What you care about. Brain rot OK? Live memorably. Who to blame. Annoying people. Talking with your fingers. Avoiding the truth.
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil.”
– Marcus Aurelius
1. “People don’t reread tweets; they reread books.”
How to Make People Give a Damn – Joan Westenberg – (blog)
Westenberg’s goal is to make something of substance; something that lasts. Something people care about.
If you want to make something people care about, the smartest move might be to help them feel less alone in their confusion. The most powerful work often doesn’t offer answers. It articulates the question better than anyone else.
In an (oh so) noisy world, it’s not necessarily polish and split-tested thumbnails that engage, but passion and honesty that connects.
Do this: Make something people care about. Start with what you care about.
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2. “Not all brain rot is created equal”
Why teenagers are deliberately seeking brain rot on TikTok – Emilie Owens – (Psyche)
“Brain rot”, described by one teen as “It’s stuff that’s dumb, like, it rots your brain. Memes and just random stuff.” is something a lot of older folks look down on, often with disgust and concern for what the internet / social media / TikTok is doing to the kids. If you’ve ever encountered Skibidi Toilet – a good example of brain rot – you may have had that reaction.
Heres the thing:
Their worlds are filled with much anxiety and uncertainty, both onscreen and off.
In this context, for these teenagers, brain rot on TikTok is one tool for tuning out all the stress.
It’s escapism, pure and simple. Each generation has had its own form, and in each case the older generations had often great concern.
We’re all stressed. Brain rot might just be one easily accessible escape for some.
Do this: Cut the kids some slack. You were no different, you just had different escapes.
3. “Monotony is the enemy of a well-remembered life.”
Slowing Time, Heat Waves & Tennis – Chris Williamson – (3 Minute Monday)
The classic argument for time moving faster as we get older is that as we age each year is a smaller percentage of our life so far. What was 10% of their life to a 10-year-old is 2% to a 50-year-old, and thus seems to pass more quickly.
Williamson presents a different perspective.
As we get older, days move quickly because we can’t remember them, and we don’t remember our days because we haven’t done anything memorable with them.
Our days are forgettable, therefore we forget them.
It’s an argument for choosing to do novel and interesting things to live a memorable life.
Do this: Do the interesting things.
4. “You’re not in control. You never were.”
The Blame Game – Tom Greene – (Wit & Wisdom)
Apparently the paranoids and conspiracy theorists are out in full force after the devastating Texas floods, looking to assign blame to their favorite target(s).
Someone has to be behind the curtain. Because if no one is in charge, then the world really is as fragile and uncertain as it feels.
And that’s terrifying.
Blame gives people the illusion of power in an uncontrollable world. It lets them shake their fist instead of sit with their grief. It feels like doing something.
Shit happens. Life isn’t fair. Sometimes there’s literally no one to blame.
Life is unscripted. Unfair. Uncoordinated. And often, unbelievably out of our control. That doesn’t make it meaningless. But it does make it messy.
Unwarranted blame is something I’ve long tried to avoid, but it’s difficult. We want this senseless world to make sense, always. And that’s just not a thing.
Do this: Maybe stop pointing fingers, and start accepting life’s unfairness. It’s actually pretty freeing.
5. “Humor disarms negativity.”
Dealing With Annoying, Mean, and Impolite People – Darius Foroux – (blog)
I am an online publisher. “Dealing With Annoying, Mean, and Impolite People” is part of the job. Fortunately, not a huge part, but a daily part at least.
Foroux discusses several approaches to dealing. Number 8 is one I use on occasion:
Find amusement in rude remarks or absurd criticism. Turn insults into anecdotes or jokes. When you laugh, the insult loses power.
Occasionally sharing rude comments publicly, with my own added snark, helps me deal. Apparently, others also find it entertaining.
Do this: Don’t let the [redacted] stop you. (I may have said this last week as well.)
6. “Writing is just talking. With your fingers.”
How to wrestle words – Mike Monteiro – (Mike Monteiro’s Good News)
I shared a quote from this essay on social media a couple of days ago just because it was one of those sentences you’d never in your wildest dreams would expect to read. I’ll leave it to your search skills, or reading the essay itself, to discover what it was — I’m pretty sure you’ll know it when you see it.
The question Monteiro is addressing is “I want to start a newsletter for my writing. What advice can you give me?” His advice is solid, but I was drawn to the takeaway above because so many people overthink writing. They worry and fret themselves into paralysis when it just doesn’t have to be that way.
No feedback has ever meant more to me than someone saying “you write like you talk.”
That doesn’t always have to be the case, but it’s a high compliment when it happens.
Do this: Be yourself, write yourself.
7. “Information can threaten many different kinds of beliefs”
Why we choose to avoid information that’s right in front of us – Jeremy L Foust – (Psyche)
An interesting examination of the many ways that we avoid information. At one end of the spectrum, there’s the avoidance that I think many of us are practicing: avoiding the news as a form of self-care for our mental health. At the other end are those who avoid things like visiting the doctor for fear of what they’ll be told, even though that avoidance won’t change anything other than delaying potential treatment.
There was one statement that caught my attention:
If people in our lives want us to learn information, we might be more likely to learn it.
My initial reaction was along the lines of “I wish!” While I suppose it might be true in some circumstances, the last decade’s worth of political and particularly health information resistance — often in the face of desperate familial pressure — kinda says otherwise.
Do this: Keep an open mind.
What I’m reading now
- Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World – Anne-Laure Le Cunff
- The Hero of Ages – Brandon Sanderson
- The Inner Compass: Cultivating the Courage to Trust Yourself – Lawrence Yeo
- Creative Intellegence – Greg Storey
- Project Hail Mary: A Novel Kindle Edition – Andy Weir (audio)
My Reading List – everything I’ve read since 2021.
My Sources Page – the common sources I scan/read regularly.
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