I love this. I've recently started recording daily audio journals (on top of my written journalling) where I just speak my thoughts into my phone for 10 minutes and play it back the next day to hear what ideas I get from it. This new habit has been fuel to the fire of my curiosity and creative thinking.
love it! such a great habit to develop… and so fun to hear ideas that came from yourself—ideas you don’t realize are even ideas until you’re hearing them played back later 🤪
The Germans have a word for the process of note taking by linking seemingly disconnected ideas together to form a second, external brain of sorts: zettelkasten (there's a large community of Obsidian users who love this process).
I love this piece. It evoked in me the idea that there are many ways to think about something that complement one another. Writing about it will perhaps cause different ideas to surface than talking about it will (and vice-versa). I'm no artist but perhaps other outlets of ideas (painting, music etc.) also only serve to further deepen the model of understanding. Each expression form creates a pathway in its localised region of the brain, effectively creating a larger surface area for the "idea" to coalesce. This is all just conjecture on my part but perhaps this is another reason behind DaVinci's success. Thank you for the food for thought and inspiration from this one.
I love this—and yes! This is something I've begun touching on in my 'Systems of Self' book, actually! The idea of "surface area" for our thoughts. Everything builds on everything that came before it. I think recognizing this is crucial to unapologetically following our curiosities even when they don't feel "productive". Because in the end, they always end up being productive—bc we always learn something.
I completely agree. The ideas we pursue solely for productivity’s sake don’t typically benefit from the super charged neuron activation that comes for free with a curiosity driven venture.
The more I read the more I appreciate just how similar our approaches are. My curiosity often takes a concentric circles approach, looping the same questions over and over again. Sometimes the circles are tighter, sometimes wider, much wider - the whole systems thinking approach you mention helped me appreciate those meta-loops a lot more.
I often convince myself it’s the answer I’m searching for, but rarely is that the case in practice. More often the most valuable thing becomes finding expression of the underlying concept and synthesizing that into a piece of writing.
Like you said, documenting the entire process really is the most valuable step you can take.
I loved this and recognised myself so much, thank you for the process idea of recording everything, keeping track of it. Incidentally was tidying my desk today and found so many notebooks just started, half completed, books and projects mapped and started and yet not finished, but kept, through moving abroad and various stages of life, because indeed it makes sense somehow.
It’s also resonating very much with the first newsletter I am writing in a long time : « On starting again, new projects that ends up nowhere and the joy of creating just because why not ».
Thank you for the many great newsletter I have already read from you.
I love this so much! It's so cool when words find the people they were meant to find. I think the joy of creating "just because" is definitely something we forget—everything is about "content creation", but that really takes away from the flow of the process of just being immersed in something we love.
I love this. I've recently started recording daily audio journals (on top of my written journalling) where I just speak my thoughts into my phone for 10 minutes and play it back the next day to hear what ideas I get from it. This new habit has been fuel to the fire of my curiosity and creative thinking.
love it! such a great habit to develop… and so fun to hear ideas that came from yourself—ideas you don’t realize are even ideas until you’re hearing them played back later 🤪
The Germans have a word for the process of note taking by linking seemingly disconnected ideas together to form a second, external brain of sorts: zettelkasten (there's a large community of Obsidian users who love this process).
I love this piece. It evoked in me the idea that there are many ways to think about something that complement one another. Writing about it will perhaps cause different ideas to surface than talking about it will (and vice-versa). I'm no artist but perhaps other outlets of ideas (painting, music etc.) also only serve to further deepen the model of understanding. Each expression form creates a pathway in its localised region of the brain, effectively creating a larger surface area for the "idea" to coalesce. This is all just conjecture on my part but perhaps this is another reason behind DaVinci's success. Thank you for the food for thought and inspiration from this one.
I love this—and yes! This is something I've begun touching on in my 'Systems of Self' book, actually! The idea of "surface area" for our thoughts. Everything builds on everything that came before it. I think recognizing this is crucial to unapologetically following our curiosities even when they don't feel "productive". Because in the end, they always end up being productive—bc we always learn something.
I’ll keep an eye out for the release :)
I completely agree. The ideas we pursue solely for productivity’s sake don’t typically benefit from the super charged neuron activation that comes for free with a curiosity driven venture.
To be able to think of scattered thoughts, ideas, projects as an art form rather than a personal failing--that is a gift.
I think it is! Scattered ideas are like little gifts we leave for our future selves (assuming we remember to jot them down!) 😊
The more I read the more I appreciate just how similar our approaches are. My curiosity often takes a concentric circles approach, looping the same questions over and over again. Sometimes the circles are tighter, sometimes wider, much wider - the whole systems thinking approach you mention helped me appreciate those meta-loops a lot more.
I often convince myself it’s the answer I’m searching for, but rarely is that the case in practice. More often the most valuable thing becomes finding expression of the underlying concept and synthesizing that into a piece of writing.
Like you said, documenting the entire process really is the most valuable step you can take.
"finding expression of the underlying concept" — YES, EXACTLY 💯
I ate up every paragraph. Also, I promise to be the first to buy Systems of Self 🙂
Oooh, thank you, thank you. I wonder when it will be finished 👀
tell meeee
I loved this and recognised myself so much, thank you for the process idea of recording everything, keeping track of it. Incidentally was tidying my desk today and found so many notebooks just started, half completed, books and projects mapped and started and yet not finished, but kept, through moving abroad and various stages of life, because indeed it makes sense somehow.
It’s also resonating very much with the first newsletter I am writing in a long time : « On starting again, new projects that ends up nowhere and the joy of creating just because why not ».
Thank you for the many great newsletter I have already read from you.
I love this so much! It's so cool when words find the people they were meant to find. I think the joy of creating "just because" is definitely something we forget—everything is about "content creation", but that really takes away from the flow of the process of just being immersed in something we love.
(love your pfp btw, so cute!) x
Loved reading this. Always a challenge to be generalist.
Yes! Highly recommend the book Range, mentioned in the essay. Love a good perspective shift.
Great write up!