Journal

I’m sat at my dining table in Oakland, California. A little fold-out number. It’s 10:35 at night. My father’s in town from England, and we just finished eating dinner (I know, how European)—my father, my wife and I.

Louis Armstrong crooned from the speakers throughout dinner. The dogs plodded back and forth from their beds in the lounge to the kitchen, where we sat. Dogs plural because we’re taking care of our friend’s excellent dog, Murray, for the week. Cacio’s best friend.

Toward the end of dinner—and throughout, really—we didn’t exchange many words. An occasional piece of happy commentary on one or the other of the dogs. An easy question about the day—about work for my wife and I; about the drive to West Marin for my father.

My gaze was soft, resting on the marble pepper mill in the center of the table. My eyes felt heavy; my belly full. I didn’t have all that much to say or the energy to say it. I was a little tired, but contented.

These small moments of shared stillness are what define family, for me. Close friends too. It’s low stakes and low expectations. You don’t need to be composed in any specific way. You can just be, safe in the knowledge that your company likely feels the same way.

I’ve written this slowly. It’s 11:00 now. I’ve paused to think, or not think. I’ve stared absent-mindedly at the colander of lemons picked from our backyard tree. I’ve run my finger along the crack in our table-top, and closed my eyes just for a second—or maybe a few seconds.

Slow, easy moments are the best moments. Shared stillness is a gift. Taking a beat to notice these moments is even better. I sincerely hope you managed to have some moments of your own today.

Many great ideas are ruined by high word counts. Books with 200 pages because the big publishers won’t sell a book with 20. Blog posts that run 5,000 words because 500 didn’t feel “serious.”

After reading one of these books or posts I try to synthesize “the big idea.” I need it to be simple, because—as Charlie Munger would advise—I want to take that simple idea and take it seriously.

If you don’t want to read a whole book to get “the big idea,” you might find it with an “inspectional read” (from Adler’s How to Read a Book). Basically: read the front and back cover, table of contents, first few pages of each chapter, and final few pages of the book.

You’ll know a big idea when you see it. “Make something every day and share it,” “incentives matter more than intentions,” “80% of the value comes from 20% of the effort,” “demos trump memos.”

A big idea fits on a sticky note. You can remember the surrounding context without reading it all. You can think of a few good examples of the idea in practice. Explain it in a couple of minutes.

The big idea of The Big Idea: make it small enough (ironically) that it fits on a Post-it with a regular Sharpie, and stick it somewhere you can see it. Write something, like… I don’t know: “the big idea should be small enough to fit here.” A simple idea to take seriously.

Another urge to capture memories today. As I have in a couple of other posts, I’m going to borrow the format of Joe Brainard’s memoir, where each memory is simply preceded by the words I remember.

I remember the first time I discovered that I could soften the focus of my eyes, and how I marveled at the streetlights passing overhead whilst I stared out of the car window. I remember how it felt like actual magic—as if I could conjure fireworks whenever I wanted to.

I remember looking up at Tower Bridge for the first time at night. I remember the feeling it caused in my chest, and how I’d never felt anything like it. I remember trying to figure out if it was a good feeling or a bad one. I remember wanting to feel it anyway.

I remember my first bonfire night at Pitchcroft racecourse. I remember feeling the energy seemingly coursing through the whole crowd. I remember sensing the warmth on my cheeks, and the cold in my toes. I remember being transfixed by the flames.

I remember watching Aladdin with my classmates at Northwick Cinema. I remember wishing that I could watch every movie with all of my friends. I remember feeling like the luckiest kid in the world to be watching a movie during the school day.

I remember visiting Worcester Cathedral for the first time and being amazed that anyone could build anything like it. I remember taking a liking to the gargoyles, but wondering why gargoyles had been added—and in fact, what they actually were.

I remember the first time I went camping. I remember the feeling of glee as I pulled my sleeping bag up around me, and how I wished I could always use a sleeping bag from now on. I remember how strange it felt to be so exposed, and yet to feel totally safe.

I remember the whole class going to Miss Scott’s house during the summer. I remember sitting in her garden eating ice lollies in the sun. I remember wondering why we didn’t visit other teacher’s houses—or perhaps, why we were visiting this one.

I remember sitting in Gheluvelt Park at night time. I remember feeling like it was the first time I’d ever really experienced the world when it went dark. I remember that we brought a blanket to keep me warm. I don’t remember why we were sat there.

