don’t feel on top of things, I invent things that need to get done.
The sense of urgency I feel when I’m not on top of things comes not from there being more to do, but from the anxious feeling that results from not being on top of things.
When I’m anxious from not being on top of things, every little thing is a potential answer to the question, “What needs to get done?” Every fleeting thought or glance at a scrap of paper makes me say, “Oh, there’s the culprit! Once I take care of that, this feeling will go away.” (Of course, it won’t.)
Give yourself time and space simply to get on top of things and make a plan for how you’ll use your time and space. You’ll feel less anxious, and everything will seem less urgent.
Book:American Psycho (Amazon) is the oddly-hilarious-yet-gory dark comedy upon which the movie is based.
Recently, I did my first set of open-mic stand-up comedy.
I had fantasized about doing it for years and had always found a way to talk myself out of it. But given all I write about creativity, I could no longer stand the feeling of hypocrisy for not following this creative whim.
As I searched myself, I found an irrational desire standing in the way of actually doing it: I wanted to be good.
I realized I had pictured my first stand-up set going a lot like the specials of my favorite comedians. Which is ridiculous.
I know from listening to interviews of hundreds of comedians that it takes at least ten years of consistent practice to be good at stand-up comedy. Twenty to be great. And by the time I see a comedian’s special, they’ve spent a year or two testing the material hundreds of times.
I don’t see being a stand-up comedian in my future. I would hate the lifestyle, and in any case, I live in a non-English-speaking country, where there are almost no opportunities to perform in English – and even then it would be an hour drive away. There are simply no ways for me to get in the reps it would take to be good.
But just because you can’t be good at something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Even if you don’t do well at, say, stand-up comedy, it doesn’t mean you won’t learn from the experience: about writing, performance, fear, and creativity.
So while I was in some U.S. city recently, I put together a five-minute set, and performed at an open mic. I didn’t tell anyone I was going, and I used a stage name.
How did it go? It doesn’t matter. Good is not the goal.
Aphorism: “Make an effort. Just pure, stupid, ‘No idea what I’m doing here,’ effort…. Swing the bat and pray is not a bad approach to a lot of things.” —Jerry Seinfeld
Cool:Exploding Topics is a free newsletter that tells you about trends and products before they’re popular.
