![[Dialectic-25.png]]

**In honor of 25 episodes of [[Dialectic]], I took some time to reflect.**

While some of this is specific to hosting a conversational interview podcast, I hope it is broadly helpful for anyone seeking to have deeper, richer conversations or creating new things.

1. **Plant the seed.** I've spent much of my life evaluating seeds in my hands without any of them making contact with soil. I considered variations of an interview show for a long time, but always had too many ideas for what shape was needed before I could start. With Dialectic, I finally relented (thanks to some strong encouragement from friends) and put a seed in soil. The sprout isn't exactly what I had in mind, and that's the best part.
2. **There's still room.** I remember watching YouTube vloggers in the summer of 2013 and thinking, "this would be cool to try, but I'm surely too late. YouTube is mature." Casey Neistat, David Dobrik, and Emma Chamberlain had not started creating videos. MrBeast probably had a few hundred viewers. I felt the same about interview podcasts. One listener said this about the show: *"Dialectic has reminded me that it’s still possible to build something strange & exciting in crowded places."*
3. **You know what you need to do.** Strangely, a few people told me variations of this over the course of an extended period of exploration. It was frustrating to hear but directionally true. Put another way: when you (1) have a running list of people you'd like to interview some day in your notes app for the better part of a decade, and (2) the most recurring pattern in your life is a compulsive desire to meet interesting people and ask them questions—well, perhaps you know what you need to do.
4. **It's about the guests.** No matter how much I might try to convince myself otherwise, Dialectic's success is because of the guests I choose to talk to. 75% of episode quality is the guest selection, at least. That means all my other effort is contributing to at most 25%!
5. **Follow the rabbit, socially.** Speaking of guests: many of them have come out of my research or conversations in prior episodes. Shockingly, authentic, inspiring, and original people tend to know and admire each other.
6. **The well is infinite.** Again--the world (and internet) is full of so many original people with all kinds of loose threads that can be pulled. [Matt Mullenweg](https://x.com/photomatt) once told me: Everyone's interesting. If you're bored, you're not asking the right questions."
7. **Illegibility can be a feature.** [Mackenzie](https://x.com/ciaomack) told me early on that there are benefits to illegibility, at least for a time. There will be a time to be legible, but in the formative period of a project, let things be illegible and focus on your own curiosity, energy, and exploration.
8. **Let the dots connect.** Despite Dialectic's illegibility and inconsistency of theme, patterns have emerged! As Steve Jobs used to say, the dots connect in reverse. It's been fun to realize various "tracks" of ideas (tools, agency, slop and intention, culture and taste, authenticity, etc) in hindsight.
9. **Lead with curiosity.** Some people have asked about my preparation process. For most guests, I just read and listen to as much of their content as I can and write down the quotes and ideas that stand out. I don't think about through lines or questions or themes. I just collect. Benjamin Labatut compares fiction writing to picking flowers up off the ground. After I've collected a bunch of scraps, I synthesize and plenty of patterns emerge. But it starts with the inputs.
10. [**"Plans are worthless, planning is priceless."**](https://x.com/visakanv/status/1439086259305992197?s=46) All great craft combines rigorous preparation and skill with a certain looseness, almost a playfulness. Masters (like the [Coen Brothers](https://x.com/visakanv/status/1439086259305992197)) seem completely at ease, but that is built on a foundation of having "done the work." I've found myself in a paradox, where the more preparation I do, the more tempted I am to cling to the plan. My best conversations are those when I let go a bit and trust myself to really be there. To listen.
11. **Am I really listening?** Speaking of listening, as I have spent most of my life continuing to more deeply learn, true listening is a sacred and remarkably difficult act. Most of my "listening" is in fact LARP, holding space for another until I can say the next thing or--more insidiously--waiting for the first interesting bit I can launch off of. [Kevin Kelly's rule of 3](https://www.instagram.com/p/DAWk8Dlu97K/) has it closer to right: asking "is there more?" two times shows how much more people have to say.
12. **Presence creates magic.** There are lots of great podcasts that happen over video call, but for me, it has to happen in a room with the person. Some of this is because of the length, and if I don't know someone well, meeting them where they are helps ease us in. But more than that, there's just too many invisible parts of connection that happen in the real world that you can't get when conversations are intermediated by bits.
13. **Physical spaces shape us.** On the note of presence: I've been fortunate to talk to many guests in their home or office. This creates an opportunity to meet them where they are and shine a light on their authenticity. I'm [hopeful to explore](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1948446261238972720) more of how space(s) can shape the show.
14. **Help people past their cache.** I'm [keen](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1593334038957158400) to [talk](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1615921583859826690) about pushing people past their "cache," or the default programming they've repeated. So many of our conversations are sharing pre-articulated talking points back and forth. The best conversations happen when both parties go somewhere new, together. I aim to prompt people on domains I know they've spent a lot of time pondering within, *and* get them to color a bit outside the lines.
15. **Jump into the deep end.** [Matt](https://x.com/ReustleMatt) observed that I, like [Patrick O'shaughnessy](https://x.com/patrick_oshag) (an inspiration), "jump in at 90mph…" which might catch some guests a little off guard, but leads more quickly to a richer discussion and sets the tone for the level of depth. I can't say I started doing this consciously, but in trying to avoid the traditional "what's your story?" opening question, I've landed here. It's also a good way to establish quick credibility.
16. **We all take time to settle in.** In contrast to the above—and I've yet to solve this—many of the episodes are at their best in the back half. This should be obvious: great conversations take a bit of time to find their rhythm. Perhaps this simply means longer raw conversations with more editing. We'll see.
17. **Niche at scale.** Despite the temptation for infinite reach, this is what the internet is really about. [Henrik calls a blog post a search query.](https://www.henrikkarlsson.xyz/p/search-query) for finding your people. Dialectic has blown me away in the ways it's found people that resonate with me and the people I talk to.
18. **[Let the world conspire to help you.](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5647-and-when-you-want-something-all-the-universe-conspires-in)** From [world-class podcasters](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1934802560533066152) to unexpected internet friends and strangers, I've been blessed by the range of people who have reached out to help Dialectic in small and huge ways. People want to help you when you're doing your thing.
19. **There's nothing like writing.** (But please listen to my podcast). In seriousness, I love interviewing writers because of how great that medium is at compressing someone's ideas. I like [Alex Danco's framing](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1956372079193858437) of a collaboration between a writer and their readers, and how ideas are shared as output of that. When I talk to writers, I feel privileged to help them expand their ideas and articulate them for other audiences.
20. **Structure the right accountability for yourself.** [Ben Thompson talked](https://youtu.be/igh0JeaUHzo?si=lvTdpnES1kse6n38) about his daily writing model and how he might never write a book because he needs the atomic constraint to publish. Willpower can be overrated, and the right constraints underrated. I know that I will do the work to prepare for an interview because I care so deeply about honoring the other person's time and generosity to do it.
21. **Directing and editing is hard.** I now know why Sean Baker is a rare breed. I struggle to materially cut content from the raw conversations, with a few exceptions. It's definitely a muscle, but similarly, writing and editing require fundamentally different approaches. It's tempting to be precious when you (co-)created the thing. Perhaps separate roles is the ideal setup.
22. **Make the thing you want.** I realize this advice has probably been overblown, but for good reason. I make a 2+ hour interview podcast with fairly esoteric, nich-internet-famous guests, no consistent pattern of guest, no set category, with no video and overly-detailed show notes and links. Many of the decisions haven't been hard because it's what I'd like to listen to.
23. **Ideas *and* action.** I'll leave it to listeners to be the judge, but as much as I try to understand someone by way of their ideas, I also try to ground the conversations in the implications of those ideas. My favorite thinkers are those who have a tight feedback loop between thinking and doing.
24. **It's nice to try another mind on.** It's a lovely experience to funnel your attention through another person's thoughts for a little while. Biographies can do this, but even autobiographies give you the export of someone else's (even the subject's) synthesis of their thinking. I recommend deep-diving the available inputs and seeing what threads you find in the pools of a person's mind.
25. **Humanity shines.** This is my north star. How can I get people talking about the stuff that makes their eyes light up? In a world that increasingly wants to reduce all friction and automate everything--including ourselves--humanity blazes brightly.

Bonus:
26. **HAVE YOU CONSIDERED VIDEO?** If you start a podcast, people (and by that, I mean literally every single person you talk to) will suggest that you do video (and short form clips from it). More on that soon.

25 Lessons from 25 Episodes of Dialectic

[*Published October 9, 2024*](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/things-to-remember)

I wrote this list of values, beliefs, and reminders to myself. Maybe you will find it helpful too:

1. Inertia is the strongest force in the universe. Actively seek renewal or succumb to it. Keep learning, keep expanding, keep playing the infinite game. You have more to give than you can possibly imagine[^1].
2. Identity is plastic. Shape it with action, even when you don't believe yourself yet[^2].
3. Be forgiving of your past self and generous to your future self. You're on the same team.
4. Follow the romantic scent ([[Steve Jobs]]). You've got to trust yourself on what that means. But don't lose your sense of smell.
5. Don't be the best. Be the only ([[Kevin Kelly]]); The race is long and in the end, it’s only with yourself. (Mary Schmich)
6. Inspiration is on the other side of that door: beginning.
7. [[Do One Thing at a Time]]. Attention is the only thing we have.
8. Take a walk (evergreen—especially at golden hour).
9. Slow down around green things. They have much to say[^3].
10. Proximity rules in relationships. Almost all relationships require proximity *and* intention to keep growing. There are exceptions, but they are much rarer than you think.
11. You are who you spend time with. This is even more true than you believe it is.
12. Long-term friends multiply life's riches.
13. There is no one so charming as a curious old person.
14. Charisma is much less about you than how you make others feel about themselves.
15. Everyone has something to offer[^4]. Search for the thing that makes their eyes light up. If you're bored with someone, it's because you haven't asked the right question ([[Matt Mullenweg]]). 
16. When you have bad news, call. Better yet, tell them in person.
17. Find friends who can tell you the thing you don't want to hear—especially when it's explicitly against their interest. That is true friendly love, and they're the only ones in the world who can do it.
18. With others: there is a time for fixing. But first, they just need you to be there.
19. There is no gift like agency. Make people feel like things are possible. Pull creative people forward.
20. The true friend of time is integrity. Among all things that compound, integrity is the most underrated and perhaps the most scarce.
21. Logic doesn't scale, but stories do.
22. Most great things involve paradox. Hold both sides at once. Sit with them. Enjoy the mess. This is life.
23. Courtesy and kindness cost nothing, except for the time it takes to shift your attention away from yourself.
24. When you worship yourself the world fades out. Don't succumb to the void—get out from under yourself. How? Simply bear witness to another: try to see them a bit more clearly. Better yet: ask how you might serve them. The cage of the mind is broken by acts of service [^5].
25. You know less than you think you do. Blindspots abound. This is water.
26. Focus on the fundamentals. Not easy, but simple. 
27. Meaning is made. The ingredients are all around you, but they're just that—so stop waiting and *choose* meaning [^6].
28. It all comes down to love and gratitude. Happiness is love, full stop ([Harvard Grant Study](https://bookshop.org/p/books/triumphs-of-experience-the-men-of-the-harvard-grant-study-george-e-vaillant/6702279)).
29. Tomorrow isn't real. Life is just a bunch of todays (Janis Joplin).
30. This is the good part. It's all the good part [^7].

A single addendum on my [31st birthday](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1864380132208570529):

31. Time is not your adversary. You do not need more time: time needs more of you ([David Whyte](https://davidwhyte.substack.com/p/time)).

Thanks to [Andrew](https://x.com/ettinger) for inspiring me to write these down.

[^1]: *"Life is an endless unfolding, and if we wish it to be, an endless process of self-discovery, an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our own potentialities and the life situations in which we find ourselves. By potentialities I mean not just intellectual gifts but the full range of one's capacities for learning, sensing, wondering, understanding, loving and aspiring... There's something I know about you that you may or may not know about yourself. You have within you more resources of energy than have ever been tapped, more talent than has ever been exploited, more strength than has ever been tested, more to give than you have ever given."* - John W. Gardner, [Personal Renewal](https://www.pbs.org/johngardner/sections/writings_speech_1.html)

[^2]: *"For me a discursive view of the self means giving up the endeavor of finding oneself altogether. It’s the thought that we don’t need the self in order to pursue the things that matter to us, and that this pursuit is the best indicator of who we are."* - Nico Chilla, [On Rejecting Narrative Identity](https://www.are.na/editorial/on-rejecting-narrative-identity)

[^3]: *"If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we’d drown you in meaning."* - [[Powers-The Overstory]]. [More on that wonderful novel here](https://jdahl.substack.com/i/143763472/the-overstory-by-richard-powers).

[^4]: *“Perhaps I’m not interesting, but I am the only thing I have to offer, and I want to offer something. And by offering myself in a true way I am doing a great service to the world, because it is rare and it will help.”* - [[Charlie Kaufman]]

[^5]: *"The freedom all to be lords of our tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talk about much in the great outside world of wanting and achieving…. The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day."* - David Foster Wallace, *[This is Water](https://fs.blog/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/)*

[^6]: *"Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account."* - John W. Gardner, [Personal Renewal](https://www.pbs.org/johngardner/sections/writings_speech_1.html)

[^7]: *“You should enjoy the little detours to the fullest. Because that's where you'll find the things more important than what you want.”* - Yoshihiro Togashi, *Hunter x Hunter*

30 Things to Remember

[Published August 14, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/do-one-thing-at-a-time).
![[orange timothy jones.jpg]]
The more present I am, the more fulfilled I tend to be. Happiness is easy, they say: *be here now.*

So why is it so hard to stay here?

As I groggily opened Twitter this morning, the beginning of a thread stared me in the face: "I'm addicted to focus," it began, above some diagram of a brain scan. I thankfully came to my senses and force-quit the app most responsible for my scattered mind. But that phrase lingered in my head this morning. It's pithy, but somehow probably right: if we are not addicted to focus then we must at least have an unsatiated desire for it.

Our language about presence--focus, flow states, embodiment, on and on--all seems to point to something radically simple: **doing one thing at a time**. 

Unfortunately, I spend much of my time actively trying to do multiple things at once, let alone intentionally settling into a single-minded focus. Our contexts, culture, and technology tend to encourage or demand a buzzing, high-variance approach to attention.[^2]

I listened to an [interview with Boyd Varty](https://youtu.be/YT43q-t0KN0?si=Lqp0xz-aUSqmHJT8) earlier this year. He is a lion tracker, business coach, healer, and writer, among other things. But I think he's best described as someone who helps people unfold into their environment--and by doing so--get closer to themselves. In the conversation, Boyd told his story of spending forty days in the wilderness in South Africa, alone in a tree (I'm paraphrasing: "all the mystics seemed to do something similar, so when Covid came along and gave me the chance I felt I had to see what it was all about").

