"Here’s how I like to think about it: Every object emits a habit field. When we sit down at the desk in our office to work, we shape its habit field into a productive one. When we sit down in a lounge chair to watch our favorite TV program, we nudge the chair’s habit field toward relaxation and consumption. The more we repeat the same activity around an object, the stronger its habit field gets. And the stronger its habit field gets, the easier it is for us to effortlessly fall into that mode of behavior the next time we’re around the object."

And computers have a fuzzy habit field because we do so much with them. It's easy to only use a book for reading or a notebook for writing, because that's all you can do with them. Computers make it hard to focus on work when we do stuff other than work on them.

"If you meet a person who cares about the same obscure things you do, hold on to them for dear life. Sympathy is medicine. Scissors are good, music is better, and mixed drinks with friends are best. Start brave and brash: you can always make things more conservative, but it’s hard to make things more radical."

The less you know, the less sources of inspiration you have, the more likely your work will be an imitation rather than be subtly inspired by other work.

"I guess I just look at someone like Marco and see a guy who figured out, at least for now, how to hook his wagon to a horse that was running in a direction that seemed interesting. And, now, somehow, he’s a man who types things that turn into stuff that makes my and your world a little better.

Given the choice, I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t immediately dump every bit of bullshit you can tolerate dropping in order to locate your nearest horse."

Part 1 in a series of 4 about visual culture, consumption, and nourishment.

Interview with D. Coupland in 2009 about Gen X, Kurt Cobain, storytelling, voices, technology.

Smart people actually say things that are very simple and easy to understand. And the smarter they are, the more clear what they say is. It’s stupid people who say things that are hard to understand.

Part of this is because stupid people say things that aren’t true, things that aren’t true don’t make sense, and things that don’t make sense are hard to understand.

Now is the time to plant new ideas. It is time to fuck shit up, throw out the rule book, drop out, and other overused clichés. Even if it seems like everyone is making up their own rules and doing their own thing, we’re all slaves to our environment, upbringing, and language in such a way that the way we ‘break the rules’ is the same way as everyone else. Instead, look to the real innovators, that tiny fraction of society that honestly doesn’t give a whit what anyone else thinks and does their own thing, but with integrity. I’m talking about the Jimi Hendrixes, the Allen Ginsbergs, the Philip K. Dicks – the ones who initially appear to come from another planet, but whose works later turn out to be exactly what we needed and love.

Part Two: http://ratafia.info/post/90532973/transcript-of-howto-149-surprising-ways-to

"Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing."

A conversation with broadcaster Jesse Thorn, host of The Sound of Young America.

This video is perfect. I think it's from the future.

Manager's Schedule == one hour units (meetings).
Maker's Schedule == half-days.

Merlin Mann's speech at WordCamp.

Be so good they can't ignore you. Intellectualise. Don't wander.

What is The New Sincerity? Think of it as irony and sincerity combined like Voltron, to form a new movement of astonishing power.

Amazing.

Great advice, not just for writing.

"Tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring."