Dear wonderers,
When was the last time you did nothing?
This is the question-cum-concept I’ve been exploring the past few weeks, in my so-called sabbatical (which is proving harder than expected! ^^) while reading Jenny Odell’s How to do nothing: Resisting the attention economy.
Don’t be fooled by the title — like I was! This essay is not a “how to” per se, but an active meditation on nothing as a form of resistance, self-discovery, building spaces of shared understanding, and subversive art bordering utopia. It’s hard to renounce society or to go completely off the grid, as Odell points out:
Yet, it is almost our moral duty to pause and question the status quo, from time to time. Without running away from “society”.
In that spirit, today I invite you to question everything with a series of resources to support that inquisitiveness.
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But, before that, thank you for joining my oddball digital space and answering my very short survey. I’m still keeping it open for you to help me reflect some more — as the jury is still out! What’s clear is that I love writing these wandering notes and you seem to enjoy them, for which I am always grateful :)
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Isn’t it funny how actively trying to do nothing is still doing something?
Just like the Japanese concept of mu or void, it is through absence that we start to comprehend the definitions we live by.
#ToSee
A dystopic anthology of three short animations produced by Katsuhiro Otomo, Memories is the perfect visual experience to understand the link between memory, self-expression, and how the stories we tell ourselves entrap us. To complement with Paprika.
David Hockney’s invitation to (un)see the world, to look at every moment as unrepeatable, to deconstruct the gaze from *all* perspectives at once.
He says it himself: The world is beautiful.
#ToRead
Can you imagine a world where we completely lose our humanistic touch?
Ted Gioia of
explores the current crisis in humanities and why we should care. Hint: if we all become transactional-only, we’ll create an immediate dystopia and sow the seeds of our demise:We desperately need access to values and wisdom that aren’t corrupted by the relentless financial metrics and imposed flavor-of-the-month narratives of the current moment.
How about some cheerful despair à la Democritus to get us through the day or even crisis [via The School of Life]?
He recommended that we acquaint ourselves with the totality of human experience, with all its failings, follies, self-deception and casual (and not so casual) injustices. The wise person should take care to grow completely at home with the ordinary shambles of existence. They must never be taken by surprise or shocked by how things can be, for they have taken full notice of the facts and so stand to be bewildered by nothing.
#ToListen
In today’s profit-obsessed tech environment, building products with a clear focus on solving problems people actually care about sounds like a utopic proposal. That’s why I urge you to listen to Marty Cagan, who insists it’s time to go beyond companies operating as factories — whether you’re a part of the tech world or not, I guarantee it’s at least an eye-opening talk.
I know, I know — two recommendations from the same podcast, but they couldn’t be more different!
Paul Millerd is a refreshing voice in a world insisting on straightforward “career paths” that don’t necessarily exist in the day-to-day:
Yeah, I think there's nothing wrong with the default path. The difference I would make is, are you conscious about what you're actually doing? What are the costs of your game? What are the trade-offs? What are the implicit contracts are you creating with yourself? A lot of times when people quit their jobs, they forget to fire the manager in their head. They don't realize they can take the afternoon off to spend it with their kids. They've created this implicit contract that Monday through Friday, eight to 10 hours a week you have to work. And that may work for people, but are you actually opting into that, or are you just sort of accepting the default?
#ToPonder
Until next time, a haiku by Richard Wright:
I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away