One part of his story that often comes to mind is a recounting of the daily highlight of his early time in the bush. He brought along a week's worth of oranges, and each day he'd look forward to the treat. He recalled taking out the orange and beginning to gently peel it, bit by bit, with his knife. Then he would slowly savor the aroma of the rind[^1] before indulging in the first juicy bite of citrus. Those precious minutes of enjoying a fruit he and so many of us take for granted were as good as pure bliss.

Boyd reflected on how simple this was: the process of enjoying that orange made him realize how precious life's moments can be when we engage in them fully. As beings who try so hard to do anything and everything, often all at once, all the time, we can sleepwalk through the ordinary miracles all around us. But in doing just *one* thing, right now, here, we are forced to come all the way down into the pure essence of attention.[^3]

[^1]: If you've not smelled an orange or tangerine rind recently... pretty sensational. Just sit with it.
[^2]: Just to name a few examples: always multi-tasking, scrolling through 10 isolated pieces of content a minute, laptops in in-person meetings, better-have-my-airpods-in-while-doing-literally-anything, looking at a smaller screen when a bigger one gets boring, notifications vibrating while a friend confides in you... While discussing this with friends, I've observed that the single best way to increase my chances of doing one thing at a time would be to throw my phone as far away from me as possible--and preferably at a wall. The smartphone is dishonest: it *is* virtual reality--always making demands of us and offering an escape to somewhere else--despite claiming to be a tool that fits seamlessly into our daily, mobile life. Perhaps that is for another essay.
[^3]: “Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It presupposes faith and love. Absolutely unmixed attention is prayer.” - Simone Weil

Do One Thing at a Time

[Published July 29, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/taste-time-and-attention-on-making).

*— On Making Contact with the World*

A new take on my Thoughts + Things format for you. Rather than breaking out little blurbs for each recommendation, I thought it would be fun to write a short essay and list a handful of recommendations that inspired it. I hope you enjoy it and can find time to read the list of inspirations in full—they are great.

- [Notes on “Taste”](https://www.are.na/editorial/notes-on-taste) - Brie Wolfson
- [Taste is a guide for what is worthwhile](https://jzhao.xyz/posts/aesthetics-and-taste) - Jacky Zhao
- [Ira Glass on Skill and Taste](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309485-nobody-tells-this-to-people-who-are-beginners-i-wish)
- ["Work with Material" Black Mountain College Bulletin 5](https://collection.ashevilleart.org/objects-1/info?query=Artist_Maker%20%3D%20%2215%22&sort=0&page=6) - Anni Albers
- [How to Discover Your Own Taste](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-kyle-chayka.html) - Ezra Klein and Kyle Chayka
- [Reality has a surprising amount of detail](http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-amount-of-detail) - John Salvatier

%%
- [[Notes on “Taste” - Are.na Editorial]]
- [[Taste is a guide for what is worthwhile]]
- [Quote by Ira Glass: “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, ...”](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309485-nobody-tells-this-to-people-who-are-beginners-i-wish)
- [[Work with Material- Black Mountain College Bulletin 5]]
- [How to Discover Your Own Taste - Ezra Klein and Kyle Chayka](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/09/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-kyle-chayka.html)
- [Reality has a surprising amount of detail](http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-amount-of-detail)
- %%
---
It's never been easier to consume anything and everything. Infinite supply of everything the world has to offer—and soon, anything we can imagine—available instantly. The same goes for creating: anything has never been more possible. So: where to spend our time? 

There's been much discussion lately about taste. Taste is at its simplest, *choosing*. It's scarcity amidst an abundance of choice. It's judgment that is socially valuable and also personal. When we share it, taste can be a compass that points in the direction of our gaze. But what are these choices made of and how do we begin to choose?

I like the idea that taste is mostly a product of appetite. Most often, [people with great taste in a certain field](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1662244621722738690) are those who [have spent the most time there](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1669777621075337217). Put another way, those with great taste usually get disproportionate energy from curiosity toward a domain. That appetite is the beginning of a journey of prolonged attention down an infinite rabbit hole. The breadth of the world folds in on itself in favor of discovering a universe of detail. Perhaps the complexity that another finds tiresome or boring may be a treasure trove for you.

I think this can be an antidote to the temptation to skim off the top of the world's offerings, searching for only the "best" of any domain. To be sure, we have more tools to find good stuff than ever before (even if "best" can be defined by algorithmic incentive systems that miss plenty of nuance, to say the least). But this keeps us at the surface and surely restricts us from enjoying the richness of what we consume—even if it happens to show up on our for-you feeds. Everything—especially creativity—exists in context, of course (something about a coconut tree). 

The importance of time and attention extends to creating things: sometimes our taste and our skill may not line up. And the only path forward is to [keep creating anyway](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/309485-nobody-tells-this-to-people-who-are-beginners-i-wish). The [story of the ceramics teacher and the students who make 30 pots](https://austinkleon.com/2020/12/10/quantity-leads-to-quality-the-origin-of-a-parable/) usually holds true. Anyone who has ever tried to create anything knows [that it can be a slog](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1783155212061983005). Creativity can be an education in just how much more detail you ever thought there could be in a medium. The pursuit of creative taste is a yearning toward what we believe might lay further down the road. The invisible attraction between something deep inside us and the mystery of the world, pulling us forward.

It can be tempting to view (great) taste as objective. But that omits the fact that taste demands a personal connection. It's a kind of intimacy with detail. It requires deep familiarity and skillful consideration or creation of quality. But there's something else, too, something closer to self-expression. [Brie Wolfson](https://www.are.na/editorial/notes-on-taste):
>*"Taste honors someone’s standards of quality, but also the **distinctive way the world bounces off a person**. It reflects what they know about how the world works, and also what they’re working with in their inner worlds. When we recognize true taste, we are recognizing that alchemic combination of **skill and soul**."*

It seems that despite the pure quantity (of consumption or creation) needed for taste to form, it is also a product of constraint. It is the synthesis of many inputs into something opinionated. It can't exist without us being forced to choose: yes to this, no to that. And this process, like discovery and depth in a domain, is a product of time. Steve Jobs (via *[Make Something Wonderful](https://stevejobsarchive.com/book))*:
>*"I don’t think my taste in aesthetics is that much different than a lot of other people’s. The difference is that I just get to be really stubborn about making things as good as we all know they can be. That’s the only difference.*
>
>*…your [taste] gets more refined as you make mistakes. I’ve had a chance to make a lot of mistakes…But the real big thing is: if you’re going to make something, it doesn’t take any more energy—and rarely does it take more money—to make it really great. All it takes is a little more time. Not that much more. And a willingness to do so, a willingness to persevere until it’s really great."*

This premise is warped by our digitally-dominated reality today. It can be easy for consumption and creation to be abstracted. In some ways, this is helpful for developing taste and skill. It leads to faster feedback loops, less friction, and more accessibility. But in other ways, abstraction takes us farther from the source. It tempts us to speed-run the development of taste and the process of creation. 

Instead, we operate in the hyper-real: algorithms, replications, remixes, imitations, bits, pixels, concepts, interpretations, translations... all on a faster and faster cycle. When operating in digital contexts, we may benefit from self-imposed constraint, from slowing down. This isn't to say that an internet-accelerated collage of inputs can't be a superpower for us; [technological accessibility](https://x.com/scottbelsky/status/1747664454530265556) may in fact [drive more emphasis from skill to taste](https://x.com/eshear/status/1733907285754216881). But if we only operate at that pace, I fear we may not make time to see what it is we've filled our cups with, let alone let the contents dissolve.

Even if taste can approach something more than the purely subjective—and I believe developed taste can make it possible to point to a kind of universal beauty—it has an ineffable quality. This is realized not by over-consideration and thoughtfulness but by experience. [Montesquieu](https://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/did2222.0000.168/--taste?rgn=main;view=fulltext;q1=Fran%C3%A7ois-Marie+Arouet+de+Voltaire#:~:text=But%20natural%20taste%20is%20not,which%20we%20do%20not%20know.):
>*"natural taste is not the same as theoretical knowledge. It consists in the rapid and subtle application of the very rules which we do not know."*

[Up-close attention, even contact](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1794819314261827971), with the parts of the world that draw us in has never been more important. As our attention spans become increasingly programmed by short-term, shallow incentives, taste is a way to swim upstream with deliberation and depth. Through immersion—by way of [prayerful attention](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/821281-attention-taken-to-its-highest-degree-is-the-same-thing#:~:text=Attention%2C%20taken%20to%20its%20highest%20degree%2C%20is%20the%20same%20thing,Absolutely%20unmixed%20attention%20is%20prayer.)—we participate in reality as it is, and if we are lucky, *change* it—by creating. Taste may simply be a symptom of that process.

I'll leave you with [this scene in an otherwise odd, intense movie called *Pig* (2021)](https://youtu.be/MDPeLlMR2D4?si=LyHxRQRO4U8WTMNz). Nic Cage's character rebukes a former apprentice for losing touch with what he is truly drawn to.
> *"We don't get a lot of things to really care about."*

Taste, Time, and Attention

[Published June 17, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/grateful).
### The world
For deep breaths. Twilight's soft light. Mountain air. Warm coffee. Grass on bare feet. Breeze. Sunsets over the Pacific. A glass of water in the morning. The smell of wet dirt. The sound of soft rain. The movement on a certain watch. Orchids. Timeless design. Simple, delicious food. Deep, starry skies that don't seem possible. Running a hand on wood grain. Trees. Fabrics. The smell of green tea. Ceramics. Prosciutto. Olive oil. Spaces designed with care and acknowledgment. Nostalgia. 
### The art
For writing that has a style and voice so strong I can hear it. Writing with rhythm. Storytelling that suspends time. Stories that expand the mind. Film that captures ephemeral light. Paintings that make me stop looking and start seeing. Music that transforms the place. Music that transforms the person. Speakers that fill the room on weekend mornings. Poetry that says nothing one day and everything the next. Technology that pulls people's creativity forward. How art can bring us together. How it can help us understand each other. How it can help us imagine what could be.
### The others
For being held up when my own strength falters. Strangers' kindness, and their smiles. Infectious laughter. Honest listeners. Friends who know what I need to hear. Friends who know what I don't want to hear, and say it anyway. Mom's love. Dad's belief. Parents' sacrifice. A friend who can sit in silence. Recommendations that make me feel seen. Being seen. Patience. Trust. Proactivity. Curiosity. Charisma. Conviction. People who offer energy freely, abundantly. Conversation that builds, lifts, soars. People who believe in me.
### The self
For an active mind. Strengthening muscles. An appetite for richness. Excitablity. Charisma, sometimes. How I value friendship. How I value ideas. Running. Writing. Reaching deep. My affinity for a romantic scent. Optimism. My desire to adapt. My desire to share what I'm excited about. My love for connecting people. My willingness to hold out, on my own behalf, to demand more of myself and more of the world. My ability to make peace with myself and with the world. My desire to be better, to make life less about me and more about others.

----
For the fact that this list can't even possibly scratch the surface in any of these categories and in countless others. For the fact that gratitude is a bottomless well that stands to give until the end of my days and yours.

Grateful

%%A letter to my 80 year-old self%%
[Published May 5, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/hey-there-old-man).

This is one of my favorite things I wrote as part of the 30-day writing challenge I did earlier this year. It’s a letter to my 80-year-old self. I hope, if nothing else, it inspires you to reflect on who you’d like to be and what you’d like to feel in half a century. Perhaps it will even inspire you to write to that person.

---
Hey there, old man:  
  
If we've made it this far, I suspect there's little to complain about. And if you're feeling good, I guess we're playing with house money. Who knows, maybe eighty is the new sixty. B thinks we might live forever, or at least closer to 1000 years than 100. That sounds like a long time. I'm curious how you feel. Maybe you have the vitality I always I dreamed you would and your response to another 900 is, "count me in!"

Fifty years. I can't say I have any idea what fifty years is like. Although it does seem like time passes at a rate that is a function of time lived, so perhaps the next fifty will feel closer to the thirty I've already knocked off.

I wrote [another essay](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/ooh-la-la) (for this thirty day writing challenge; I hope you kept on finding time to write all these years... it's the only way we get to communicate after all...) about _Ooh La La_ by Faces. I'm sure you remember that chorus. L and I were talking about how we wish we had our well-earned wisdom back when we were younger. You laugh, I'm sure. Do you feel wise? You are probably _actually_ wise at this point, and thus think you are only just beginning to put things together. I hope you've had a life of learning, hanging onto curiosity, not settling. It's easy for me to forget sometimes, but the world is so, so rich. I hope you still feel that. I hope you still think the kids are going to be alright.

To be clear, I hope you did settle in the right kinds of ways. Frankly, I hope you did that many years ago. Settled into who you are, settled in with the people you chose to spend your life with, settled into building a wonderful marriage and family and home. Settled into work and creativity that feels good and honest and like you're offering something to the world. Settled into knowing that these things are not problems to solve but the lovely, messy, open questions that linger all life long. And settled into knowing that just because those questions lack answers doesn't mean you couldn't hurl yourself at them anyway, committing and not looking back. I hope you burned the ships a few times and set yourself up for the possibility of grand failure and unknowable upside--especially with other people.

I hope you still see the wonder in this world. In its people, its music, its nature, its stories, its magic. I hope you spent your life looking up, drinking it all in, savoring it. I'm trying. There are good days and bad days. At least I can say I don't forget to do so for too long.

I hope you've lived a big life with people who made it bigger. That's what I'm looking for in others, and what I'm trying to give. I have always been afraid of being alone. You know that, and hopefully you remember being so foolish. More than any single thing, I hope you can look around and feel your heart full: from loving and being loved. I hope there are little (and grown-up) kids running around and crotchety old folks like you--maybe even a few you’ve been friends with since you were thirty--who call you on your b.s. like they do with me. And I hope that they help you remember how lucky you've been. Maybe some laughs, too.

I don't know what I'm telling _you_ for. These things that I spend so much time worrying and wondering about are probably long in the rear-view, at least as variables.

There's that Vonnegut quote I love:
> “Stephen Hawking… found it tantalizing that we could not remember the future. But remembering the future is child's play for me now. I know what will become of my helpless, trusting babies because they are grown-ups now. I know how my closest friends will end up because so many of them are retired or dead now… To Stephen Hawking and all others younger than myself I say, 'Be patient. Your future will come to you and lie down at your feet like a dog who knows and loves you no matter what you are.”

I hope you feel the serenity I can only assume Vonnegut is talking about here. That point where the facade of past and future dissolve into the only true thing, this moment. Petting the dog, grateful, looking out over the horizon of such a wonderful world and such a wonderful life.

I'd ask you to send back some advice for me from out there, but I guess I'm missing the point. I suspect you'd tell me the same thing I'd tell my younger self: you're on your way. There's no rush. This is the good part.

I'm sorry I've not written to you sooner. I guess I needed some time to consider you. I've been busy. I'm sure I've got more to say. You'll have to find out for me. See you soon.

Jackson

Hey there, old man

[Published April 24, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/choosing-to-remember).

>"Memory, you realized long ago, is a game that a healthy-brained person can play all the time, and the game of memory is won or lost on one criterion: Do you leave the formation of memories to happenstance, or do you decide to remember?"

