3 time-tested steps to a solid story, every time
No matter what you plan to write about, I bet it makes more sense than a talking wolf in pyjamas impersonating Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma.
And yet you and I will grow all dubious about our writing ideas. “What am I even trying to say here?” “Why would anyone care?” “Am I even qualified to write about this?”
Fables don’t take any of our self-doubting bullshit.
They will straight-faced tell us that a tortoise is racing against a hare and that somehow the tortoise takes the trophy, and we’ll buy it. …
Shipping everydays, getting bruises, and spotting quirks will be 3 of them.
The Creator Economy is that place where someone won’t turn off their ad blocker but would pay $10 to have their dick rated on OnlyFans.
Bizarre times. Kids no longer want to be astronauts, and why would they? Too much lag to stream from Mars. They want to grow up to be YouTubers now, put food on their tables with Patreon pledges.
This is, on one hand, exciting. Imagine everyone following their creative instincts instead of clocking up exploitative shifts at an Amazon warehouse.
But it also means more content creators to compete against.
We’re over 50 million people in this Creator Economy that is taking over the world. And…
Ideas that don’t lose their wings rarely take off.
The hype I felt when I heard the 3D printer had been invented was a mistake. But my brain couldn’t help himself from making a secular leap into a sci-fi future of boundless imagination.
“I can finally print a car and take it to work.”
How long until the hoverboards from Back to the Future 2 start mass production? …
He didn’t have the looks, he didn’t have the IQs — but he did have a rule.
Darwin wasn’t a particularly smart guy.
Some experts estimate his IQ capped at about 130, which surely is enough to obliterate a 100-flatter like me at checkers — but we’re talking about someone who’s buried a couple of feet away from Isaac Newton, the intellectual anomaly.
When I visited Westminster Abbey I had to pay 18 pounds to visit their graves. That’s how we know they’ve done something special.
But what kind of life advice can Darwin give?
Meaning, something that hasn’t been yet covered by Marcus Aurelius, Mark Manson’s blog, or whoever writes the fortune cookies.
Well, Darwin was no Buddha, but he was a scientist with a…
WELL, ACTUALLY
4 facts to cut off someone who’s trying to play the logic card.
Have you seen dogs bark at their own reflection? Snakes biting their own tail? It’s easy to think our capacity for reason is unparalleled in comparison.
However.
Sitting at the top of the food chain and handling cutlery with our fanciful opposable thumbs doesn’t take away the fact that “reason” is our very last evolutionary update.
And it’s very much in Beta testing. For all I know, Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t got it yet. He’s still a lizard.
So here are four reasons why not to trust your faulty rationale. One of them happens to explain why Shawshank Redemption, the undisputably…
3 steps to avoid messing with your creative juices.
We all know about the obvious no-gooders: procrastinating, not waking up a genius… what else can be said about those? Get a calendar app and better genes upon reincarnation.
There are subtler behaviours though, ones that we adopt thinking they might help stir our creative juices, especially if you’re a try-hard looking for an edge — raise your hands, try-hards! (I’d raise mine but I have to type this down).
What we end up performing is a well-intended but fatal blow to our creativity.
So where is that Nobel Prize winner anyway?
Peter Medawar. Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1960. Was called “the wittiest of all science writers.”…
Voluntary or not, our happiness as employees will depend on how companies use technology to get us there.
The offices of Canon Information Technology took a step into the future of work. But not a harmless one, like a cyberpunk dress code or a gossipy, smart watercooler.
They installed cameras with AI-enabled “smile recognition” technology. Employees at Canon are not allowed in meetings and rooms unless their levels of happiness are surveilled by a webcam. Want to keep your job? Say cheese!
Fair enough, that subsidiary is in China, and they’re years ahead when it comes to recreating life in Orwell’s Brave New World. But are Western companies making better use of technology to enhance the employee’s experience?
…
24 hours of “practice with your fingers” will be a waste of time.
Famous violinist Nathan Milstein was worried that others were practising harder than him.
He told his mentor, “Others around me are practising all day long. How many hours should I practise?”
His mentor responded, “If you practise with your fingers, no amount is enough. If you practise with your head, two hours is plenty.”
That might sound like your typical mentor advice: wise, witty one-liner that makes you awe, more poetic than it is helpful. Like Yoda telling Luke Skywalker to “do or do not; there’s no try.”
But Nathan Milstein became one of the finest violinists of the 20th…
If you think like an entrepreneur, you’ll make excuses like one.
Before I toss a dull, dictionary definition of “entrepreneurship,” let me tell you why we need it.
Right now, someone could be writing a tweet. A tweet that will happen to go viral. He or she will then make a quick affiliate buck by plugging a vibrator and a skin moisturizer in the comments section.
All of it during the span of a long number two.
Getting a high ROI on potty time is not some business strategy you learn in an MBA. It’s not the model of the classical entrepreneur, but the internet smarts of the creator.
They are…
HUMOR
He was cast in the underworld to lift a boulder up a hill for all eternity. Now he’s back and ready to share all the secrets to achieve a meaningful life.
Hi there friend, it’s Sisyphus.
I am the former King of Ephyra
I am the former King of Ephyra, but you probably know me for my leading role in the worldwide famous Myth of Sisyphus.
Listen, do you ever feel like life is constantly throwing rocks at you? That your daily routine is a pointless, never-ending, uphill battle?
Well, my friend, I thank the Gods, because it could’ve only been their guidance that made you find the hyper-targeted social media ad that brought you here. …
Loudt Darrow
Life is better when you approach it creatively.
