The sun will swallow the Earth. The galaxies will fade. Protons will decay. Your LinkedIn bio will not survive this process. This is a Good Thingℒ️
Westenberg.
You Are Insignificant. That's a Good Thing.
A Short Guide to Being Infinitesimally Small
'Why don't people just [simple solution]' is always asked by someone who doesn't understand the problem, doesn't understand humans, or doesn't understand both. AKA, Hacker News.
'Touch grass' is what extremely online people tell other extremely online people as if taking a 20 minute walk will cure the spiritual rot of spending 8 hours a day in the discourse mines
The discourse is 90% people who read headlines arguing with people who read tweets about headlines. The 10% who read the actual thing gave up trying to correct anyone years ago. We are actively shopping for caves.
I swear, in all the years I've been working on my writing, the biggest drivers of me actually getting somewhere in the last year have been: 1. OmniFocus 2. Discourse (the forum platform) OmniFocus because I finally feel like I've reached some kind of flow in my work. Discourse because I finally have a home on the web for my writing.
'Be authentic' and 'curate your personal brand' are contradictory instructions we've somehow convinced an entire generation to follow simultaneously
'Follow your passion' is advice from people whose passions happened to be monetizable. Nobody tells the guy whose passion is Pokemon card collecting to quit his job, but that's statistically most passions
Book smart: reads constantly, knows history, understands theory Street smart: actually understands how humans work Online smart: can explain why everyone else is wrong Wisdom: knowing which one you're not
We went from 'don't trust everything you read on the internet' to 'my entire worldview comes from screenshots of tweets' in one generation and I'm not sure we should be allowed to have technology anymore
The Internet: 'We need less performative activism' someone does quiet, effective charity work The Internet: 'Why isn't anyone talking about this issue?' someone talks about the issue The Internet: 'Ugh, performative'"