Hi Friends-
Of the many, many articles and essays I've linked to from this newsletter, one in particular stood out as being truly, madly, deeply aligned with a lot of what I talk about here and on my podcast, Hurry Slowly. And that was the 2017 essay "How to Do Nothing" by Jenny Odell.
She's since expanded on that essay to create a thoughtful new book of the same name. To mark the occasion, we sat down for a chat about the power of actions that can't be optimized and withholding your attention as an act of resistance.
Listen to "Jenny Odell: How to Do Nothing"
| | LINKS TO LOVE
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Against advice. A sublime argument in favor of making more art and talking about it less: "The moral of every great person's story seems to be that they were not trying to retell another's. Indeed, one of the paradoxes of advice seems to be that those most likely to be asked for it are least likely to have taken anyone else's: their projects of 'becoming' are the most particularized of all."
How to train for wisdom. Apparently, reflecting on actions or situations using "illeism," or the practice of referring to yourself in the third person, can help you make wiser decisions: "While the control participants showed no overall change in their wise reasoning scores, those using illeism improved in their intellectual humility, perspective-taking and capacity to find a compromise."
You don't have to monetize your joy. Lovely piece about renouncing the side hustle: "I have a friend who is living her dream. She makes and sells leather pocket belts, holsters and ruffle tops for the steampunk/Renaissance Faire/Burning Man crowd. Her designs are worn and enjoyed by thousands of people; she's created more jobs for Bay Area artists; she's her own boss — and she hasn't taken a real day off in roughly eight years."
Building "boiler pressure." I love the idea of "boiler pressure" as a creative factor in this piece pointed out by Cal Newport: "I am taking a long break because every tweet had begun to feel like a peep of steam through my whistle — Listen to me! Listen to me! — which reduced the boiler pressure I needed to write another novel."
+ Frigid offices are killing women's productivity.
+ A new hand-cranked video game system.
+ There is too much stuff.
+ Habits always form.
| | SHOUT-OUTS:
The artwork is from: Germán Di Ciccio, who is based in The Netherlands.
Much appreciation for link ideas to: Anne Helen Petersen, Kottke, Dense Discovery, and Ann Friedman.
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Hi, I'm Jocelyn, the human behind this newsletter. I created the online course RESET, a cosmic tune-up for your workday, and I host Hurry Slowly — a podcast about how you can be more productive, creative, and resilient by slowing down. | | | | |
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