I’ve been typing my morning pages ever since I started writing them. I sit down at my desk, open up a new note, and start typing. I scroll through all of the files occasionally and feel proud to know (and to see) that I’ve sat down every single day and written my ~750 words.

In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron suggests writing morning pages by hand, but (without trying) I convinced myself that typing, for me, was better. “I don’t like my handwriting,” I told myself. “I can type at the speed of thought”, I insisted. “It will come in useful to have digital files,” I claimed month after month, with no evidence.

This morning, I sat down and challenged all of that thinking. Who cares if the handwriting isn’t good, if no one (including me) is ever going to read it? “Typing at the speed of thought” could be an unhelpful thing to do, as far as I knew. It has never—not even once—been useful to have a digital record. At times it’s been a little bit sad.

Given that, I decided to write my morning pages by hand today. I’d expected it to feel a bit like pulling teeth, but almost immediately I was overtaken by how good it felt. It felt strangely romantic (which I’m a sucker for). It took longer, but in a way that felt like a respect of the practice; respect for myself. It removed my anxieties about line length, and exact word count, and “writing things well.”

As I reflected throughout the day, I realized that I’d started to value the wrong things. I’d been more focused on ensuring there was a file for each day than whether the contents helped me in some way. I’d had mornings where I’d tried to hit 750 words as quickly as possible, rather than any number of words that actually needed to come out of me. I’d respected everything but the practice and myself.

Now, many months into my practice, I’m going to swing back the other way. I’m going to honor the practice and what it provides for me, and I’m going to let the rest fall away. I’m going to write my morning pages by hand, and I’m not going to keep them. I’m going to slow down to make sure that I’m connected with what I’m writing. I’m going to stop caring about formatting and exact word counts.

I’d been treating morning pages as “just another writing practice,” but I think they deserve a little more consideration than that. I’d been worried about how “useful” the completed writing itself would be, rather than the act of writing it. So much of what I create has some expectation of permanence; of record-keeping. I’ll embrace now the opposite: transient writing; the very act of writing itself.

I’ve just wrapped up my first week at a new job. Starting a new job, for me, is basically avoiding the impulse to shout “I promise I know how to use computers and act like a normal human being” alongside every permutation of “oops, sorry (again)” over and over. Joking aside, starting a new job—with new people; new problems—can be hard!

One of the reasons it’s hard is that you often have a choice to make: risk looking or sounding a bit stupid, or bang your head against a wall for a while longer. Earlier in my career I hated the idea of looking stupid. I didn’t think much of myself as it was, and I had a chip on my shoulder. The last thing I wanted was for people to think I was bad.

Of course, most other folks are quietly thinking the same thing about themselves, whilst almost never thinking badly of those around them. We have a great (and therefore, terrible) capacity to be cruel to ourselves whilst extending kindness to others. Elizabeth Gilbert would tell us to consider how we feel towards ourselves (or how we should).

Now that I’m (just) a little older, I care much less about looking foolish. I understand that most people don’t think me an idiot for asking questions. Often the exact opposite—glad that I asked questions instead of banging my head against the wall for a few more hours. Regardless, it’s just not that deep. It’s objectively not stupid to ask questions. It makes sense that you don’t yet know the things that you don’t know.

These days, I embrace my naivety. I wear it proudly and lean into it; unashamed naivety. When you make light of things that have previously caused you pain, you defang them. When you write them down or say them out loud they just immediately deflate, with the comical sound of a released balloon whizzing and farting around the room.

If you’re in the same period that I am right now, I hope you’ll join me in embracing your current newbie status. You’ll never have a better opportunity to ask everyone about anything than right now. You’ve got a free pass to just be totally and wonderfully oblivious, because it’s in service of being wonderfully informed. I hope you use it well.

An accidental swipe to the explore tab of Instagram and a half-interested tap on a small square featuring the cover of a book. Suddenly, I’m watching and listening to Cillian Murphy reciting a passage from Shy by Max Porter. I close my eyes and just enjoy the reading.

When was the last time that you read a story out loud to another adult? Have you ever done this, in fact? My sense is that most people find the idea peculiar, even if they wouldn’t find it unusual at all to attend a reading by a book author at their launch event.

There have been many times since, in much smaller ways, but the last time that I really remember reading out loud to adults was back in 2019. I was working at a startup that downed tools at 4pm on Fridays to hear talks from one another on any topic. My talk, I decided, was a short story I’d heard Daniel Radcliffe read on This American Life.

