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
“machine learning…is a massive loophole in the tech equivalent of the social contract—a reprieve from the duty of care. Let the models make themselves! Generative AI in particular feels like an explicit attack on our ability to synthesize and communicate ideas.” https://fjord.style/where-im-at
Something I oft talk about with my clients: the worst burnout I experienced wasn’t the result of overwork but of being underutilized and feeling useless. We have to get specific about burnout if we’re going to address it: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/digging-through-the-ashes/
Chewing on something about the difference between willpower and discipline: willpower is the exhaustible—and frequently exhausted—skill of negotiating choices; discipline is committing to a path and rejecting the bargain.
Smart analysis from Kate Manne here about how, by bypassing the usual primary process, Kamala hasn’t been hit by the likability/competency gap that women usually face. https://katemanne.substack.com/p/why-harris-will-win
In case you need a reminder (I do, often!) it’s always a good day to make time for your art: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/energy-makes-time/
The root of “weird” is fate, destiny, witchcraft, the supernatural or unearthly or magical—think of the “weird sisters” who foretell Macbeth’s undoing, or the Greek Fates. The “weird” are usually feminine. To twist the word around and use it to refer to behavior and speech that is explicitly misogynist strikes me as like stabbing someone with the hilt of a knife—it’s your hand that bleeds.
At the risk of sounding insufferable, I will share that for some time now I’ve had a practice of turning off my devices (phone, laptop) on Saturday evenings and not turning them back on until Monday morning—after I’ve spent some time writing and moving my body. And it’s maybe one of the most restorative practices I’ve ever built.
Wrote about a better way to think about building resilient, generative, and meaningful relationships in your work. In an escalating climate crisis, and no longer creeping but leaping fascism, I am convinced this is a critical practice. https://everythingchanges.us/blog/make-kin-not-nets/