I think about this line from *Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow* often. 

While eating breakfast this morning I flashed into nostalgia for an old house in Silver Lake I used to live in. I remembered its beautiful and intimate front patio where I ate the [best bagels in the world](https://couragebagels.com/) with J & D one morning early on, where I'd spend quiet afternoons looking up at the trees, and where we'd occasionally host dinner parties on warm nights. This is the best form of nostalgia: not for vague stretches of time but for moments, feelings, sights, smells. I thought about how our times in that home already feel distant, and how they'll soon be long in the rearview. A future time that is honored more by memories of memories than the real thing.

I think honor is the right word. I express gratitude for the past by recalling it. By tracing what I can make out of its outline. This makes the next effort to remember easier. Sometimes this happens without intent, brought forth by a conversation, or feeling, or smell, or nothing so precise. Sometimes I remember despite my best efforts. 

As Marx notes in that quote above, the secret hidden in plain sight when it comes to memory is that it can be a choice. It's obvious and illuminating at once. Like any skill, it can come with ease in some moments and pure agony in others. Sometimes I search and find nothing, fumbling around clumsily in the darkness. Others, I look and see clearer than when the memory first happened.

I'll admit that effort can spoil remembering. Those serendipitous flashes like I enjoyed today are a gift that's hard to beat. Writing sessions spent forcefully recording the events of a day or trip can be exhausting and hardly useful. Besides, Many of the memories that linger are not those I intend or anticipate. But not all deliberate remembering must be so desperate. Some of the best reminiscing comes by way of prompting people I love to do it with me. Even simpler, it can come by hanging around them and looking or listening. 

Another way to encode memories is to do so as they happen. This delicate dance of presence and noticing is tough to execute, as both demand my attention. Maybe that's why so many of my best memories are feelings, not specific details. Feelings are the kind of passive recordings that presence inscribes. I've spent plenty of time so intent on making great memories that I forgot to be there. Still, I think it's possible. When I hear the music and I'm in the stream: time among friends when the conversation is soaring or while taking in a sunset that words can't describe. When for only a moment I realize what's happening. Not long enough to miss a beat and lose the rhythm, but a half-step just for me to pause and take it in. Perhaps: a chance to fold in the corner of the page so that I can return.

Deciding to remember is, above all else, about gratitude. An emotion with a similar trick: it's completely up to me. It's as simple as deciding to be grateful. When I'm grateful, I fly a little lower to the ground and look more closely at the view. When I'm grateful, it's easy to remember. A gratefwul disposition can even help cultivate more awareness in the present. Gratefulness is a reminder that this is the good part--that it's all the good part. 

This, right now, in front of me, *here*.

Choosing to Remember

[Published April 16, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/grounded).
![[Solus III by Ed Allen.png]]
I was looking through old journal entries and found this one from the fall, where I reflected on my favorite emotions:
>There are a few truly great emotions: surely love; joy, especially with laughter; bliss, especially in the serene way; gratefulness, especially when tears fall; and at least for me, **groundedness**. It's a kind of peace, acceptance, rootedness. I'd like to think it doesn't require stability in the ways that might most immediately come to mind. It's an unwavering stillness that comes even while at sea, and is especially felt when the storm comes.

That word, grounded, has come up again and again lately. It was a rare feeling for most of my adolescent and early adult years. These days I find myself seeking it everywhere: while thinking, planning, writing, meditating, reading, especially on slow weekend mornings. I've begun to find it even in unexpected places: in conversations, while running, on the busiest days.

Groundedness comes when the freight settles into the groove. It's possible to sustain while in motion but I think it needs to start with stillness. It's less acute, but can give way to all of the other emotions I listed above. Like so many other parts of a fulfilling life, it comes out of presence and awareness. Perhaps most importantly, it is not a response to calming or peaceful emotions but a cause of them. It's needed most in times of turmoil and pain.

Some of the people I admire most appear to be the most grounded. There is a sober-minded wisdom in them. Yet it typically comes with a childlike curiosity. These people are calm but never boring. When you're with them, you feel it too. It's almost like you enter their world--one that straddles prudence and possibility. What a paradox!

According to self-diagnosis, a couple of guru-types, and my mom, I'm a type 7 on the Enneagram -- aka, the **enthusiast.** The basic summary: "*optimistic, versatile, and spontaneous. Playful, high-spirited, and practical, they can also misapply their many talents, becoming over-extended, scattered, and undisciplined. They constantly seek new and exciting experiences, but can become distracted and exhausted by staying on the go*" ([source](https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/type-7/)).

This description should come as no surprise to those of you who know me.

One framing of healthy growth has the type 7 on a journey from gluttony to sobriety. This makes sense to me: *grounded* connotes a sobriety of mind, body, and spirit. And my default state--the mode I operated in almost entirely for that stretch of adolescence into young adulthood--is gluttony. Gluttonous for the next thing. Reaching outwards, stretching, probably off-balance. The world is so rich, the options so plentiful, the spectrum so wide. I believe that earnestly--what it is, after all, to take flight!

An essential lesson I'm in the process of learning is that the freedom I seek likely lies not in gluttonous expansion but on the other side of commitment. A grounded, sober-minded freedom. I think i'm coming to understand that this doesn't mean giving up my generative, curious appetite for the wonder of the world and its people. In fact, grounded presence can give way to the states where I am most creative and connected to others. The best part is that grounded people extend that aura outward. Other people can feel it and settle into it too.

There's a time to lift off, especially early on in a creative journey or relationship. When all I want is to add more and see how much ground we can cover together. But as an extroverted person, I have found that being internally grounded gives me a foundation to be the best and truest version of myself with others: someone who is ready to fly as needed, but is in no rush. Just glad to be *here*.

There's a 'levels of development' section in the enneagram analysis where they suggest nine stages, from each type at total failure to its best. This is how they describe the highest level for type 7, which sums up the paradoxical medley that I hope to embody:
>"Assimilate experiences in depth, making them deeply grateful and appreciative for what they have. Become awed by the simple wonders of life: joyous and ecstatic. Intimations of spiritual reality, of the boundless goodness of life."


Grounded

[Published April 12, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/ooh-la-la).

The best part about long-time friends is that catching up can be like picking up an unfinished board game with ease, as though everyone miraculously remembers the game state, regardless of how long it has been. You have this kind of understanding that can only be the product of many years of witnessing each other.

L and I have talked about getting older for as long as we've been friends. Maybe a shared obsession with the passage of time and nostalgia for the present is part of why we have always been so close. We've always been worrying about how much time has passed. Or that we are (or were) sleepwalking through the "good old days." 

Now we're both thirty. We're wiser now, at least relatively. We're a little more okay with ourselves. We're in less of a rush. We spend less time stressing about what could have been, but we both have our moments. 

The other day we talked about knowing ourselves better, knowing what goes into a good day, and knowing what fills us up. We talked about our personal [tennis balls](https://twitter.com/jacksondahl/status/1732815195834044615). 

L said, "I wish I wasn't making all these realizations at thirty. It's like [that song](https://youtu.be/1_xwnb3cymc?si=3ur2mG3lQa3p2qil). I think about it all the time:
>*I wish that I knew what I know now*  
*When I was younger*

...I feel that every day."

When he said it, I laughed. For two reasons. 

First, because I completely understand how he feels. I have the same thoughts all the time. Time seems to move by more and more quickly. With it comes expectations, competing desires, tradeoffs, and thinning options. We're both people who, at our most effective, are obsessive. L put it as "an inclination to have a thing that occupies all of my energy and life force." When you're younger, you have so much time and space and energy. You have so much room to fail. You just need to know what direction to run in. If only I knew what I do now when I was twenty...

The second reason I laughed was that this is the whole point! 

It's the paradox of life: that only by living--head first, soaking up experience without knowing any better, making stupid mistakes, treating time like there are free refills, being forced to awkwardly move closer to yourself after far too much trial and error, naively rushing head-on when better judgment would urge the opposite, just as we should, just as it must be--do we gain the wisdom we wish we'd only had sooner.

To add to the humor, this dynamic is perpetually true. I can only imagine Rod Stewart's amusement when at 58, he recorded his version of the song to pay tribute to bandmate and original vocalist Ronnie Wood, who was 26 when he first recorded the song: "When *you* were younger?"

It is perhaps a rule of life that we think ourselves to only now have all the answers. We've all talked to the guy who thinks he's the teacher and has barely begun the lesson. [Many such cases](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaodLKGJsvM). *I've* been that guy.

 It's all relative. Lately, I've begun to wonder if I know less today than ever before. I definitely know more about how very much I don't know. And that keeps expanding.

Years ago, a [friend](https://twitter.com/nbashaw) offered the advice that you should check in on yourself every so often and ask if you're embarrassed at how naive you were since the last time you did it (say 6 or 12 months). It doesn't have to (and probably shouldn't) measure every aspect of life at once, but if you don't feel it in any regard, you're not growing. 

As frustrating as it can be, I aim to consistently feel that I am gaining knowledge or wisdom that I could have so desperately used a little earlier. Better now than later, or than never.

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago...

Ooh La La

[Published February 29, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/the-not-so-lonely-vision-pro)

I’ve been [on the record](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1758894929860833640?s=20) that the Vision Pro is [remarkably lonely](https://x.com/activeinterrupt/status/1759940641084072085?s=20). So much so that the device was starting to make me sad.

I have two updates:
1. Despite my expectations (and disappointment) as it was approaching, I did not return the Vision Pro at the two-week mark.
2. I had an experience with it recently that totally changed my perception of the device:

![IMG_0086 1.jpeg](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F70a4e320-61f7-4afd-b704-6f042254ceed_1920x1080.png "IMG_0086 1.jpeg")

Please pardon the disaster that is my "persona," which comes from deep in the uncanny valley. I didn't take a screenshot, but J shared it after he, M and I hung out. As you can see, he enjoyed our Yahtzee game on the beach of a lake near Mt. Hood. I enjoyed it in my living room in Manhattan.

You are looking at Apple's _SharePlay_, an under-marketed feature of FaceTime that is pretty magical in the Vision Pro. I’d FaceTimed with the Vision prior and seen a friend share their screen, which is fine but nothing particularly new. The big deal is that other apps can use it too, like the [_Game Room_](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/game-room/id1642897935?platform=ipad) app we used to bring a 3D Yahtzee board into our respective environments, or YouTube and Apple TV. After Yahtzee, we watched [Dakota Johnson's Arch Digest](https://youtu.be/AwhBTrzzqeg?si=f1NboObHQlmsHZtt) (which is significantly more dramatic and compelling than her new film, [_Madame Web_](https://letterboxd.com/jdahl/film/madame-web/); if you’re looking for more Dakota, skip M.W. and watch the superb [_Cha Cha Real Smooth_](https://letterboxd.com/jdahl/film/cha-cha-real-smooth/1/)) and a [fully-immersive experience of a woman tightrope walk across a highline strapped to a Norwegian cliff.](https://www.apple.com/tv-pr/news/2024/01/apple-tv-unveils-groundbreaking-immersive-originals-from-todays-biggest-storytellers-set-to-debut-on-apple-vision-pro/)

These are limited so far, but spending an hour with two friends, taking turns rolling dice, and chatting was a unique feeling. It's crucial to note that I'd experienced all of this in Vision Pro without friends, and while technically impressive, it quickly lost its luster. It was the togetherness that made it magical.

I described a combination of a simple turn-based game and video chat... which is not rocket science. But the synchronous nature in an immersive space made it feel unlike any connective digital experience I've had. I don't play many online games anymore, but I've had fun hanging with friends in Discord playing League of Legends and VALORANT. One day in covid, some friends from high school and I zoomed and played a web-based Dungeons and Dragons. These were great, but my SharePlay experience felt more natural and _together_ in a way that is hard to describe.

Distractions still loom: I spent a portion of our Yahtzee game with a ~100-inch screen showing a YouTube video on low volume, only visible to me. Right now, you can only share one app at a time, so I couldn't invite my friends into my media overload, even if I wanted to. When you're with someone in-person and they're wearing a Vision Pro, they could be watching anything while pretending to listen to you, [as Andrew suggested](https://youtu.be/yYVgrN9lSZA?si=R5NOmiO1RKd0whC2) on our recent podcast. That might be unsolvable.

This device is approaching science fiction with its ability to make you feel like you are somewhere else. Critically I think it will be able to make us feel like we’re _with someone_ _else_, too. My friend C recently shared a spatial video (Apple's native video format for immersive, 3D capture) from her AirBnB on vacation, littered with friends and conversations. I was hanging at home with a couple of friends, and pulled up her video on one side of the room while talking to the others who were in person. It was bizarre and fascinatingly real, as though I was hanging out with all of them at once (notably, I was the only one who got to experience this, but it was still a glimpse of the future). I then sent a spatial video of my side of things for C to see, and she responded similarly.

Eventually, we'll create robust environments, whether purely digital or renders of physical, and invite others to [visit](https://readyplayerone.fandom.com/wiki/Basement) us [in them](https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Secret_Base). A few asterisks aside, (namely everyone wearing giant or hopefully less giant ski goggles), we'll be able to teleport to each other. We'll share canvases and tools and create together, without the constraints of small screens and two dimensions. It's still a dream, but not so hard to imagine. It's closer than I thought. Most importantly, I no longer feel lonely when I look at the Vision Pro, let alone put it on. **I feel possibility**.

Last but not least, if you’re a talented game designer or just someone who wants to make vision apps, I’d recommend exploring [SharePlay-compatible apps](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/shareplay). There are clear limitations, like the constraint of only asynchronous interactivity (meaning: only one player seems to be able to control things at once and thus only turn-based games and experiences are possible). Still, it’s fun to imagine even [simple games](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/ar-pictionary/id6478134633) could be a blast. I’d be inspired by stuff like [Heads Up](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/heads-up/id623592465), [Psych!](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/psych-outwit-your-friends/id1005765746), [JackBox](https://jackbox.tv/), [SpaceTeam](https://spaceteam.ca/), Fishbowl, etc. Maybe even [The Mind](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/thoughts-things-podcast-a-five-star)!

Oh, and if you work at Apple, maybe spend more time talking about SharePlay experiences when you talk about the Vision Pro. Just one guy’s opinion.

---

From outside the metaverse (for now),

Jackson

**P.S.** I’m sure there will be angry people calling me an idiot and citing that the Meta Quest has had multiplayer games for years and has a much fuller catalog. Frankly, I’d expect that, and it wouldn’t shock me to try them out and have as much or more fun as I’ve had in the Vision Pro. I think that’s great! I should try a Quest 3—it’s been a long time since I’ve tried any Oculus/Meta headset. Still, I remain excited about Apple’s developer ecosystem and the Vision Pro’s hardware to make these experiences even more rich. More importantly, I’m hopeful to see progress across both ecosystems as they grow in adoption; after all, none of this matters if the people we care about don’t have a device, too.

