Colin Wright's Blog, page 14

Yeoman’s Work

Automation, outsourcing, and identifying and utilizing shortcuts are legitimate and—at times—marvelous means of achieving cumbersome goals.

Some tasks can be unloaded onto software, triggered by if-then tripwires, and completed with the same or better quality as a human being could achieve, but in a fraction of the time.

Other work can be hired out to employees, freelancers, or gig workers, either because the labor in question is easy to learn and, thus, easily farmed out to willing hands, or beca...

Transience

Today’s circumstances won’t last forever.

Who we are, the way we live, the things we do—they’re all impermanent.

The transient nature of everything can be panic-inducing, but there’s power in temporariness, even when it’s not always obvious or the first place our minds go when we consider the tempestuous shifts that endlessly upend the fixed and familiar.

Every change introduces an endless number of novel opportunities that we hadn’t previously considered, been aware of, or had access to.

It can be ...

Repetition & Cessation

I’m not the best podcaster in the world, but I’ve produced nearly 250 episodes of one show and about 85 of another over the past four-ish years.

I’m not the best writer in the world, but I’ve published a few dozen books, penned a blog for eleven years, and engaged in a variety of other writing-focused projects over the course of the past decade.

There’s something to be said for the pursuit of mastery, but there’s also something to be said for repetition, consistency, and just showing up, over and ...

Guiding Questions

What do I hope to achieve, here?

Whether I’m traveling or holding still for a while, asking myself why I’m where I am and what ambitions I have for my time in that place helps ground me and reminds me to establish some foundational tenets and rough routines for my time there: however much time that might be.

Thus, if I’m living in Prague for four months, I may make explicit my desire to see the local architecture, eat the local food, and finish writing the book I’ve been working on.

Such elucidatio...

Empowerment

I can’t prevent devastating storms, keep my local grocery store from selling out of my favorite product, or make someone else behave in a way that is more convenient for my preferences. These are issues over which I have little or no control.

When our desires slam into the reality of our situational impotence, it can stoke feelings of insufficiency, fragility, and worthlessness.

We might feel like stepping back from life a little bit, because what’s the point? Bad things happen, we can’t stop them...

Moderate & Modulate

These days, I make part of my living doing news analysis.

In practice, this means spending a lot of time reading: the news, but also all the stuff that informs and becomes the news, including history books, research papers, tweets from informed people, and ultra-niche newsletters.

I enjoy my work: the process of cobbling together context from dispersed bits of information is intellectually rewarding. But it requires that I stay plugged in to what’s happening across many spheres of interest, and wh...

Manufactured Needs

I’ve been thinking about needs and where they come from, of late.

In particular, how needs and wants differ, but also how that distinction doesn’t necessarily take us as far as it might in terms of helping us determine what actually matters to us.

There’s an Austrian philosopher named Ivan Illich who wrote about this subject back in the 1970s in a pair of books entitled Deschooling Society and Medical Nemesis, both of which propose that we’re taught that we need certain things, and those learned n...

Meaning in the Missing

We don’t fully appreciate some things until they’re gone.

We might intellectually know that we’d miss them, and may even recall a previous absence that struck us like a bell, reverberating through seemingly disconnected aspects of our routines and priorities and lifestyles—but that’s not the same as viscerally, presently experiencing an omission.

I recently had to set aside coffee for a few weeks, for instance, and a morning cup or two of simple, black joe is a ritual I enjoy as part of a larger c...

Taking Notes

I’m not a consistent note-taker, in the sense that some people are very good about jotting down insights and quotes as they read or go about their day.

For the way I learn, personally, I find that unloading new knowledge onto a page as soon as I’m exposed to it keeps me from ruminating on and parsing it, so it doesn’t stick as well. I know other people operate differently, though, and at times with great success.

I do, however, tend to keep notes on internal learnings and lived experiences—especia...

Intention Filters

Before fully investing myself in a new undertaking, I attempt to whittle away flaws, identify weak points, and allow myself to consider setting the concept aside, completely, if warranted.

In practice, this might mean that I’ve dreamt up some new project or lifestyle experiment that seems like it could be interesting to pursue. Or it might mean I’ve thought up a book that seems worth writing, or an essay that may prove worthwhile.

Starting with the initial concept, I try to establish, first, if th...