Hi Friends,
Greetings from Brooklyn!
This newsletter turns twenty weeks old today. I have met so many inspiring fellow writers along the journey many of whom have become friends. I cannot emphasize enough the importance of communities in the early stages of writing online. If you feel like you want to start putting your ideas out there, don’t think you have to do it alone in your corner. Join communities like Foster or Write of Passage, you’ll learn a lot but most importantly, you’ll make new friends who inspire you and cheer you.
As a tribute to the community, every week I’ll be featuring a newsletter by a fellow writer whose writing inspires me. Today, I want to start with Plan Your Next, a newsletter about design, creativity and planning your next thing by my friend Nate Kadlac. One of my favorite pieces from Nate is his spicy take on why minimalism his boring.
Until next week,
Florian
The Shape of Thoughts
Have you ever had a brilliant thought only to find out it was a lot sexier in your head than on the piece of paper you just scribbled it on?
I have. Many times.
We think of writing as transcribing ideas that live in our minds.
But the distance between thoughts and words is far greater than we care to admit.
The trip from brain to page looks more like a long and strenuous pilgrimage than a quick commute. But it is through that arduous journey that your ideas are formed. From feeble creatures, one rewrite at a time, they turn into fierce gladiators defeating ambiguity and confusion with their swords of precision.
This is why if you ever hold yourself back from writing because you think you have nothing to say, you’re probably right. And that’s precisely the point. We don’t have clear thoughts until we write them down.
This is why I write. I don’t do it because I have an endless list of great ideas waiting to be shared. I write because I want to take the muddy matter that’s in my head and turn it into something I can look at. Just like any visual art, writing gives ideas an aesthetic identity. It’s bizarre to me that of all art forms, writing is the only one that is never on display. Words, tightly squished between the front and back cover of a book, out of sight.
So forget about the illusory good ideas in your head. Clear thoughts rise with the rhythmic strikes of your fingers on the keyboard.
Think, and your ideas are screaming unintelligibly inside your head. Write, and they are dancing elegantly on the page.
Weekly Wisdom
🎻 In Praise of Being an Amateur: Competence is a powerful currency nowadays. “Practice for 10,000 hours and you can become great at anything” has become a popular adage. This new religion leaves no space for experimentation. I suspect people deny themselves the joy of picking up random hobbies because they feel the pressure to become good at them or face the prospect of feeling like failures. In this piece the author calls for reviving the philosophy of amateurism which values fulfillment and pleasure over competence.
🐋 Underworlds: This 13 minutes underwater movie of freediving champion Guillaume Néry is as visually stunning as it is mesmerizing. I simply couldn’t look away.
🤓 Nietzsche for Toddlers: What do Nietzsche and toddlers have in common? A beautifully illustrated book introducing young kids to the philosopher’s way of thinking. I couldn’t resist buying it for my son. According to the author, children have a propensity for philosophical thought. I couldn’t agree more.
Lateral Thought
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing.”
Annie Dillard