The Not So Lonely Vision Pro

*on Wim Wenders' Perfect Days & Casey Neistat's Impossible Dream*

[Published on February 26, 2024.](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/showing-up)

## _Perfect Days_
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa0ccd7cc-60c8-48dd-ac58-65690b25ca03_997x1067.jpeg)

I recently watched Wim Wenders' new film [_Perfect Days (2023)_](https://letterboxd.com/jdahl/film/perfect-days-2023/). A late afternoon matinee, which is a delightful way to spend time. The film matched that description. It's about a middle-aged Japanese man named Hirayama, played by the remarkable Koji Yakusho (he won Best Actor for the film at Cannes 2023), and his daily life and rhythms. The spine of most of his days is his job cleaning various public toilets in Shibuya, Tokyo. The [real project](https://tokyotoilet.jp/en/) is incredible in its own right, with each toilet designed by a different artist or architect. [This one](https://tokyotoilet.jp/en/yoyogifukamachi_mini_park/) is my favorite.

It's an unhurried film about routine, paying attention, doing things well, [music (I am not listening to enough Lou Reed)](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/61jcvgXSGrrs65QAbJghI1?si=de931ad303f6461e), and _Komorebi,_ which roughly translates as "the scattered light that filters through when sunlight shines through trees." It might pair nicely with Kawauchi's [photography](https://rinkokawauchi.com/en/works/) that I mentioned in [last week’s essay on _Her_](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/her-2013-and-dreams-of-the-future)_._ It's also, despite its near-complete lack of modern technology, a bit like _Her_ in its beauty, tempo, and loneliness.

There are many lessons to learn from Hirayama, even if his life is far more lonely (and has far more toilet cleaning) than I would prefer. His presence is particularly admirable. There's an iconic scene in the film that leads to two characters reciting back and forth, _"next time is next time; now is now"_.

## Discipline
Another lesson comes from his routine and discipline. He shows up, again and again, in myriad little ways. He does so with pride and rigor that hasn't lost its focus despite the repetition of acts we can only assume have filled thousands of days.

I am not a particularly disciplined person and I've spent much of my life actively avoiding routines, long-term commitments, and _hard_ things.

That includes physical things. While I've been moderately active throughout most phases of my life, that meant rotating through different sports throughout my youth and avoiding weight lifting or more extreme activity in recent years.

In contrast, my Dad is the most active person I know. He has always had a routine around moving his body, whether that be cycling, downhill mountain biking, skiing, strength training, mobility training, or otherwise. I don't think he would relate to those things as necessarily _hard,_ in the sense that they're not hard for him to do. But he has gotten his ass kicked plenty of times (I remember when he came home from a mountain bike accident that included him flying head-on into a cactus... I still shudder when I think about it). He was ski racing until a couple of years ago. The key, I think, is that he loves to get back up the next morning, earlier than any human should, and get back on the proverbial horse. More than even loving it, I think he needs it. It is the process and presence of being out there.

I've made some progress on the weightlifting front lately, and it's become a little easier over time. It can occasionally feel good. But I still don't _like_ it. Despite all this, there is one habit I've found myself returning to in my adult years, even without much discipline driving me: running.

## Running and Striving
It's funny, I've run more consistently than almost anything else in my life, at least since college. Make no mistake: I don't run _that_ consistently. But most weeks, I get out there in some shape or form. For whatever reason, it's the one physical thing--one that most people put in the _hard_ bucket--that seems to come somewhat naturally to me.

The past few months I've been struggling with some knee issues, and my running has been particularly sparse. It sucks: it's such an obvious example of taking something for granted.

There's something about the simplicity of running: the stillness in motion, the rhythm, the inertia. Even so, my relationship with running has never been something I've pushed. I have treated it more like meditation or walking: something to experience rather than something to accomplish. Put another way, my approach to running has been almost entirely non-committal.

I enjoyed Casey Neistat's latest video, [Sisyphus and the Impossible Dream](https://youtu.be/9IiTdSnmS7E?si=QRzp3GUiA6ITKogS). Aside from causing [my first tears while wearing the Vision Pro](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1756717038926549207?s=20), the video is an amazing look at what happens when you apply commitment to running. It's the story of Casey's near-twenty-year chase of the elusive sub-three-hour marathon. It began with an accident and a doctor telling him he might never run again. He has run 20+ marathons since, chasing sub-three.

I've talked about trying to run a marathon one day, and I spontaneously ran a half once with a friend. But I've never even run in a real race. On some level, I think I'm afraid to turn running into an area of life where I have to push myself. It can be good to have hobbies that are not about growth. If anything, that's probably what I've struggled most with in meditation: not focusing on improvement. For some, maybe running or playing an instrument can simply be an escape from daily chaos. I'm glad to know that running can be that for me, but watching Casey's video made me realize that I might have more in me.

[John Gardner](https://www.pbs.org/johngardner/sections/writings_speech_1.html) wrote some of my favorite words on the subject of striving for more:
> "There's something I know about you that you may or may not know about yourself. You have within you more resources of energy than have ever been tapped, more talent than has ever been exploited, more strength than has ever been tested, more to give than you have ever given.
> 
> You know about some of the gifts that you have left undeveloped. Would you believe that you have gifts and possibilities you don't even know about? It's true. We are just beginning to recognize how even those who have had every advantage and opportunity unconsciously put a ceiling on their own growth, underestimate their potentialities or hide from the risk that growth involves."

Maybe 2024's New York Marathon is waiting for me. I'm starting with repairing these knees.

## Boulders and Hills
Goals and commitments to them are unbelievably powerful, especially when they make us challenge our beliefs of what is possible. I won't spoil Casey's video, but regardless of whether he broke three hours, he, Hirayama, and Blair Dahl have something in common. They show up, again, and again, and again. Today, and today, and today.

I think, as great as P.R's, successes, and mountaintops feel, the true delight must be in pushing the rock, right here, in this moment.

Showing Up

[Published March 23, 2024.](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/ideas-and-icebergs)

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff7bd088b-083b-4585-bc6f-127bd1bba84f_1792x1024.webp)

Recently at a group writing session, I reflected on my struggle to make sense of some classic advice: create for yourself, not the world. Make things for an audience of one. This makes sense to me in creative mediums like music, painting, or ceramics, which feel less deliberately communicative and more like products or objects than messages. It feels hard to follow this advice with writing. I write for myself when journaling or thinking through ideas, but it feels like there's a clear divide between an audience of one and an audience of _n._ [Even if _n_ is a single person](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/an-audience-of-you).

Of course, writing for an audience can be personally valuable. Writing this newsletter is fulfilling, inspiring, and self-informing. I'm writing for me _and_ for you. The tension between those two seems to produce something better than if I only kept one of us in mind. This seems like a contradiction with the advice above.

After I shared my frustration, another writer suggested that I think of writing or any creative work like an iceberg. There's a deliberate tip of ice that breaks the water, available for the audience to see. That's what you share or publish. But you can't get to that small chunk without the much larger portion beneath the water. It's one connected mass of ice and it would be foolish to imagine the part the world can see without what lies below. This makes sense, especially for writing, where a stew of ideas, rewrites, and edits that never see the light of day are necessary to produce most good writing. But it also applies to all creative work, solving my dilemma. Every medium leaves a lot on its version of the cutting room floor.

I'm trying to think of my writing as creating fully-formed icebergs, rather than just focusing on the part everyone will see. The shapes I share are often ideas I never expected to break the surface. For my recent month-long daily writing challenge, I didn’t pre-write the day before and I tried to avoid thinking about what to write until the day of. This typically meant sitting down without a clue about a subject matter. It was surprising and exciting to see that I had far more ideas than I consciously realized -- they just needed soil and water. And the openness to work on parts that might never see the light of day.

This is because the iceberg metaphor applies beyond conscious, active creativity. I’ve noticed that when editing [our podcast](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLt0qT3IYiQUHLMriFVmuKRkZsp34IRe1O), I often listen back to segments that are thematically similar to conversations or writing that happened afterward. I’ve been unconsciously repeating myself.

These ideas weren't [cached](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1593334038957158400?s=20), and yet I was working with them at multiple isolated points. They were rattling around in my subconscious, available to pull above the surface in different shapes. Ideas move in and out of the active state of mind, but they're still accessible. Writing is particularly helpful in clarifying these semi-conscious thoughts and codifying them into a structured and retrievable form.

The lines between conscious and subconscious are blurrier than I realized. Perhaps it's best to think of all these modalities as interconnected layers that make up the iceberg:

1. **subconscious observations** and other mysteries
2. **semi-conscious realizations**: a passing thought, an impromptu comment in response to someone else that isn't actively cached
3. **conscious and considered thoughts**: the stuff I'm mulling over or returning to, in my head or conversation
4. **structured, creative ideas I form**: by writing or other creative acts, but not meant to be shared
5. **fully formed "products"** (essays, art, etc): meant to be shared with the world (the tip of the iceberg)

There's probably a lot of fidelity to add to each of these or even between them. And number five has its own spectrum: from incredible, obvious, memetic ideas made to be shared and loved by many to rough stabs at the beginning of fleshing out a concept. Even in the latter case, letting it break the water can be the beginning of seeing its full shape more clearly, especially when others can join you in the process.

Ideas and Icebergs

[Published February 21st, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/her-2013-and-dreams-of-the-future).

## _Her_'s Warm Future
I recently [re-watched _Her_](https://letterboxd.com/jdahl/film/her/) as my first screening in my Vision Pro. It’s a movie that highlights the tension between intimacy and loneliness. I've not found any art that manages to capture both at the same time so well, save _Lost in Translation._ That is of course [no coincidence](https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/vbw1p5/just_found_out_the_movie_her_is_a_response_to_the/). It’s also about humanity and technology and where we might go together.

A friend then shared this [video essay](https://youtu.be/73kIG3HcFq0?si=roVpUVmb2wj05ejN)_,_ which focuses on the film's unique aesthetic and the remarkable work of production designer [K.K. Barrett](https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0057187/) (who also worked on _Lost in Translation_ -- wow!). I also learned about [Rinko Kawauchi](https://www.instagram.com/rinkokawauchi/) and [her photography's influence on the film](https://herthemovie.tumblr.com/#/post/72459791090/her-cinematographer-hoyte-van-hoytema-talks-to). Give her Instagram a scroll: serene, and a great example of how one of photography's gifts to us as a medium is to help us see, to look a little closer, to linger.

![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F94a6097a-54eb-4570-b3f9-af0d3fb12b99_1850x1774.png)

The video eloquently conveys a couple of ideas that I've been pondering. Before watching it, I had a conversation with a friend about how the film captures an aesthetic and mood different from most sci-fi. How did they pull this off?

The obvious contrast is temperature: most sci-fi is cold, across materials, lighting, and emotions. As "kaptainkristian" explains more technically, _Her_'s warmth is palpable and extends beyond the color palette. But it also can feel not so far off, more like a parallel time than a future one. Watching it ten years later, even the technology that felt novel in 2013 is more familiar to us now (airpods, AI, voice commands... ChatGPT's voice mode even has an option that sounds like Scarlett Johansson).
![Her (2013) | Color Palette | Movie inspiration | Beautiful cinematography,  Colorful movie, Cinematic photography](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd03ca7cc-cccc-41fa-86ef-a2afe8e9987f_3535x4713.jpeg "Her (2013) | Color Palette | Movie inspiration | Beautiful cinematography,  Colorful movie, Cinematic photography")

## The Past as a Guide
In fact, watching _Her_ can almost feel like looking backward, to a world with less demanding screens, objects with richer character, longer attention spans, and slower tempo. It even has a sense of timelessness which is impressive in any film, let alone sci-fi or a film that is "about" technology.

Of course, _Her_ isn't _really_ about technology. There's a great line in the video that explains part of how this achieved: "_technology's advanced to a point where it no longer needs to prove its sophistication in its design._" Later, "_... it's a simpler future._"

I was talking to someone who knows my friend J, about how he is so often ahead of the curve of what's cool. He's not someone who's clued into popular culture and generally has an independent information diet. Others are more "on-time" with cool, but he almost seems to be ahead of those on-trend people. This person observed that J spends a great deal of time on the past, especially in areas like design. She argued that he is constantly contextualizing the present through the lens of the past, he could see where things should or might go. It's almost contradictory and yet it's intuitive.

We see the same thing happening with _Her,_ which has been praised for how compelling and even potentially accurate a future it predicted. How did Spike Jonez, Barrett, and team do it?

The video essay, again:
> _"Rather than trying to forecast innovation or technological progress, it draws from the past to be more relatable in the present. A vintage quality that makes you feel almost nostalgic for the future." Even simple details like the furniture and fashion of Her embody this idea, tweaking timeless elements of the past to make them feel fresh, but familiar.”_

## Technology and Presence
I've been thinking about presence and how technology helps or hinders it a lot lately.

There is technology that is _object_ to us, a part of our environment: most traditional tools, purpose-specific devices, even speakers—despite music's ability to implicitly change how we feel. Then there is technology that we are _subject_ to and that almost becomes our environment. It demands we operate within its bounds.

The latter is of course true about something like the Vision Pro, but also more subtly true about the iPhone, which masquerades as object but is actually constantly making demands of us, explicitly (_what’s that notifcation_) or implicitly (_open phone to message someone, but I might just check Twitter real quick and now I'm being sucked into the void of consumption_). In contrast to speakers, headphones or Airpods are another example of something on this end of the spectrum, despite the same medium, audio. They shut out the audio of the environment and are experienced alone.

I'm interested in technology that allows us to be more present; even, by the way, if that means presence in digital space. I don't think the Vision Pro is necessarily dystopic for that very reason, and the end of [Tim Urban's review of it](https://waitbutwhy.com/2024/02/vision-pro.html) paints an optimistic picture, if you're interested. [Cleo Abram's review](https://youtu.be/n7hJlyVDEc8?si=9mFAXrxdwZ_PFZy2) is a good discussion of this, too. I even finally [caught a glimpse of this future](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1760079599231254590?s=20) yesterday while playing games and watching videos over FaceTime with SharePlay.

If immersive technology—the kind we are subject to—is a path to presence within digital space, [ambient technology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_intelligence) could be the key to more presence in the real world, without becoming Luddites. From the video essay about Her's world in contrast to ours: _"computers... are more akin to a framed piece of artwork than a window into digital entertainment."_

They are object, even if amazingly capable. It's so subtle that I may be reaching, but the fact that _Her's_ characters wear just one earbud, not two, is noteworthy. An ear to the digital world, and an ear to the real one (not necessarily maximally present, but you get the point). Perhaps we’ll get to a point where even ambient technology is so pervasive and embedded in our lives that we even become subject to it. Still, I’d argue that is the other end of the horseshoe on technology-based immersion and will still help us lead more present lives.

