Friday Unwind 009
The hard, rewarding work of writing
Ladies and gentlemen, it’s the weekend —
If you need something to occupy your mind, here are a few things I’ve been thinking about lately:
Nothing lasts forever (Abnormal Returns)
This short piece on Abnormal Returns highlights our tendency to take the things we love for granted, mistakenly believing they’ll always be there… until they’re not.
Like our favorite restaurants or blog, Wikipedia is easy to take for granted. Even the visual web as we know it could go away as we swap bots for web browsers to navigate our digital lives. So don’t be surprised when something you love goes away. Nothing lasts forever.
Call Me Old School… (What Matters & What Doesn’t)
This excellent essay is a keen reflection of the pitfalls that come from trying to hack the creative process. It serves as an important reminder: the obstacle is the way.
…writing is fun because it’s hard. Like most good things in life, it’s supposed to be hard.
The power of the (literally) written word (The Leap)
Maria Konnikova explores ways handwriting beats typing, from improved creativity to better memory retention.
The act of writing—consciously, effortfully, deliberately—is the act of thinking. And the act of writing by hand is the act of deep thought and creative generation.
Sometimes You Just Gotta Cut Up Some Wood (Semi-Rad)
Oh, we’re not done yet with essays on writing… Artist, writer and runner extraordinaire Brendan Leonard writes about the similarities between woodworking and writing. Even if things don’t turn out perfectly, it’s good because it’s yours.
You took three or five or eight hours or whatever and penciled out a sketch and went and bought some wood and some screws or nails, and you measured the wood and cut it and clamped it together and tried to get all the angles right and cut more wood and drove in screws or nails and got some sawdust all over yourself and maybe a couple splinters in one or more fingers, and you made something yourself, and it maybe didn’t turn out exactly like you thought it would, and maybe you didn’t end up saving any money after all, but it works, and it fits in the space better than something from the store, and now you can say, Sure it’s not perfect, and sure, plenty of other people could do better, but I made this one.
The paradox of work (Financial Times)
Finishing the theme of “doing the work”, Tim Harford writes about our mixed relationship with work — a bane to our existence and a key source of meaning in our lives.
The puzzle is that we have a love-hate relationship with working for a living. Look closely and you find that people do not tend to enjoy their work. Step back and you find that they can’t do without it.
Two Cents: Hunter S. Thompson on Purpose
A man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal), he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform to his own abilities and desires).
No one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company.