The short story was The Present, from a book of several short stories by Simon Rich. I won’t ruin the story in case you read or listen to it, suffice to say that I’d enjoyed the performance and felt compelled to recite it to my colleagues as they lounged on the bleachers, beer in hand.

I pulled up a stool, hit play on some background music (to really nail that This American life vibe), cleared my throat, and started reading. It felt nice, for some reason, to recreate the story-time of primary school in this Shoreditch office with a cohort of 30-somethings. Nice for me, at least; I hope nice for members of the audience too.

I almost can’t believe that it’s been so long, but then I’m struck by… being struck. Why wouldn’t it have been a long time? How often do most adults read to each other? Perhaps I, deep down, find it peculiar too? I’m writing this to state to myself, on the record, that I do not. I wish that I read to adults more often; I wish they read to me.

There’s something so wonderfully intimate about reading to someone. In the case of reading to peers, maybe that’s just because it’s so rare (for most folks). I’m separating this slightly from things like The Moth, where the scale or context turns it into entertainment. I’m thinking of a small group, probably people that you know.

I’m going to make it a strange mission over the coming holidays to read to another adult. It could be my wife, or my colleagues, or family over a thanksgiving lunch. Something short; something I think they’ll enjoy. The best stories are those that we share with others.

“How are you doing?”

“Busy, and you?”

“Yeah, busy.”

How many times have you had this conversation? How many times has that conversation been had? Countless, surely. Far too many.

“How are you doing?”

“Bored, and you?”

“Yeah, bored.”

This is the conversation I want to have, at least once in a while. I might have even had that conversation, but I don’t think I meant it.

The last time I remember being bored—truly, properly—was during the summer holidays at the tail end of high school. Young enough to get the time off. Too poor to do anything. Too old to need supervision.

I don’t think I’ve been bored since.

I don’t just mean “ugh, there’s nothing good on TV,” or even “wow, this project is a drag.” I mean undeniably, inescapably bored. The kind of bored that isn’t a single Google search away (or, ahem, Ask Jeeves.)

I yearn for boredom. Hours of it. Days. Weeks, even. I want to feel what it’s like to be uninterrupted by the thoughts of others. To be devoid of thought at all, perhaps, for a time. To reach boredom nirvana.

I’m not certain I’ll ever be bored again. It’s possible I don’t even remember what it feels like. Maybe I won’t even recognize it.

I don’t want to be bored forever, of course. If anything, I’m the anti-bored most of the time. I love learning things, making things, doing things. I love talking to people and hearing stories and reading books.

For a while, though—a short while—I’d like to be bored.

This post is a rerun. I post occasional reruns as a kindness to myself and to unearth old posts for new readers. You can read about reruns, too.

Today’s rerun is Try, Hard. I started a new job this week. A job that I’m really excited about. A job that I’m incredibly proud of. The perfect job at which to try hard (that is, to actually try hard) and the classic period in a new job (that is, the beginning) where it’s easy to be a try-hard.

Everyone wants to do a good job. I really want to do a good job. I want my manager and team to be proud that they hired me. I want to show that I really care, that I work hard, and that no mistakes were made when inviting me to join the team. That’s all well and good, of course, but (for better or worse) I’m also what I like to call “a human being.”

Human beings are great. Like, they’re so great. They’re resourceful and creative and resilient and kind. They also want to be liked, and to fit in, and to receive praise. We (why did I say they?) want to share good news, and to do so often. These are all wonderful qualities too.

The challenge is (at least for me; at least in the past) that it’s incredibly easy to let the combination of all of those qualities turn you into a total try-hard. You might not even know you’re doing it! It just… happens. Suddenly, you’re being a good boy for the head pats.

Today (yesterday; this week/month; indefinitely) I’ve been taking a beat right before I take action. I’ve asked myself whether I’m about to do [the thing] because it’s useful and necessary, or because it might look superficially good to someone. Performance vs. performative.

Am I asking all of these questions to look like a very good question-asker or because I genuinely want/need the answers?

Am I expanding on this document because there’s more value to add, or because quantity might be a (poor) proxy for quality?

Am I scheduling time with all of these folks because I want to connect and learn, or just to give them that impression?

It’s such a small moment and a simple reframing, but it’s totally helped me to make sure that I’m doing things for the right reasons. It’s helped me to feel as though I’m being my genuine self, rather than a caricature of myself that lasts for just a few weeks.

I’m fortunate to be surrounded by the most wonderful colleagues and collaborators in the world. People who are authentic, and deserve authenticity in return. People who work hard, and who I want to work hard alongside—because we’re all in this together.

