#94: The subtle art of giving a f*ck

And other buckets of interestingness I've been filling lately

Hello!

It’s been two months since I set out to find more interesting things to write about.

I’ve been foraging, collecting, following my nose—slowly filling new mental ‘buckets’ of creativity. It’s been a revealing process, affirming my hunch that Pass It On needs to evolve into something a bit more expansive.

While I contemplate what that means for future posts, here are July-September’s mental buckets. They are (hopefully) the source of some interesting pieces to come.

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Dare to disagree

Wes Kao

• How to Disagree, Paul Graham

• When to disagree and commit, Wes Kao

• “Consensus is the enemy of scale”, Hubspot co-founder Brian Halligan in conversation with Shane Parrish.

Understanding your scale

Craig Mod https://craigmod.com/essays/offscreen_interview/

• Do Things that Don’t Scale, Paul Graham

• 1000 True Fans, Kevin Kelly

• Against Scale,

  Claire L. Evans

• Pursuits That Can’t Scale,

  Anu Atluru

• A Surge of Wildly Human-Intensive Non-Scalable Experiences,

  Scott Belsky

The allure of false binaries

• Are you a jerk or a liar?

• Are you a rememberer or a forgetter?

• Are you an asker or a guesser?

• Are you nice or kind?

The subtle art of giving a f*ck

• A unified theory of fucks, Mandy Brown

• Not caring about your job: freedom or misery?

  Haley Nahman

• Soul-Making Productivity,

  River Kenna

• Things you learn dating Cate Hall,

  Sasha Chapin

• How to Be More Agentic,

  Cate Hall

Women doing wonderful things with words

• Laura Marling
  — the British singer-songwriter, started
  Patterns in Repeat
  to reflect on her journey in songwriting. Predictably, it is excellent.

• Niamh Gordon
  — a uni pal of mine, started
  notes from home
  to reflect on motherhood, PhD writing, fiction, and poetry. The first post I read was her beautiful close reading of Laura Marling’s songs.

• Chiara Quadranti
  — my multidisciplinary ex-colleague, started
  Blueprinting
  1 year after quitting her job in tech to explore her hypothesis that our work lives and life lives don’t have to exist in siloes.

• Ettie Bailey-King
  — the inimitable creator of
  Fighting Talk
  , is running a 12-week course on inclusive and accessible communication. It’s “pay what you can” for charities and social enterprises, and Ettie’s offering a 30% discount for Pass It On subscribers working outside of the charity sector. Code: PASSITON1000.

What is joy?

• A manifesto for joy, Ettie Bailey-King

• The Writing Life, Annie Dillard

• If Your World Is Not Enchanted, You're Not Paying Attention,

  L. M. Sacasas

• The answer according to thousands of Nick Cave fans, including this one:

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If one or more of these links strikes a chord, let me know!

Lauren