The point is that we should hope for technology that serves us, helps us connect, and can do marvelous things, but doesn't constantly demand our attention shift in its direction. I watched the Dieter _Rams (2018)_ documentary and loved this quote toward the end:

> _“I think that all this digitization is becoming more and more a part of our life. I think it diminishes our ability to experience things._
> 
> _There are pictures that disappear one after the other, without leaving traces up here [pointing to head]. This goes insanely fast, and maybe that's why we can, or we want to, consume so much._
> 
> _The world that can be perceived through the senses exudes an aura that I believe cannot be digitized._
> 
> _We have to be careful now that we rule over the digital world and are not ruled by it.”_

_Her_ isn't a perfect picture of the future I hope for, and I still find aspects of it to be potentially dystopic or at the very least quite lonely. The AI companion questions are [coming, rapidly](https://www.reddit.com/r/replika/comments/16iyggq/i_have_am_ai_girlfriend_and_i_dont_know_if_its_a/). The characters walk past each other having conversations with people or AI's somewhere else.

But the film is a good reminder that while technology's march might be inevitable, the ways we shape it are up to us.

Her (2013) and Dreams of The Future

[Published on March 12, 2024](https://bit.ly/jd-to-you)

[Stephan Ango](https://twitter.com/kepano), one of my favorite writers and creatives (his day job is making [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/), the software I use to write and collect my thoughts), wrote an essay called _[In good hands](https://stephango.com/in-good-hands)_. It's short, so I'll quote it in full:
> “There is a feeling I search for: _being in good hands_. It is the feeling I look to give and the feeling I look to receive.
> 
> I know I am in good hands when I sense a cohesive point of view expressed with attention to detail.
> 
> I can feel it almost instantly. In any medium. Music, film, fashion, architecture, writing, software. At a Japanese restaurant it’s what _omakase_ aims to be. I leave it up to you, chef.
> 
> When I am in good hands I open myself to a state of curiosity and appreciation. I allow myself to suspend preconceived notions. I give you freedom to take me where you want to go. I immerse myself in your worldview and pause judgement.
> 
> I want to be convinced of something new. I want my mind to be changed. Later I may disagree, but for now I am letting the experience soak in.
> 
> That trust doesn’t come easily. As an audience member it’s about feeling cared for from the moment I interact with your work. It’s about feeling a well-defined point of view permeate what you make.
> 
> If my mind was changed, I must have been in good hands.”

I shared it with some friends when Stephan published it last year, and E recently brought it back up. He said it reminds him of me:

> "you're one to seek out being in good hands. Whatever the subject matter. It's admirable. There's something quite reciprocal in it too -- sharing things with you feels like I'm in good hands because of your appreciation for the feeling."

I think he's right. I crave a _smoothness_ that comes with thoughtfulness, intention, and empathy from the creator. The feeling is abstract, and as Stephan notes, it can be experienced across domains. You can feel it when using an intuitively designed [technology product](https://x.com/kocienda/status/1363229151113605126?s=20), [being served by a great waiter](https://www.amazon.com/Unreasonable-Hospitality-Remarkable-Giving-People/dp/0593418573), or [reading a writer with a strong voice and style](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/04/29/draft-no-4). As he says, it's about trust, be it implicit or explicit. It's intuitive to be in this world they've created for you, for this moment. You're glad to be on the journey with them at the wheel.

For a while, I've been obsessed with an idea from [C Thi. Nguyen](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-c-thi-nguyen.html). He argues game designers _sculpt_ agency, creating tension between player abilities and goals. This creates the space for play, discovery, and growth. I'm interested in other ways to sculpt agency and make people more agentic.

That framing applies here, too: you're in good hands with the best game designers who strike the balance between a curve that's too steep that you give up trying and one that plateaus and becomes boring. In the best games, you don't even notice. The design choices fade into the background so you can play.

I love this bit about game design from _Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow_:
> “You aren’t just a gamer when you play anymore. You’re a builder of worlds, and if you’re a builder of worlds, your feelings are not as important as what your gamers are feeling. You must imagine them at all times. There is no artist more empathetic than the game designer.”

This is key to feeling in good hands: the person needs to have considered you, the audience, and realize that you'll have less context and lack their perspective. They are building a world for you to inhabit and in many creative areas, they won't be there to guide you. Even if they are hosting you, they still need to earn your trust.

The nature of this idea transcends any discipline. My friend J is an good example. He's a designer by trade and the best amateur chef I know. He could be an interior designer in another life. He loves to host and tell stories. Always, if he's the author of a situation, the feeling is that you're in good hands. I've noticed the same with Stephan in his writing and the products he creates. It's like some people have a gene that makes them this way. Or, once you learn it—probably after it is modeled to you—you can't help but want to make others feel this way.

I'm drawn to these kinds of people. Designers, artists, writers—thoughtful people. I'd like to be more like them. Candidly, if there is a gene, I'm not sure I have it. I don't make many things. At first, I wasn't sure how to feel about E's comment. It's nice to feel in good hands, but I don't just want to be on the receiving end.

While I hope to have lots of making in my future, I think E nailed it in a way I didn't realize at first. I am constantly trying to give others this experience, and I'm doing so when I make recommendations. It's one of the things I do most in my life. I simply can't help myself. I write a newsletter on the premise. I get high off the idea that I might share something (or someone) with another person that brings them joy, clarity, or opportunity. I feel like I'm connecting some invisible set of dots for them or showing them that I _see_ them.

I'm sure it's exhausting for my friends sometimes. Sorry about that, but I won't stop. While I'm obsessive in recommending some things to just about everyone (see: _The Bear_ s2e7, _Tomorrow_ x3, _The Dark Forest, Before Sunset, About Time_…), my favorite is recommending something I think you, specifically, will love.

I love recommending art and media, but my favorite kind of recommendation is introducing people. An introduction implies you're in good hands here: I think you two might connect on something. What a delight, especially if non-obvious!

Some recommendations or introductions can feel a bit like a riddle. It's saying: _there's something in here that made me think of you._ My friend T is great at this. Her rec's make me feel like she peered inside my brain and used AI to generate something that would light me up. Similarly, the best introductions can be the most unlikely ones. The ones that only could have happened if someone saw both of you and a hidden link.

There's probably another essay to be written about it, but all of this starts to tease some truth about the ever-elusive idea of taste. Whether there's objectivity to taste or not, I think the foundation is the feeling of being in good hands. Taste is mainly discussed externally: when we talk about someone having good taste, we mean what they share or display is coherent to us. Knowing another person's taste is seeing them. Making a recommendation is finding the overlap in the Venn diagram and offering it.

Perhaps that's the truth underlying the creative advice to make things for yourself. If you know your own taste and make things that fit it, you're more likely to create something cohesive for someone else. As Stephan notes, this feeling doesn't happen when you give someone what they think they want. It comes when you give them something they weren't looking for. When you create a space for them to say, "I'll leave it up to you."

I'll Leave It Up To You

%%Originally written on [[Day 6 - Listening - JD 30 Days]]%%
[Published March 8, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/listening).

An essay on one of my long-time weaknesses that I’m working on turning into a strength. I think it’s worth it. I hope you enjoy it.

---

I've never been a great listener. When I was younger, I was terrible at it. I struggled to pay attention, sure. Most kids have attention issues, especially in the modern era. My bigger issue was not zoning out, but interrupting. Interrupting comes from thinking you're listening when you're really looking for an opening or a jumping-off point to speak. It's a selfishness that tricks you into feeling like you're giving your attention when you're not.

My brain works like a matrix of overlapping trains. New ideas and thoughts come and go constantly, each a cue to another. Typically, if one train intersects with another, there's a brief moment to hop on. If I don't change, the opportunity window closes and it's hard to come back to the thought -- not because it's impossible to remember the shape of that thought, but because the idea was, above all else, rooted in the connection between where I was and where I might go.

This is why so much of my youth and adolescence was filled with interactions where I'd unconsciously hijack the conversation. I experienced much of this as involuntary. It's a bit like when someone is talking to you and you see something amazing happening over their shoulder: _I'm so sorry to interrupt, but that dog is walking that man, look!_

I now have more maturity to realize that I was selfishly assuming any novel thought or connection leaving the station in my mind was precious. Of course, it had to be more important than what someone else might be saying (or be about to arrive at). That's the insidious thing: hastily interrupting doesn't just block out what a person is saying in that moment, it precludes whatever might come next, from them or anyone else in the conversation. The train we were on together may have been going somewhere great; I just didn't realize it yet. We're not all operating with the same tempo, and people like me can be tricked into thinking that the faster or newer thought is better.

This isn't to say that interruption or fast-paced conversation is all bad. I don't think there's anything quite like the rush of yes-and'ing back and forth, when it's mutual and your paces match each other. The water rises underneath you. But as I've matured and spent more time searching for and reflecting on presence, I've realized that all attention is not created equal. As many have said before me, listening to respond and listening to understand are radically different modes of operating.

It's pretty unbelievable how much people will say if you let them. [Kevin Kelly says](https://www.neil.blog/full-speech-transcript/68-bits-of-unsolicited-advice-by-kevin-kelly), _"Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love, keep asking them 'Is there more?' until there is no more."_ In another conversation he suggests a rule of three: ask, "_is there more?_" twice to make sure they have three chances to say everything. Sometimes these things take time and patience.

I probably didn't realize it until halfway through college, but I'd spent much of my life simply assuming that plenty of people had _nothing_ to say because if they didn't speak within 1-2 seconds of a gap in conversation, they weren't going to. In reality, they just needed ramp-up time: to consider and structure their thoughts. And why did they need more time? Perhaps, because they were actually listening.

I'm working on having fewer expectations when I listen. Trying to _predict_ less. I find myself trying to fill in the gaps or finish the story (in my head, or even verbally) before people have arrived. Or, I come into conversations focused on _fixing_, on finding a solution. Annette Bening's character in [_20th Century Women (2016)_](https://letterboxd.com/film/20th-century-women/) on this:

> “Men always feel like they have to fix things for women or they’re not doing anything. But some things just can’t be fixed. Just be there. Somehow that’s hard for all of you.”

I've written much about presence and where to find it (flow, meditating, walking, running). Listening is another tool to induce presence in surprising ways. Recently, in a group writing session, we split into groups of three. The assignment from the host was to take turns, with one person sharing what they wrote about and the other two listening. After, one listener would say what they heard back and the other would ask a question about it. R went first, and I didn't know whether I was going to be the mirror or the question-asker.

It was astonishing: that ~60 seconds may have been the most present state listening I've ever experienced. It's a trivial example, but because I didn't know which role I'd end up with, I had to listen in preparation to say what I heard back _or_ ask a relevant question. The result was that I had no choice but to simply listen, rather than choose a path. I had to resist my default reaction and keep those mental trains stationary.

That's what real listening is. Undivided, clear-minded attention. _Please, fill up this space with me. You have the stage._

My friend J shared this romantic excerpt from Anthony De Mello's [_The Way to Love_](https://www.amazon.com/Way-Love-Meditations-Anthony-Classics/dp/038524939X):

> "Everywhere in the world people are in search of love, for everyone is convinced that love alone can save the world, love alone can make life meaningful and worth living.
> 
> But how very few understand what love really is, and how it arises in the human heart. It is so frequently equated with good feelings toward others, with benevolence or nonviolence or service. But these things in themselves are not love.
> 
> **Love springs from awareness.**
> 
> It is only inasmuch as you see someone as he or she really is here and now and not as they are in your memory or your desire or in your imagination or projection that you can truly love them, otherwise it is not the person that you love but the idea that you have formed of this person, or this person as the object of your desire not as he or she is in themselves.
> 
> Therefore the first act of love is to see this person or this object, this reality as it truly is.
> 
> And this involves the enormous discipline of dropping your desires, your prejudices, your memories, your projections, your selective way of looking, a discipline so great that most people would rather plunge headlong into good actions and service than submit to the burning fire of this asceticism. When you set out to serve someone whom you have not taken the trouble to see, are you meeting that person's need or your own?
> 
> So the first ingredient of love is to really see the other."

Listening

%%Originally written as part of [[Day 4 - JD 30 Days]].%%
*[Published March 4, 2024](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/change-and-what-we-hold-onto).*

I had breakfast with a friend recently and he told me that his parents, post-retirement, are spending their time more creatively. His mom was always crafty but is spending more time on art projects. His dad dabbled in music when he was younger but has begun to take it more seriously. He's working with a producer and recorded a few songs that are "actually pretty good (and lyrically explore some topics he wasn't sure he was ready to hear his Dad discuss... ha!). He finally has the time to do _the thing._ Some people aren't so lucky.

Another friend has been getting closer to her dad lately. She’s been so happy to see him finding the joy in life again, after what seemed like many years of numbness. He's traveling more and following his curiosity in unobstructed ways. They're having conversations they never could have before. I'm not sure she used the words, but what I heard was that he is slowly becoming himself again. **That's a crazy thought: that one could spend years or decades far away from himself**. Of course, that's probably more common than not.

It prompted me to wonder if--or why--many people spend years resisting who they are. Another friend spent a chunk of his youth performing music before becoming a more "serious" person. He didn't drop making music, but performance was much more rare. Lately, he's returned to performing. It's almost like he stretched the rubber band out only for it to sling him back to the center, doing something he can't help but do. [Hitting the tennis ball](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1631041920880222208?s=20).

Two of these three stories are about older people in retirement who now have the time, money, or lack of obligations (probably: children) to return to doing what they love. Were they right to neglect those parts of themselves for so long? They were surely unselfish. There are also plenty of people who put off growing up in search of something, only to realize they weren't even looking for the right thing. Or that life rewards unselfishness and discipline just as much as it can reward being in touch with yourself and your passions, whatever that means.

How do we balance responsibility and growth with listening to and acting on the parts of ourselves that feel the most true? How do we know which things we must hold onto and which are simply luxuries of a more youthful or selfish time? Or to consider revisiting when life isn't so demanding? I don't think any of us would recommend hedonistically pursuing one's passions (creative or otherwise) at the expense of others, family, or serving other people.

This tension is one of the reasons I've deliberated longer than expected about what to do next professionally. It feels like I'm standing on the edge of a cliff, with the rare lack of constraints and freedom of choice more associated with a 20-year-old, combined with the perspective of someone who's tried a few more things and felt some of the frustration of feeling distant from myself. What a privilege!

Yet I'm a bit paralyzed by the risk of choosing wrong or getting lost or obligated or caught up in whatever it is people get caught up in, and ending up a person who doesn't even remember the things that lit me up when I was twenty (or thirty). Then again, it’s worth asking: how good am I at even seeing those things now?

I do think there's truth in the idea that we are who we are. People can grow and change and become all kinds of things, and yet somewhere, deep inside, there's that kernel of them that was always there.

It's cliché, and I promise not to directly quote Rick Rubin, but it does seem that when it comes to creativity, those who are most fulfilled are doing it for themselves. I have some yearning in me to create things, but candidly, I think I'm much more in love with the feeling of putting things into the world than the act of making itself.

These feel contradictory but might not need to be. My friend L says that writing is not done until it is read. Art is not complete until it is received. Art without an audience is just meditation. Make no mistake—it should be as much for you as it is for them; it should emerge out of your taste. Creating art is yelling out into the void, _this is what I’m going through_— _does anyone agree?_ Whether or not anyone agrees is inconsequential. The question is how to put things into the world without letting external feedback loops, motivations, and demands shape you so much you lose track of why you’re creating in the first place--or stop altogether.