To try hard—really, to care—is both wonderful and rewarding, to try-hard is not. There are no winners in the world of try-hards—but when you try hard, together? That means you’ve already won.

I didn’t grow up in a family—or a country and culture, for that matter—where people talked about the idea of manifesting. They didn’t talk about the law of attraction, or cosmic energy, or anything that might make them sound—as they might put it—woo-woo.

As you might know if you’ve been reading for a while, I decided some months back to start publishing a blog post every day. I wanted to reconnect with a part of myself that I hadn’t paid enough attention to for a long time. I wanted to find my people; to build community.

I started writing with no specific expected outcome. I simply hoped that if I put the right stuff out there, something might eventually be returned to me. This, for me, is my version of manifesting. I didn’t try to will some concrete reality into existence, nor repeat some mantra to myself before I went to sleep. I just made something, every day.

I’ve spent the past decade working in the world of computing, mostly as a software designer. I loved computing, and I still love computing. I love the—remarkably brief—history of it and the creativity that these machines have unlocked in countless folks all around the world.

A love that I’d ignored for far too long, however, is writing. To me, writing is everything. It’s thinking made visible, dreams articulated, and the wonderful recounting of destiny fulfilled. I make sense of the world and of myself through writing, and I wanted to honor that.

Today, I’m unspeakably proud—and somewhat surprised—to be joining the design team at Medium. If you don’t know of Medium, it’s the computing company that cares the most about writing; the platform that helps people to share their ideas and experiences with the world.

Given what I just shared, you might be thinking that this sounds like a suspiciously good fit—and you’d be right. A person—me—with “a love of computing and storytelling” suddenly starts contributing to “the computing company that cares the most about writing.”

You can read more about why I’m joining Medium’s design team in a post I published—unsurprisingly—on Medium. This post, though, isn’t really about that. It’s about what that turn of events caused me to believe more than ever; about my increasingly woo-woo view.

That belief? That you—as in one, but also you—must start putting things into the universe with no guarantee that anything will be returned at all. You might coax and cajole the universe, but I believe that same energy could be used to make something and put it out there.

I believe that if you—me; any of us—make something every day and share it, that’s inherently good. I believe that the making itself is important, and often more-so than the outcome. I believe that—despite our forced indifference—the universe will take note of the effort.

If you’re sat here today wondering whether you should start (whatever it is that you’re making), I believe that the answer should be an emphatic yes. If you’re wondering the next day whether you should continue, I’d shout it even louder—and the next day, and the one after that.

You’re not guaranteed any specific outcome, but I think that you might feel more connected to the work that you want to make. I think that you might notice things you’d been missing, and gain newfound confidence to pursue your passions with conviction.

Even if none of that’s true, I suspect that you might simply enjoy yourself, and find pleasure in being out for your own fun. When it’s all said and done, perhaps that’s really the whole point.

I grabbed coffee with a friend yesterday in Berkeley and we popped into the wonderful Topdrawer on Fourth Street. He picked up a pen and commented on its satisfying click (and oh boy was it satisfying).

It reminded me that the best pens don’t actually click in my experience, but thunk. A click doesn’t hit my ear nicely, but a thunk? Keep ‘em coming. I love items that produce a good thunk.

It doesn’t stop at pens. In fact, that’s probably one of the more rare and surprising thunks. I love a hefty book that thunks when you toss it onto the table; a car door that thunks when it’s swung shut.

Closing the drawer of a well-built dresser. Attaching a lens to your camera. A cast-iron skillet placed on a stove. The lid of a MacBook descending those last few millimeters. There are thunks all around us, and often-but-not-always created by things of quality.

Now, you might have your own word for it, or another sound that you prefer. Maybe you’re more of a thwack or a snap person. Perhaps you like a good clunk or clink or—god forbid—clang. For all I know you revel in a smack, crack or thud. If you’re a bit more eccentric, you could even be into a classic bonk or boing. No judgment here—live your truth.

I don’t know of many people who don’t enjoy a good thunk, though, and I think there’s something beautiful about that. It’s often said that beauty—and for the sake of this post, let’s paraphrase that to quality—is in the eye of the beholder, but I don’t really think that’s true. I’ll forever believe that a thunk is superior to a click. No competition.

Whatever your favorite sounds are, I’d encourage you to look out for them, and to curate the items that create them. Take a little moment to enjoy a couple of thunks or thwacks in between meetings; share them with others that enjoy the same sounds that you do.