Colin Wright's Blog, page 28

What Every Generation Says About the Next One

I’ve started a video series over on YouTube called Consider This, where I discuss many of the same topics that I discuss here, but in a different way.

I’ve just published the sixteenth video of the series, and will be continuing to release three new videos each week for the next several months. If you enjoy what you see, a thumbs-up like or subscribe would be very much appreciated! I’m still getting started on YouTube, and every little bit helps :)

Clear Communication as a Habit

When we’re telling a story with an intentional, pre-arranged moral at the end, we do our best to communicate clearly. “Here’s this thing that happened,” we’re saying, “and here’s what I learned from it.”

But communication doesn’t cease at the end of a yarn or the conclusion of a book. Everything we do, everything we present, every exchange that we have is saturated with potential significance. If we’re not tuned into this, there’s a chance we’re transmitting meaning that is unintentional, and...

I Don’t Have To

It was a revelation when I realized that I didn’t have to be unhappy to be an artist.

No one ever outright told me that this was a requirement — heartbreak or abuse or drama or whatever — in order to be a creative person worth the title. But it was implied by pop culture and hearsay. Great artists are tortured souls, I knew, and being a happy person, I felt I was at a disadvantage.

And so I sought out difficulty. I stuck with a few relationships long past the point when I admitted they were b...

The Math

Any lifestyle is within reach. We just have to balance the books. Do the math.

In a lot of cases, this means tallying up our available resources and reallocating them accordingly.

You might want to write a book, for instance. Writing a book is typically a monetarily cheap endeavor, but requires a great deal of time. As such, you look at the time you have available — 24 hours each day, 7 days a week, etc — and sort out how much of that time you can dedicate to the writing of this book.

Most of...

Seeds and Vegetables

One of the questions I’m asked most frequently is about making money while still being able to enjoy a fairly liberated lifestyle.

Asking “How can I make money so that I can live such-and-such lifestyle?” however, is prioritizing money before life. It’s like being born with a barrel full of seeds and asking how you can sell them to buy vegetables.

You are born with your energy, attention, and all of your time. Over the years, you learn to exchange these things for money.

More ideally, we ask...

Missed Connections

The following is an excerpt from Come Back Frayed.

Boracay is a weird place to be single.

I’m reminded of this as a server at one of the restaurants near my apartment drops off my food, a napkin, and fresh commentary.

“Why you always here alone? Always here just yourself, with no one else?”

I shrug and smile. She accepts this as an answer, thankfully. I’ve found that any other response provokes well-meaning but unwelcome match-making attempts. A few days ago I had a similar interaction with a...

More Sense in Motion

The following is an excerpt from Come Back Frayed.

I make more sense in motion.

There’s a storm just outside my door as I write this. I’m on a small island in the Philippines, and there’s a typhoon up north, carving into the shores of the larger island where I was living a few weeks ago. We’re only seeing wisps of the tail here, backwash from the core action, but it’s enough to shake up the atmosphere, the air vibrating with adjacent activity. The beach is vacant except for a few brazen local...

Set Your Defaults

We have so many powers we don't utilize. Taking the time to figure out your needs, and how you might meet them, is an exercise very much worth your time.

Societies and Biomes

A rugged ecosystem requires diversity. Without that diversity, any system, large or small, becomes fragile.

Big Picturing

I get a lot of emails from people asking me how to make money. How does one start a business? How does one sell a product?

Yes, there are things a person can do that makes earning money more likely.

But why? Why do these people want this money? What will they do with it?

When I ask people this question, I usually get something trite or borrowed from tech conference lingo.

“I want to change the world by providing (insert something here that probably won’t change the world, it will just earn th...