Creativity is but one part of authenticity, of course, even if it can be a type of backbone. There are more abstract ways of hanging onto the things that make us, us. Speaking for myself, I think it's most important that I hold onto some of the following:

- an admiration for ideas, for picking them up, taking them apart, and putting them back together. For _yes-and_'ing them.
- a connection to stories and the people who tell them
- a love for meeting people early on in a journey and giving them a nudge or a bit of help, even if only emotionally
- an appetite for big questions, especially the unanswerable ones
- a positive-sum worldview
- an optimistic curiosity; a disposition that the kids will be alright
- a joy in finding and talking to people about the things that light them up
- an admiration and curiosity about design and products and the ways they can be intuitive, inviting, and agency-inducing. for how they can make people more creative and connected.
- a love for sharing: for overflowing with energy about a person, thing, idea, or otherwise and offering it to the people I care about. maybe even to the whole world.

It's funny: while doing the exercise above, I stumbled upon a note from April 2023. In a discussion with my friend G in a tea shop in Ginza, Tokyo, I took an impromptu stab at a personal mission statement: **to help people be true to themselves**.

I'd never articulated anything like that before and frankly forgot about it. Maybe that's not such a bad mission.

Change and What we Hold Onto

[Published November 21, 2023](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/openai-gpts-affordances-along-the).

It's often easier to use a specific tool than a general tool. It helps to know precisely what something is used for. Our tools and goals shape each other: more specific goals make it easier to design the tools and vice versa.
![[Hammer, Brett Victor.png]]
(Images via [Bret Victor](http://worrydream.com/ABriefRantOnTheFutureOfInteractionDesign/))

Occasionally, tools can become so ubiquitous, flexible, or frictionless that a general tool outperforms a specific one. But this takes time and lots of iterations.

The smartphone is a good example of this evolution. Now, it’s obvious that one flexible device is better than a range of specific products ("[an iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator... are you getting it?](https://youtu.be/VQKMoT-6XSg?si=wPFAAXGHTBhIsWOT&t=135)"). But it took quite a long time to get there and several failed attempts, such as General Magic, Palm, and a range of touchscreen phones. Even leading up to the iPhone's launch, it was obvious that an iPod and a Blackberry were each superior for their respective jobs.
![[ipod, phone, internet communicator.png]]

This is often due to technical or design constraints. Making a product with the focused goal of creating the best music player is much easier than designing an all-purpose mobile computer that also plays music well. Generalized tools have competing design goals that can reduce their efficacy for a specific use case. Good design almost always comes from operating within some kind of constraints.

Specific tools can also win out initially for a different reason: they tell us what to do with them. By limiting our options, they make it easy for us to act. There is something wonderful about the simplest tools in the way they afford intuitive use for a given context. Who knows? Maybe we'll even see new kinds of [single-purpose hardware](https://x.com/sharifshameem/status/1723885767100186632?s=20) again soon.

We're seeing an example of this dynamic play out now with OpenAI's [ChatGPT](https://chat.openai.com/): an exceptional general tool. Their recent announcement of [custom GPTs](https://openai.com/blog/introducing-gpts) is an exciting step toward leaning into the challenges I've laid out above, using increased specificity to move us toward a panacea-like super tool. While [some](https://x.com/DanielJLosey/status/1723091284645044477?s=20) have already written these off as technically insignificant, I believe they're the foundation for a dramatic expansion in the usability of LLM products like ChatGPT. GPTs afford us more agency by narrowing our intent and context.

## ChatGPT's Infinite Options
ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since it [launched](https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt) a year ago. It's a step toward the ultimate general tool: artificial general intelligence in your pocket. The launch had a profound impact by giving OpenAI’s premiere language model, GPT-3.5, an intuitive interface for regular users. Importantly, the underlying technology was not new; it was the same LLM that had existed for several months. Rather, the design and chat-style implementation changed everything and made the world realize that a new paradigm of AI products had arrived. In doing so, it also turned OpenAI from a purely research and developer-focused company into a consumer product company (and one of the [fastest-growing](https://www.reuters.com/technology/chatgpt-sets-record-fastest-growing-user-base-analyst-note-2023-02-01/#:~:text=Feb%201%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20ChatGPT,a%20UBS%20study%20on%20Wednesday.) of all time). A year later, the experience can feel magical--especially with multi-modal functionality across text, voice, and vision.

I like to [ask people how they're using it](https://x.com/jacksondahl/status/1664277885698580481?s=20) whenever the topic comes up. A recurring theme, even among those who work in technology, is that they think it's fascinating but don't have a great answer. I imagine it is a bit like the first time consumers got their hands on the Macintosh. In that case, its mouse and graphical user interface were a major design improvement for personal computers, but it would still take a range of new applications for many people to “get it.”

That’s not to discount how far we’ve already come with LLMs. A few obvious use cases are thriving: programming (whether ChatGPT or a more specific tool like [Github Copilot](https://github.com/features/copilot)), [homework](https://www.intelligent.com/one-third-of-college-students-used-chatgpt-for-schoolwork-during-the-2022-23-academic-year/) (used to do the work explicitly or [as a tutor](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/13sj8os/chatgpt_is_saving_my_life/?rdt=53702)), and now image generation with DALL-E 3 natively integrated. Perhaps it is gaining ground in search as well; I've found myself and friends using it in place of Google search in a range of cases, especially on mobile with voice. Several creative individuals are pushing the frontier of [prompt engineering](https://twitter.com/goodside) and exploring broader [use cases](https://twitter.com/danshipper/status/1724811820311986462).

Still, I've found it quite rare that someone thinks they're [maximizing the potential](https://twitter.com/nearcyan/status/1723497729266274332) of such a powerful and flexible tool. It's clearly possible--we’ve all seen a hundred Twitter threads assuring us that we've fallen completely behind if ChatGPT doesn't make all our decisions for us. But we mere mortals seem to be struggling. ChatGPT has an accessibility gap between theoretical capability and practical value for many users: _anything is possible, but where do I start?_ The magic chat box awaits, yet the questions and commands don't come.
## **GPTs: Agency through Specificity**
A major focus of OpenAI’s recent [developer keynote](https://www.youtube.com/live/U9mJuUkhUzk) was [the announcement of GPTs](https://openai.com/blog/introducing-gpts): a new consumer modality for OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo model. GPTs are fairly simple: they are instances of ChatGPT with "custom instructions, expanded knowledge, and/or actions."

![[introducing-gpts.png]]

The launch of ChatGPT had a profound impact by placing GPT-3.5 in the hands of regular users with an intuitive interface. Importantly, the underlying technology was not new; it was the same language model that had existed for several months. Rather, the design and chat-style implementation changed everything and made the world realize that a new paradigm of AI products had arrived.

Custom GPTs could have a similar effect in pushing forward the range of products and uses for LLMs like GPT-4. More importantly--and just like ChatGPT--this is not so much about the underlying model or even other functionality like plugins. Rather, it's about the framing of the tool(s) to the end user and how that can induce more intuitive use and agency across a range of needs.

Even with limited differences in functionality early on, I suspect GPTs will produce different expectations and use of the tool. The interface places user input (questions or commands) at the center of the entire experience. Nothing can happen until then. Thus, the way the product and interface shape a user's assumptions about how to use it in various contexts is critical. 

Custom GPTs could have a major impact on proliferating the range of products and uses for LLMs like GPT-4. More importantly--and just like ChatGPT--this is not about a change in the underlying model, and perhaps not even so much about new functionality. Rather, it's about the framing of the tool to the end user and how that can induce more intuitive use and agency across a range of needs.

Even before developers can fully realize what’s possible with new functionality (instructions, knowledge, and actions), I suspect GPTs will produce different expectations and use of the tool. The chatbot interface places user input (questions or commands) at the center of the experience. The context for a specific intent can’t be built up until then. Thus, the way the product and interface shape a user's assumptions about how to use it in various contexts is critical.

To make this more explicit, consider a user trying identical instances of ChatGPT (GPT-4 Turbo model) with no custom instructions or functionality. Just different names in the style of custom GPTs (laundry, math, etc). Their relationship to the job at hand and the perceived capability of the assistant will be changed, and thus their prompts and questions will change accordingly.

When a user chooses a custom GPT, they're far more likely to know how to start talking to the assistant. By scrolling a list of available or popular GPTs, they're looking at ChatGPT's brains spilled out, organized as a set of potential tools and available contexts to get help with. You can imagine most users' first experience with GPTs feeling something like, "Wow, I had never considered using it to help me [fill in the blank] (make a cocktail or understand memes)." GPTs can shape intent at scale and make the general tool more accessible by way of focus.

Even with the fairly recent addition of random "get started" prompts, we could still see the same effect. Custom GPTs should quickly produce better starting prompts before the user has done anything. They have more context implicitly because the user has opted into that GPT. In fact, it’s likely the more specific the GPT’s context, the better these starting prompts will be.
 ![[gpts-prompts.png]]

Undoubtedly, experimentation with custom instructions, knowledge, and actions will improve the GPT experience over time. As they proliferate, they'll help us understand various form factors for ways we might use LLMs. It's unlikely that the best cooking GPT will be the first one created, but seeing and using it is likely to prompt lots of remixing, especially when these can be created with [natural language](https://x.com/thealexbanks/status/1722980519380472305?s=20). [Financial incentives](https://x.com/LinusEkenstam/status/1721628760829538640?s=20) will only accelerate exploration. The GPT store will launch later this month, but here’s an [initial directory](https://allgpts.co/).
## **Building Toward Agents and the Universal Interface**
One major factor limiting ChatGPT’s usefulness has been its inability to take action for you, especially with other services. It’s clear we’re headed toward commanding intelligent agents that can act on complex tasks for the user. [ChatGPT Plugins](https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt-plugins), which enable these types of actions across various services, launched earlier this year to initial excitement and theoretical utility. Unfortunately, they didn’t things change too much, largely due to a range of friction points including discoverability and requiring pre-selection. 

GPTs are a step forward here as they can natively include plugins (now known as custom actions). [Ben Thompson](https://twitter.com/benthompson) (Stratechery) discussed why this is a UX improvement in [his recap](https://stratechery.com/2023/the-openai-keynote/) of the OpenAI keynote:
>“I still think [plugins were] incredibly elegant, but there was just one problem: the user interface was terrible. You had to get a plugin from the “marketplace”, then pre-select it before you began a conversation, and only then would you get workable results after a too-long process where ChatGPT negotiated with the plugin provider in question on the answer.  
>
>This new model somewhat alleviates the problem: now, instead of having to select the correct plug-in (and thus restart your chat), you simply go directly to the GPT in question. In other words, if I want to create a poster, I don’t enable the Canva plugin in ChatGPT, I go to Canva GPT in the sidebar. Notice that this doesn’t actually _solve_ the problem of needing to have selected the right tool; what it does do is make the choice more apparent to the user at a more appropriate stage in the process, and that’s no small thing.”

Ben goes on to argue that GPTs are not enough, however, and are simply a halfway point toward natively integrating all plugins into stock ChatGPT so it can opportunistically use them (just like browsing or DALL-E in the latest update). Put another way, drop the more specific tool and move straight to the most general:
> “The best UI, though, is no UI at all, or rather, just one UI, by which I mean “Universal Interface”... ChatGPT will seamlessly switch between text generation, image generation, and web browsing, without the user needing to change context. What is necessary for the plug-in/GPT idea to ultimately take root is for the same capabilities to be extended broadly: if my conversation involved math, ChatGPT should know to use Wolfram|Alpha on its own, without me adding the plug-in or going to a specialized GPT.”

While Ben may be right in the long run, I believe this view still misses the problem the interface has with context, intention, and agency. I'd posit that even if we could accelerate things to this infinitely capable "Universal Interface" now, many users might still not know how to maximize the tool's capability. While we have a metaphor in mind for what ChatGPT in its ultimate, frictionless form should be (the perfect personal assistant), we have a lot of work to do to improve its intuitive usefulness. By focusing on specific areas, GPTs are one way to add more context today. There will surely be others: [hardware devices](https://stratechery.com/2023/ai-hardware-and-virtual-reality/) with real-time [audio](https://x.com/AviSchiffmann/status/1708439854005321954?s=20) and [visual](https://hu.ma.ne/) sensors, [invisible software that sees what we see](https://www.rewind.ai/), personalized agents with continuous context windows and lots of user data, and so forth.

Many LLM use cases will use [different interfaces than chat, of course](https://www.geoffreylitt.com/2023/03/25/llm-end-user-programming.html). As Logan, OpenAI’s head of developer relations [points out](https://x.com/OfficialLoganK/status/1723171052077862942?s=20), we are moving toward the development of complete agents that can simply and continuously act on our behalf. OpenAI also announced the [assistants API](https://platform.openai.com/docs/assistants/overview), which similarly unlocks more agent-like experiences across the applications we use. It's likely that many of the best "GPTs" will live inside other apps. Still, custom GPTs may be a breeding ground for new types of AI-native apps and interfaces. Many AI products may even begin as MVPs in the form of GPTs. We need end users and GPT developers to wade through the experimental period of creating specific instances of LLM-based tools. In doing so, we’ll better understand the range of intents and capabilities. It’s early, but even [extreme specificity](https://x.com/skirano/status/1723769180657213788?s=20) is a great place to start creating value.

Much thinking in this domain is focused on the view that the best and only interaction UX with an LLM should be with a single universal tool. Perhaps we'll get there someday, but such claims have been made for technology products and software for a long time (just wait until we get our universal social network that’s been discussed for years! At least there are attempts at the [universal messaging app](https://texts.com/)...). 

The point is that when we use tools and products, _intent and_ _context matter._ And for tools as infinitely flexible as LLMs, our agency and goals are defined as much by how the products afford expectations of their usability as by what is actually possible. Even the most dynamic and capable digital "[objects should explain themselves](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9850784-as-part-of-a-2003-new-york-times-interview-discussing)."

Here are a few resources if you're interested in diving in. If you build anything and want feedback, please share it with me (my DMs on Twitter/X are open):

[OpenAI DevDay, Opening Keynote](https://www.youtube.com/live/U9mJuUkhUzk?si=tyqS3e29tMnxSeZV)
[The OpenAI Keynote – Stratechery by Ben Thompson](https://stratechery.com/2023/the-openai-keynote/)
[A collection of early examples](https://x.com/hey_madni/status/1723335714648231994?s=20)
[AllGPTs - Find All GPTs for ChatGPT in one directory](https://allgpts.co/)
[GPT Site Search](https://x.com/taranjeetio/status/1723437952905384336?s=20)
[A GPT for searching GPTs](https://chat.openai.com/g/g-FPubWp6VF-gpt-finder)

Thanks to [Jonny Cohen](https://twitter.com/jonnytelevision), [Dylan Eirinberg](https://twitter.com/dylaneirinberg), [Blake Robbins](https://twitter.com/blakeir), [Andrew Ettinger](https://twitter.com/ettinger), [Joe Albanese](https://twitter.com/josephpalbanese), Ethan Eirinberg, and Linda Dahl, whose feedback improved this essay.

