Noticing how the backlash against DEIJ work is starting to show up in my client’s stories, the way it’s changing their expectations and plans. Can’t tell yet in what ways it will play out, but things are happening. The fight for equality doesn’t end, but the tools have to adapt to the times.
“Certain forms of escapist entertainment aside, leisure in itself is worthless without direction or content, and creative work can be more rewarding and fulfilling than many kinds of leisure.” https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/the-value-of-work
“Creative work readies us for material work, by offering a space to try out strategies, think through contradictions, remind us of our own agency.” https://proteanmag.com/2023/12/08/notes-on-craft-writing-in-the-hour-of-genocide/
“This is where life could happen; we are here because this is where we could be.” https://defector.com/neither-elon-musk-nor-anybody-else-will-ever-colonize-mars
Love this concept of “prophetic reframing”: the “rhetorical re-description of possible civic worlds, as in the speeches of Dr. King.” https://sarahendren.com/2024/06/14/the-how-and-the-why-part-2/
While a great many workplaces subject us to burnout and exploitation and abuse, our desire to do good work—work that contributes to our collective thriving—is also innate, and powerful, and too important to give up without a fight. https://everythingchanges.us/blog/all-on-the-table/
“I think we should be done with nostalgia. To totally refuse nostalgia altogether.” https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/who-we-wish-to-become
Have learned that if you turn an iPhone off but leave it plugged in, it will invariably turn itself back on. Now imagining some kind of Byron-the-bulb conspiracy to resurrect every device connected to the grid, Byron blinking ecstatically about not leaving anyone behind.
Thinking with Adam Greenfield’s excellent LIFEHOUSE about the desire for stability, and how it’s often a proxy for nostalgia and grief: https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/nostalgia-and-grief
Great interview with Georgina Voss about “world-fleshing,” a phrase I am definitely going to steal: https://www.worldbuilding.agency/interviews/world-fleshing-an-interview-with-georgina-voss-part-1/
Our teams may not be democracies, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t benefit from the same (sadly, neglected) skills that make democracy great: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/good-collaboration/
AI “is a fundamentally dehumanizing technology because it treats us as less than what we are: creators and apprehenders of meaning. It reduces the amount of intention in the world.” https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/why-ai-isnt-going-to-make-art
Rovelli’s THE ORDER OF TIME is a lovely book to think with time and change and how it is we come to know ourselves: https://aworkinglibrary.com/reading/order-of-time
The persistent and infuriating talk of how women should be mothers (and how women who aren’t mothers aren’t even women) should be understood as economic policy. Jenny Brown’s BIRTH STRIKE continues to be required reading: https://aworkinglibrary.com/reading/birth-strike
Big decisions can take time to reach every part of you, as if they started in your head or your heart but need time to spread themselves all the way down to your toes. https://everythingchanges.us/blog/big-decisions-take-time/
“It feels like the best reason to get online anymore is to somehow increase the odds that I’ll be able to meet someone offline, which is where most of the good stuff happens anyway. We need to be able to find each other.” https://fjord.style/reorientation
Need a word for the grief that comes with finishing a novel and not wanting to leave the world behind. (This time brought about by a reread of Rosemary Kirstein’s excellent STEERSWOMAN books: https://aworkinglibrary.com/series/steerswoman-series/)
Nina Allan’s CONQUEST asks how to love someone across a reality as fractured, divergent, and broken as this one. https://aworkinglibrary.com/reading/conquest
Depressing but accurate take on the race to the bottom being played between OpenAI and publishers. Copyright evidently only protects the rich. https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/30/24230975/openai-publisher-deals-web-search
“We are now leaping headfirst into a future in which reality is simply less knowable.” https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/22/24225972/ai-photo-era-what-is-reality-google-pixel-9