“You’ve written the story in a logical forward timeline“ agent said. “You instead need to write it about the feelings you were having. Organize it that way. Each chapter does not have to follow the previous one in time.

I still believe Balaji is frighteningly intelligent, but I would vastly prefer that he use those powers for good than, well, whatever this is. ​ They do not sit around thinking about how they’re going to “get” people they write about, and when subjects think they do, it’s more a reflection of the subject’s self-perception (or self-importance) and, sometimes, a sprinkling of unadulterated narcissism. But mostly, I want them to be more rigorous: to acknowledge that ideas are meaningless in a vacuum that does not include real world material conditions, and that people pursuing innovation are not the only people who matter, or even the people who matter most. ​ There is a huge swath of the tech industry whose only experience of real world inequality is tiptoeing around homeless people on the way to work. And it’s easy for them to continue to live in that bubble and entertain the delusion that absolutist ideas — both good and bad — can be implemented when they can’t. ​ This interprets journalism as public relations, which it is not. Journalists are not supposed to cheerlead the industry; they’re supposed to cover it, and that means writing the good things and the bad with no overriding preference for one over the other. ​ And everyone is an unreliable narrator when they articulate their own experiences.

The general rule seems to be this: the more abstract we make an event – that is, the more we see it in terms of its meaning to the mind, rather than how it feels to the senses – the greater the psychological pain that is created. The more we can zoom into the direct experience, and refrain from engaging with the story around it, the less of a pain in the ass it is.

“What is the meaning of life?” is more like asking “how does orange look?” The sentence has superficially appropriate structure, but no set of words can adequately convey the (true) answer.

The momentum can’t build if it’s constantly derailed at the start. The climate crisis […] can essentially be what brings us all together to work towards a common and greater goal.

This next project might take one year, five, or twenty, but it is not you. You are a superset of what you do, not a subset. Narratives based in past behavior are by definition out of date. Sometimes allow yourself to just be open to possibility of the next moment being different. How does the story change in this moment? The key to talent development of yourself and others: propulsion off cliffs with parachutes one size too small. Sometimes you land hard but your wings build muscle.

personal writing is very scary! i hesitate to do it because it’s really easy to fall into the trap (at least i think it’s a trap) of self-narrative — constantly writing about Who You Are and How You Came To Be, constructing these self-reinforcing loops of story and definition around your own brain…but i am starting to think it’s ultimately limiting, even deceptive, when it comes to actual growth and self-awareness.

it’s interesting to note how powerful it can be to have an actual writer crafting narrative strategy. Articulation is the first product

Spend time prototyping your app on paper and really working on the human interaction before you write a line of code. Identify the audience and the story and story board your app just as someone might sketch out scenes in an animated feature.

I think the sirens in The Odyssey sang The Odyssey, for there is nothing more seductive, more terrible, than the story of our own life, the one we do not want to hear and will do anything to listen to.