OpenAI GPTs — Affordances Along the Path to Ubiquity

[Published October 27, 2023](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/an-audience-of-you).

There's a line I loved from [The Cultural Tutor](https://twitter.com/culturaltutor) in [this interview](https://youtu.be/1pBxikHRCXI?si=DBP9BPQ5kninCnj7&t=644) with [David Perrell](https://twitter.com/david_perell):

> "The part I enjoy about writing is the part when you're least constrained... I can think of few things more enjoyable than that; when you're not worrying about why or what or who or when or how. Something strikes you and you go."

Isn't that what we're all chasing when we write or try to do anything creative? And there are certainly many ways to get there. But lately, I've been thinking a lot about audiences and formats and how they might induce this ease of writing. That led me to a simple question: **why is it so much easier to write a letter than an essay?**

Could digging into that question help my writing feel _less constrained_? In fact, could _adding_ a constraint free me up to create? In short, I think it all comes down to who we're writing for, or _to._

### Writing is hard, but Writing for an Ambiguous Audience is Max Difficulty
I've attempted to write longer-form content in various capacities in recent years, and found a few things to be true:
1. The most successful form of writing for me (if publishing is our success benchmark: a low bar) has been this newsletter ([Thoughts + Things](https://jdahl.substack.com/)). I think there are two reasons for this: I've got a fairly clear formula for them and the set of constraints makes sense: pick 3 to 5 things I've read/watched/listened to lately and write. It's easy to get started, and they can't be too long. And they're almost _for_ me more than anyone else. Not quite a journal, but closer to that than lots of other types of writing.
2. Speaking of journals: this is by far the easiest form of writing for me. Why? I suspect that journaling has the clearest and easiest audience to write to: myself. Sometimes I journal for my current self and other times I more intentionally write to my future self, but there is no doubt about who is going to read it.
3. I have the hardest time writing about expansive topics I'm excited about. Put simply: writing essays. My experience usually goes one of two ways: I start with a small idea or central argument that quickly starts to expand into a bunch of disjointed ideas. I struggle to connect them or find a coherent plot line for the piece and lose steam. Alternatively, I start building up a word count and soon find that there are endless components to explain, points to preemptively counter-argue, examples to define and research more, and so forth. The essay sits at 80-90% "finished" indefinitely, is put aside for months at a time, and eventually becomes too big in my head to ever have a chance of being published. The culprit? I don't know who I'm writing for, and thus I'm trying to write for everyone.

I recently shared my frustration with my friend [Dan Hunt](https://twitter.com/dan2hunt) after a failed writing session. He suggested the same final point was the culprit: that my struggles seemed to be rooted in the fact that I did not know who I was writing for. My urge to continually add more and more complexity--kaleidoscoping outward as I go-comes from a foolish strategy to write something that could at once appeal to an unknowingly wide audience and have enough depth for those already familiar with the subject.

To be clear: the best writing can seem to have this quality. The clearest thinkers and communicators can explain wildly complex ideas more effectively than most of us can explain the basics. And in art, much of the most powerful work becomes universal by way of radical specificity. But part of creating anything good is creating something bad first, and this failure to hold an audience in mind can be a hurdle in creating anything at all. It certainly is for me.

### Letters: an Audience of _You_
I spent some time reflecting on Dan's advice, which led me to the most drastic example: the question about letters and essays above. Like journaling, letters are relatively "easy" to write. Sharing words with a friend, loved one, or even a stranger (say, an author you admire) is much easier to start and usually easier to finish than writing to a wide audience. It's a beautiful constraint that scopes your audience down to the most extreme: one person, _you._ My journals are sometimes styled like this when I'm writing explicitly to a future version of me.

In letters, you can appeal to their sensibilities and humor, you probably know their range of understanding and interest in certain topics, and you might even make references that only they would understand. You likely don't need to spend much time wondering about whether they'll care about what you have to say; a letter is a great way to increase the likelihood of your writing being ready, after all! The stakes are much lower: for many would-be letter recipients, they're just happy to hear from you in a personal and intentional way.

This got me thinking: letters can be a useful constraint for clarity and creativity. While the recipient may not be representative of any larger audience, let alone the one best fit for what you have to say, letters force us to accept that there will indeed be _a_ reader. Not everyone, not no one, but _someone_. And when we write with that in mind, we're unlocked to write with style and personality and intimacy and most often, the constraints fade away and we can write.

A favorite example of this style’s effectiveness is some of [Graham Duncan](https://grahamduncan.blog/)'s writing. All of his essays are excellent, but two of my favorites are in fact letters that he has repurposed for a broader audience ([Letter to a friend who may start a new investment platform](https://grahamduncan.blog/letter-to-a-friend-who-may-start-a-new-investment-platform/); [Letter to a friend who just made a lot of money](https://grahamduncan.blog/letter-to-a-friend-who-just-made-a-lot-of-money/)). These offer generalized wisdom in a highly personal and intimate form, even if we readers weren't the original intended recipient. Similarly, Paul Graham's sensational recent essay '[How to Do Great Work](http://www.paulgraham.com/greatwork.html)' is not a letter but uses "you" over 600 times. In fact, [his essays](http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html) are overwhelmingly written directly to "you."

### The Classic 'Audience of One'
There's a lot of wisdom about narrowing down your audience in any creative endeavor, especially to the proverbial "audience of one," yourself. Tim Urban (known for his excellent and stick-figure-filled blog _[Wait but Why](https://waitbutwhy.com/)_) puts it this way in an [interview with Tim Ferriss](https://tim.blog/2017/11/30/managing-procrastination-predicting-the-future-and-finding-happiness/):
> "I assume that my audience is a stadium full of me. I’m writing the exact post that I would be thrilled to get. That’s my focus group right there, right in my head."

I was fortunate to [speak with Zach Braff](https://jdahl.substack.com/i/114669971/on-taste-and-authenticity) about the same idea earlier this year. Zach remixed advice he took from Quentin Tarantino:
> "You have to speak your authentic self onto the page. The idea of spending all this blood, sweat, tears, and energy on something that doesn't at least strive to be the most authentic story that is your voice...
> 
> Don't think about an audience; don't think about anything else but: 'What's a movie I want to see? What's my taste?"
 
There's a reason you see advice like this so often. It turns out that there are many people out there with your sensibilities and interests. Even so, it can be hard to accurately model how much context your audience should have, the frames that might be interesting to them, and the right way to construct your thoughts to make them most compelling even to someone who is default-interested.

The letter's ability to connect you with someone real, versus a theoretical version of yourself or others is extremely powerful. I often return to a quote from [Charlie Kaufman's BAFTA speech](https://kortina.nyc/essays/charlie-kaufman-bafta-speech/). While not explicitly meant to do this, I think it captures the beauty of this forcing function that letters create: to share something of yourself with the world, and specifically in contrast with writing for yourself, to share something with another:
> "Do you. It isn’t easy but it’s essential. It’s not easy because there’s a lot in the way. In many cases a major obstacle is your deeply seated belief that you are not interesting. And since convincing yourself that you are interesting is probably not going to happen, take it off the table. Think, ‘Perhaps I’m not interesting but I am the only thing I have to offer, and I want to offer something. And by offering myself in a true way I am doing a great service to the world, because it is rare and it will help.’"

Lower the stakes if you have to: sharing something with someone can be enough.

### Second-Person Fiction: Another Audience of You
This got me thinking: what are other ways to "hack" attempts at writing and overcome this challenging notion of an ambiguous audience?

Two of my favorite pieces of emotionally resonant fiction use the second person remarkably well: Mohsin Hamid's novel, _[How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15815364-how-to-get-filthy-rich-in-rising-asia)_, and a single chapter late in Gabrielle Zevin's _[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77262337-tomorrow-and-tomorrow-and-tomorrow)_.

While not as explicit as in a letter, the use of "you" unlocks the fiction writer and the reader to overcome friction related to the perceived audience. There's something implicit about the second person that causes you to write as though you've narrowed your audience down. It's a bit like writing about yourself: with intimacy and specificity. But it expects a level of context and detail needed for your reader to embody the character that you might otherwise omit if you were writing in the first person.

It says: I am writing to this reader specifically, to you; the one who is willing to put themselves in the shoes of my character; the person who is willing to allow me to narrate their life. It says to the reader: this author is speaking directly to me; _I_ am the subject of this story, even if I have to pretend.

### Teaching and Other Mediums
Another example that can resemble the letter is teaching. While it doesn't typically apply to in-person group learning, tutoring is a good example to use as a model. And unsurprisingly, much of the best internet educational content is structured exactly like it: a teacher speaking directly to you, the student. Educational content on YouTube uses this style effectively (this is as good an excuse as ever to shout out [CGP Grey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs)).

One of my favorite podcasts, [David Senra](https://twitter.com/FoundersPodcast)'s _[Founders](https://www.founderspodcast.com/)_, applies this same style to a medium that's dominated mostly by conversations that the listeners get to eavesdrop on. Instead of talking to guests, David tells "you" the listener about the biographies he reads, and uses language like "back when you and I studied Steve Jobs earlier..." It's effective and engaging, but I also suspect it helps David's words to flow. He can riff (with his seemingly boundless energy) on these people that inspire him with same the lightness, authenticity, and enthusiasm he might while talking to a friend.

### Back to Essays, and Maybe Making Anything Else
It's not lost on me that I've just written an open-audience essay about why it's so much easier to write or create for someone in particular. But I hope that this frame might be useful for me to feel less constrained in the future. I think that regardless of the medium (and even in business), making something for somebody specific can be a great way to start. It clears the path in front of you and allows you to move forward.

I suspect that even for essays, working outwards from writing to one person or a small group of friends, generalizing as you edit could be an interesting frame to start with. This essay was largely inspired by conversations with a few friends and a letter to one about this very subject.

I'd also enjoy reading more writing that embraces the reader as "you.” I don't think it's a coincidence that some of my favorite internet essays, fiction, YouTube content, and podcasts all have an audience of you. And I hope to explore more writing in this style myself. I'm sure you must be thinking that I've missed the perfect meta-opportunity to start. Oh, well. There's a bit of it in here. I'm just happy to be writing to you.

An Audience of You - on Letters & Essays

[Published November 18, 2021](https://jd.mirror.xyz/gI8KTdHYzmBJ9rFy2CpFgfaE4d_xO2xn_itmn3ouVHQ).
## I’ll be exploring crypto as an entrepreneur-in-residence at Paradigm

![Olivier Morin/AFP via Getty Images](https://jd.mirror.xyz/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.mirror-media.xyz%2Fpublication-images%2FN-WIs-vadMM5rDoWrkt3O.jpeg&w=3840&q=75)

Last week, I shared the news that I left [100 Thieves](https://twitter.com/100thieves) and wrote about the incredible four years I spent building the gaming brand and esports team. It was an emotional reflection and I’m deeply grateful for what has been the formative experience of my career. I think 100T is in a better place than ever, and I’m so excited to cheer from the sidelines.

My next adventure will be an exploration of crypto and how new technology will enable us to build a better internet.

## Why Crypto?
For the past several years, I’ve looked the other way when it came to crypto. I was skeptical of its impact beyond financial infrastructure or speculation.

In early 2021, the pieces started to come together and I began to see the magic. The first big catalyst was a dinner with [Fred Ehrsam](https://twitter.com/fehrsam)—a long-time friend and crypto pioneer. Fred was asking about the challenges that creators face and what innovations were happening in the creator economy. We shortly realized that crypto unlocked many new ways to think about enabling creators and their communities. At one point, Fred remarked, “You’re making _me_ so bullish on crypto.” You can imagine the irony I felt at that moment, but I think we were both fired up.

As a kid who grew up on the internet and has spent my career focused on how it’s changing everything, I finally started to pay real attention to crypto. I caught a glimpse of a white rabbit dropping down into a hole, to use the crypto world’s favorite metaphor.

This year, the tools and projects being built (primarily on Ethereum) and the new mental models they uncovered started to infect my brain. Big ideas, like decentralization, community ownership and organization, incentives for creators, curators, and fans, digital identity, scarce virtual goods, applying game design principles to social spaces, and composability of software -- to name a few. 

All the while, I spent much of the spring and summer wondering if it was the right time for me to dive all the way in. This shift was obviously a big deal and was clearly *something* (but still probably nothing, of course). Crypto, like other paradigm shifts, has undeniable hype and expectations, but it will take a lot of experimentation to get to the most compelling developments.

The perfect timing to go all-in on major shifts like this one can be hard to nail down, and will always be debated. A dance between too early and too late and way too early. 

## The Big Wave
So — now is when I tell you that I’ve gotten the timing right and that this, right now — this is crypto’s big moment… right?

Well… not exactly. Candidly, I still think we’re really early. In some ways, it feels like it’s 1999 or 2007 and the web or mobile are becoming truly exciting. Of course, during the dot-com boom or the iPhone’s release, we had no understanding of the breadth of incredible innovation that was to come.

There is a metaphor that has been rattling around in my brain for a good chunk of the year that I’ve used to think about technology, the future, new opportunities, where to bet, and so forth:

Aside from the most essential and universal contributors to success (who you choose to work with, integrity, and persistence), there’s one other thing that I believe can have an outsized impact on your success and ability to get lucky: **identifying big waves**.

Every once in a while a shift in technology can change everything. Sometimes, catching these waves at all can be a lot more important than exact timing or even precisely what you’re working on. Persistence on the big wave can be the most vital thing to get right.

Crypto and the future internet that it enables is the proverbial _big one_ for the prime of my career.

Something clicked for me along the way. I realized that if you really believe the big wave is coming, timing is less important than you think. **Every surfer knows that the obvious answer is that you just have to start paddling as hard as you damn well can.**

And I’m ready to paddle hard. There are all kinds of questions and uncertainty and ideas and excitement and everything in between.

## What’s Next?

I’m joining a group I believe to be at the edge of this new frontier: the aptly-named [Paradigm](https://www.paradigm.xyz/). Paradigm is a crypto/web3 investment firm founded by Fred and [Matt Huang](https://twitter.com/matthuang), two of the most thoughtful and intelligent investors I’ve been fortunate enough to spend time with. They have built an outstanding team of investors, researchers, and hackers, and I’m so excited to learn from them.

**At Paradigm, I’ll be an entrepreneur-in-residence (EIR)**. My goal is to stand under the Paradigm umbrella and use their resources, guidance, and expertise to determine where specifically it makes sense for me to go deep and build. In addition to my personal crypto vision quest, I’ll be supporting Paradigm’s incredible [portfolio of companies](https://www.paradigm.xyz/portfolio/) and helping them think through new opportunities that overlap with my scope of experiences and interests.

I’d love to meet people pulling on the same loose threads that I am. I’m eager to explore how crypto will impact the future of my obsessions with the internet, attention, creative people, communities, culture, games, and art. I’ll share more of my explorations as I go. Put simply, I’m focused on Web3, or the internet that crypto enables.

