I have this small blog with the byline, “For my friends.” However, my personal website isn’t the place to be posting about specific Spark work I’ve been doing. There are posts I’ve made on Yammer/Engage, but it’s not the best place for blog-style posts.1 Sharepoint sites are another alternative, but they seem impermanent, sometimes disappearing when an admin leans on their keyboard. Then I found the Newsletter feature in Outlook; what a concept!
It’s fascinating to see Microsoft implement Twitter- and Substack/newsletter-like features on an enterprise level, but I can definitely see the benefits for my company.
The next few posts will be about:
The newsletter is a way to get my ‘work-only’ thoughts out, processing through writing, and sharing them in the most corporate way possible.
It’s also a way to have fun. 🕺
Ngā mihi,
Nat
The first line ends up bolded to act like a title. ↩︎
I keep writing about social platforms while drafting ideas on paper. These ideas are often existential and philosophical, requiring analogies and exposition. In a word; big.
One day I may write about these ideas. Maybe they’ll be individual posts that turn into a book, or hopefully something comprehensible. But right now, I need small ideas.
Small ideas are palatable and easy to process. Small ideas are accessible to everyone, and simple to understand. Small ideas can also be a consumable, but even small bites can be rich in flavour if you cook them just right.
Refine the bits that sound good, trim the bits that don’t fit the bill.
Projects are an expedition through ‘The Jungle of Unknown’. Clearing a path with a machete, hacking through vines of problems, setbacks, issues, and trees with bushes, and people with negativity. The toil is rewarded by reaching a clearing.
Today, I have cleared a path to a decision clearing. Our team has discussed what options we have, and now I need to take a sharp left turn to start hacking away again. Pushing without relent, slicing through ideas, barriers, and the mind.
This is where ‘grit’ is needed. The project can reach a clearing by the end of the day, but only if I put the effort in to reach a clearing right now. I can even see the clearing ahead, but to reaching it I the stamina to keep going. Grit is carrying on; tenacious unrelenting. If I keep going, we’ll be able to rest, assured that someone will pick us up, or maybe they’ll encourage us on our next leg of our journey.
This is grit; the will to carry on. There’s always a clearing ahead.
’Grit and tenacity’ was inspired a Hacker News comment.
Surprisingly, I’ve done moderately well in ‘reading print’ since my previous post:
Reading print at night is a success, whether it be books, The New Yorker, printed bibles and commentaries; it’s all print.
In my quest for print, the library kindly asked me to store a small collection of their catalogue at my house. I send these books back whenever I’ve read them, or when someone requests a hold on one.
I don’t mind that the library needs to store books at my house, because the books in question are expertly selected for the tastes of someone like me.
The way I receive non-print media has also changed. I now favour2 newsletters over RSS, algorithms, and point systems, because:
I receive; the Hacker News digest (30), and some other good newsletters through email, then some RSS and YouTube using FeedMail.
Although my habit of reading print may be solidified, a habit of publishing has not. This is my next goal, and like most goals, it started when my neurons fired.
Since returning from camping, I’ve been trying to continue the routine of reading at night. My final crutch was removed by using our HomePod as an alarm instead of my phone.1 My hope is that this is now a freestanding habit.
While researching Ezra Klein from something I was reading, I found an article from 15 years ago describing a similar approach:
At night—if all this goes perfectly—I want to read print.
I also—if all goes well—want to read print in the evenings.
Most of my friction to achieving this has been removed. Although there’s just so many things to do in the evenings; so much to research and find, so much fun to be had. If I really feel the need to read an article, it is printed out. The biggest step is always my first; getting off my computer and going to bed.
My mornings have a similar tune, although I’m not like Ezra, who gets up at 6am to read news clippings. I’d like my mornings to be standardised, relying on a run for energy and mediae I’ve already collected to read; not new media that has come into my inbox.
In the time since that article in The Atlantic, it’s crazy how little the world has changed over 10 years. Articles from the past 10 years still describe my present moment, whereas articles from the past 20 years feel nostalgic and utopian, almost foreign to a young adult.
My hope is also, that writing and publishing this will solidify this habit even further.
How I got here:
Turns out ‘Forest’ sounds are very similar to the ‘Bird’ sounds alarm. ↩︎
The fact that Ezra used Typepad, then went to The American Prospect and WaPo, is a reminder that the author of the blog is the thing that matters, not the technical aspects or design. Ezra is his own person; platform agnostic. However, John Gruber is Movable Type, Manuel Morale is Kirby, Nicolas Magand is Blot (along with me), Jason Fried and DDH are Hey World, Sam Altman is Posthaven (investor), Todd Vaziri is still on Blogger. ↩︎