What would you still try, if you knew you would fail?
Despite having no plans to write a novel, I love reading advice for authors—maybe because it helps me understand what I love about my favorite books. Recently I was recommended Story Genius by Lisa Cron, which walks you through the stages of building a compelling novel around a compelling character arc, and I got to […]
Brokenness is inaccurate emergence
One of the weirder tech issues I’ve had is that my laptop refuses to connect to wifi while its backup hard-drive is plugged in — it took me a while to figure out that’s what was even going on! I want my things to “just work,” and it’s so frustrating when they don’t. But it got me […]
Three tools for changing your mindset
One of my earliest posts here was about different meanings of “habit”: there are … … intentional habits, things you regularly choose to do, … automatic habits, things you do on autopilot, and … mindset habits, your default ways of thinking. Intentional and automatic habits look very similar — the difference is how much mental effort you […]
How to hope
Pessimism comes naturally to me. Choosing between optimism and pessimism is like asking whether I would rather be disappointed or pleasantly surprised; it just sounds safer to choose the latter. But over time, pessimism takes its toll on my mood and health, and I’ve been advised many times to be more hopeful. Until recently, I’ve had […]
More information doesn’t have to make you more certain
FiveThirtyEight recently posted a piece called “The Impeachment Hearings Just Confirmed Voters’ Preexisting Opinions”: the same wave of new information has just made everybody more convinced of what they already thought: One explanation of this phenomenon is “motivated reasoning”: a person finding data more reliable and arguments more convincing if they fit with what the […]
Effort spent procrastinating is wasted
I’ve often found great comfort in the idea that work is never wasted: even if a project doesn’t go the way I hoped, I will still have learned something from the attempt, and I’ll carry that knowledge and experience forward with me. However, it recently occurred to me that work done is not the same […]