## If you’re spending time on the following, please don’t be a stranger:
### Creators, Communities, and Investing in People
- the evolution of people driven-brands (DAOs) and the convergence of people and brands
- how creators and curators of art and media capture value
- economies built around fandom
- how crypto and the internet enable niche at scale

### Digital Identity & Pseudonymity
- The shift away from a “real name” internet to a more robust identity system
- medium is the message -> context is the identity
- tools for individuals to use multiple identities and identities to be made up of multiple individuals
- “influencers” of the future
### Games & Social Software
- third spaces on the web and the rules that govern them
- digital objects, fashion, and status
- applying game-like incentives to other social spaces
- achievement-based NFTs and tokens
- games that allow players to capture value they create

### The future is bright. I don’t know what the next year or decade will hold, but I’m confident in the following:
> The internet can make the world better, more equitable, and more fun.

>Digital spaces and tools can connect us, entertain us, inspire us, and empower us. 

>They should also fade into the background when needed, and don’t always do that today.

> A digital-native incentive structure and value system are imperative to build the internet we want.
> 
> Users should own their own data and have ownership in the value they create.

>A decentralized, individually sovereign digital future is far better than the opposite.

> The internet should enable niche at scale, rather than trending towards homogeny and mass attention.

> Artists should be able to find their audience and make a living because of it.

> Brilliance and creativity can come from anywhere and that opportunity should be distributed as such.

> The internet should be composable and interoperable.

> We’re better when we cooperate and play positive-sum games rather than zero-sum games.

> We, collectively, should own the internet.

> We can build the digital future we want to live in.

And so, I’m ready to get to work. Onwards!

The Big Wave (EIR at Paradigm)

[Published November 9, 2021](https://medium.com/@jdahl/reflections-on-building-100-thieves-4edc3c553cff).

Friday was my last day at 100 Thieves, a company I helped Matt ‘Nadeshot’ Haag start 4 years ago.

This was an incredibly hard decision, and I’ll share more on why and what’s next sometime soon.

But today, I simply want to take a bit of time to reflect and be grateful for this incredible ride.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2495/1*jwKeZHIpwJBEA6VN5fLMfQ.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1728/1*XKLY-BdP8FN4lI6cKmzcvA.jpeg)
*Beginnings and Endings*

The journey began when I met Matt through our friend Blake Robbins, who insisted that I meet this YouTuber who was trying to build a new esports team with Dan Gilbert. I was skeptical.

After weeks of follow-ups, we finally got dinner. As we wrapped up, Matt asked, “so, do you want to work with me…?” Neither of us really knew what we were doing. And he didn’t know it then, but I was sold.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t know much about Matt. Despite his wild success in the CoD world and on YouTube, I was concerned he would be all talk and little ==substance==.

I was fortunate to work with two incredible early-stage investors early in my career at Lowercase Capital: Chris Sacca and Matt Mazzeo. One of the most important things I learned from them was to bet where the deck is stacked in your favor — where you have unfair advantages. And most importantly, when the founder has that little extra special quality that makes you want to run after them.

I’d been paying attention to the esports scene and it was clear there was an opportunity for a strong brand to emerge. Most teams built their audiences off of either winning, star players, or both. Anyone who has worked in or loved a sports team knows that both are fleeting.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1260/0*N7Q3jW23Wcj8NFp9.jpg)

Matt presented something unique: an incredible audience rallied behind him and his journey combined with a desire to actually build something bigger than himself.

This is tremendously hard for creators to do. The notion of giving up near-term selfish opportunities to try and build a brand is much harder than it looks. It takes a relentless commitment to the long term and a near-irrational ability to put the bigger dream above personal wins.

After meeting him, it was profoundly clear to me that this wasn’t a side hustle for Matt. This was it. He had a vision to bring his audience on a journey with him, return to the competition that formed him, and establish a brand that was actually more substantial than “Nadeshot.”

And that probably would have been enough, but Matt dreamed bigger: he thought a gaming brand could be a lot more than anybody considered back then, and that gaming was just as culturally important as music, sports, or anything else. We didn’t know exactly how we’d do it, but Matt’s early ideas about building an apparel brand and working with entertainers alongside competitors made me realize this could be something special.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1260/1*DYl4yLHIjzcXJBUoqiVsXw.jpeg)

And so we set off. When I joined 100 Thieves, I was not yet 24, the company didn’t exist, and it was just Matt, a logo (and a failed CoD team… shh), the founding investors, and an approved franchise application to Riot Games’ League of Legends league.

At the time, we had a loose idea of what could be possible and a big vision: to build the gaming brand Matt always wished he could be proud of.

But we also had a lot of work to do. In late November 2017, we had to figure out how to field a League of Legends team, find them a place to live and work, make content about them, and make an esports jersey that didn’t suck, all before the season started in January. Those were long days, but some of the most memorable.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2025/1*1prbfRc7vdfpjm_wTNjp9g.png)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2495/1*cY7xRr2IoCNB6uMP4Uon_g.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2495/1*4sTQs0AIW-fkkDJwDGXLdA.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4435/1*GNHhoYvKc9MbdFrw8YGQag.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4435/1*aA78gy3Rcw_jmnNYUY77Pw.jpeg)

We got through that, somehow, and even managed to make the finals of our very first split. Then, we made the World Championship in our first year! Little did we know how hard it would be to get back.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2495/1*HPm_l4DKkE5BjO1CnqEaoQ.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4637/1*tenub7hWJgs1sicoarwzeQ.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:3753/1*YG2Y8dFJubpevwGJyB2lvA.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4435/1*ZVK6whYCh3yIwEopJgpQzA.jpeg)

We made a documentary about that team called The Heist, led by the creative forces that are Gabriel Ruiz and Logan Dodson. 100T content started strong and didn’t slow down.

We convinced Jason Ton to leave the mothership that was Riot Games and join John and some kids to build something new. I still remember Jason’s first day, where our head of HR (yours truly) had to show him an excel sheet with everyone’s info and social security numbers. I texted Matt that I thought Jason was going to quit by the end of his first week. Fortunately, Jason believed in the vision and was able to forgive our early incompetencies.

We found a diamond in the rough in Julia Wu who has probably touched every single public-facing 100T output since early 2018. I think Julia might care more about this brand than Matt or I do.

We spent that spring trying to make a hoodie that we’d actually want to wear and that teased at the idea: “hey, maybe gaming can actually be cool!” Six months in, we sold out of our first “drop” in about 10 minutes.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2495/1*8bF3_rvHG-6mkLdeC34cHA.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2218/1*yHR1FHB-TxLMz1aNYbnS8g.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2498/1*fYzdqjqOlakxdaN1XAbAVQ.jpeg)

Hoodie Org

We followed through on Matt’s entertainment vision, convincing established YouTube star NoahJ456 and a rising streamer named Valkyrae to take a risk on us before we were even a year in.

By that November, we’d built something real, and the esports and gaming worlds had started to take notice.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1966/1*0C_n1Td5hhKLXhDDgihrxg.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2025/1*rIQ5aQe7ZkBX2_oD--5Zfg.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4435/1*3Romt_8Bnm0bkw5uQChf8Q.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:1260/1*lpyMVSahRwmUPiC1_Mo7Mg.jpeg)

Since those early days, we’ve continued to build. We have about 100 employees, 20 creators, almost 50 players and coaches, multiple teams across various games, a half dozen trophies, all kinds of channels and content series, the best apparel brand in gaming, a laundry list of internet-breaking moments that are hard to believe happened, and most importantly, a community that trusts us to keep pushing forward.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4637/1*dp8CzGI4HG-Z-tKTtccbEw.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4075/1*gy8HfSiFNnWqbDjd59corQ.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4435/1*LBo4O4hYRLtPuXUqPyRwdA.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4435/1*-4hVSM7yKFaECvl-9Th40g.jpeg)

Some highlights.

We even managed to win that elusive LCS championship a few months ago, which felt fitting for me knowing that my departure was coming. We won a few other trophies along the way, too.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4637/1*qkGmOgZK1VVYFYWGYCQKww.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2025/1*yy2e7tXHelNQShpOitOTTw.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2495/1*rSLA34z3Oa1ao1BRdD9B3A.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2495/1*ZYppgJrbJDRAySP4lVm5Rg.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2495/1*8ORWdd49qM86xUDkRq5KSA.jpeg)

It’s hard to build a public brand on the internet. You live and die by the latest release or result, and little of what you make is remembered more than a few days later. At times, it can feel like a rat race of impermanence.

I always try to remember that all of these things we do and make aren’t actually what 100 Thieves is. They matter, of course, but they are the inputs of what we really are. At our core, 100 Thieves is an identity brand and community that says it’s ok to love video games. The permanent thing is that story and that sense of belonging, and when the content or the wins or the drop fades into memory, that is what stands.

I shared a note with our team on my last day, and the final section emphasized this point. I thought I’d share it here:

> 100 Thieves is the people  
> All of you, our team, our players, our creators, and our community. That’s all this thing really is. A logo doesn’t mean much without the people behind, around, and in front of it.
> 
> Brands around the world are trying to become more and more human. We have an amazing advantage here: our fans care so deeply about the humans that make up 100 Thieves. Their relationship with our brand will always be stronger when it’s connected to a favorite player or creator, or when they get to see inside the process of this amazing group of people behind the scenes building.
> 
> Nothing feels better than when we’re described as a family, whether that be the creator group or the entire company. A culture that is human led will take us very far. Treat each other with kindness and remember that you get to work with some of the most incredible people in this industry.
> 
> The “product” of 100 Thieves is this group of people, all running in one direction, making amazing experiences for a community that only wants more. It’s easy to get caught up on just the outcomes: the announcement video, the successful drop, the championship at long last. But the parts I remember most of this journey were the long days alongside many of you, pressing ahead, even when we didn’t know exactly where we were going or if it would work.
> 
> Stay the course, enjoy the journey, give a lot of yourself, and you’ll get amazing things back.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:3240/1*YqPnuC-p27Yld8_nVLhJkA.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4435/1*NVmonl3WZGWYxp2byRfvig.jpeg)

I’m really proud. Sure, it’s just entertainment, it’s just video games, it’s just a brand. But I also believe stuff like this matters. We all find joy in little things like TV shows, twitch streams, winning (or even losing) sports teams, friends to relax and play games with. And I think 100 Thieves fills that role for a lot of people. I think we’ve made a lot of people smile in the last four years, and hopefully even helped them meet new friends or make the days a little easier.

I’ll always love this brand. And better yet, I’ve never had more confidence in what we’re building and the team we have doing so.

There may be easier, more lucrative, or maybe even more fun jobs. But there is no more fulfilling work to me than running in one direction and trying to make something new with the right group of people. That’s what I’ve taken away from this experience, more than anything else.

**And so, as I’m keen to recite, onwards! I’m enjoying the journey.**

**Finally, a few thanks:**

**To Blake Robbins**: My guardian angel, to the extent you can have one of those in business. Thanks for being a confidant, encourager, and most importantly, for bringing me into this thing in the first place. Never doubt your conviction: you are usually right before the rest of us.

**To John Robinson:** As Matt is quick to share — I didn’t technically fully commit to this thing until I made sure that you were likely to be along for the ride. I was coming off a string of incredible career mentors, and I knew I needed that here. Thank you for being our rock, for making us better, and for relentlessly putting one foot in front of the next. I’m so glad our team has you at helm. The future is bright.

**To Jason Ton, Gabriel Ruiz, Logan Dodson, Julia Wu, Eric Sanders, Ibrahim Eljeilat, Matty Lee, Jacob Toft-Andersen, Joseph Jang, and so many more of you who’ve made this journey worth it:** Thank you for putting up with my chaotic energy, arguing back, and being damn great at what you do.

**To Noah, Rae, Courage, and all of our incredible creators and players I’ve had the privilege to work with:** Thanks for being the lifeblood of all that we do and making this brand come to life.

**And finally to Matt**: Thanks for being a brother, first and foremost. Thanks for inspiring me every day and for trusting me to build this thing you love so dearly alongside you. Thanks for making a lot of long days so damn fun. You’re on your way too, and you’re doing great. Slow down, you’re doing fine. Keep enjoying the journey, my friend. And don’t forget: when you are excited about something, there is no one more infectious in the world.

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2495/1*T2jESgOO-LxjTSqQG-5ztQ.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:4637/1*GdoNmPjARjbKoIwVxpGbIw.jpeg)

![](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:2828/1*UZwSwcs0mEtzf_GFs-hPIA.jpeg)

Reflections on Building 100 Thieves

[Published on December 3, 2020](https://jdahl.substack.com/p/27-pieces-of-advice-on-my-27th-birthday).

Hey friends. Today, I turned 27. I compiled these last night while reflecting on my first 27 years and thinking about what I want out of the next one — and (hopefully) the many that will follow. These are all thoughts that have resonated with me so far and that I wish I was exposed to much sooner. I hope you find them helpful.
### On the World Around Us:
1. “Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls, and interesting people. Forget yourself.” - Henry Miller
2. “Be curious, it involves you in the world.” - Brian Grazer
3. “Anything that moves you is art.” - Shia LaBeouf
### On Purpose, Ambition, and Success
4. “Let’s assume that you think you have a choice of eight paths to follow… And let’s assume that you can’t see any real purpose in any of the eight. THEN… you MUST FIND A NINTH PATH” - Hunter S Thompson
5. "If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's." - C.G. Jung
6. “Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.” - Mary Schmich
7. Have no interest in doing business as usual.
8. “It may be lucky, but it’s not an accident.” - Chris Sacca
9. If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no.
10. You don’t know how much a rubber band can hold until you stretch it. And if you don’t stretch it, it holds nothing.
11. “Slow down, you’re doing fine. You can’t be everything you want to be before your time.” - Billy Joel
12. “Don’t stop. Don’t even think about stopping until you get there, and don’t give much thought to where ‘there’ is. Whatever comes, just don’t stop.” - Phil Knight

### On Relationships
13. “Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.” - Mary Schmich
14. Whenever you have bad news, call, or better yet, tell the person face-to-face.
15. Stories from the past can bring people back to life.
16. “People are hard to hate close up.” - Brené Brown
17. The space between us is where God lives. (_Before Sunrise_)
18. “Love is not: I will give this to you if you do this for me. Love is: I will give this to you so that you may shine.” - Yung Pueblo
### On Life
19. If you’re not happy here you won’t be happy there.
20. Everyone is going through life for the first time.
21. “Relax. Nothing is under control.” - Adi Da
22. Don’t fight it. Well, until you have to.
23. Life’s just a bunch of todays.
24. “Wanting always interrupts being.” - Yung Pueblo
25. “Like a sunrise or sunset, anything so ephemeral. Just like our life - we appear and we disappear and we are so important to some, but… we are just passing through.” (_Before Midnight_)
26. This is the good part. It’s all the good part.
### On Advice
27. “Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.” - Mary Schmich

Writing