Why do coffeeshops, book covers, and YouTube thumbnails all look the same? "Weβre in a crisis of conventionality, an epidemic of the mundane."
31.10.2025 11:51 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0@notetoself.studio.bsky.social
A blog & newsletter about creativity over productivity by @ginatrapani.org π Blog: https://notetoself.studio/ π Newsletter: https://buttondown.com/notetoself
Why do coffeeshops, book covers, and YouTube thumbnails all look the same? "Weβre in a crisis of conventionality, an epidemic of the mundane."
31.10.2025 11:51 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0step 1: learn to quilt
step 2: get an invite to a Fierstein bitch & stitch session www.vulture.com/article/harv...
What does it look like to be neither an AI cheerleader nor doomsayer in practice? Hereβs what measured AI looks like for me
21.10.2025 11:51 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 1 π 0Thoughtful guidance for anyone on their way back to their true work
18.10.2025 13:54 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Three ways to make stuff:
1. make things you want by yourself or with people you choose
2. make things you must with people chosen for you on a schedule set by someone else
3. perform all the capitalist ceremonies of #2 without actually making anything yourself
When you want to go in a certain direction, ask yourself: Which part of me has the wheel?
16.10.2025 11:51 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Latest issue of the newsletter is out now!
buff.ly/XANouS2
Thanks to @anildash.com I will never stop thinking about the fact that Mariah Carey recorded a song called Demented at the same time as Always Be My Baby
02.10.2025 11:51 β π 15 π 2 π¬ 0 π 1"Completing tasks, no matter how inane, made me feel productive...never you mind the fact that most of those tasks have no real importance and frequently represent phony work."
01.10.2025 23:18 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Asked @monteiro.bsky.social how he thinks about his creative practice, and he wrote about how lifeβs big and small, important and trivial, mundane and creative activities are all interconnected. Good answer.
18.09.2025 00:53 β π 3 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0Fellow KPop Demon Hunter fans: EJAE - singer-songwriter and voice of Rumi - wrote Golden on her way to the dentist
12.09.2025 11:51 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0It's launch day! π π π This is my new blog, an actual ongoing note to myself about joy over productivity buff.ly/Yrt7tYo
09.09.2025 15:36 β π 5 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0At some point, the ability to check items off a todo-list stops moving you forward, and instead holds you back.
08.09.2025 11:51 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Epiphanies are rarer than we think. When you ask a big question, the answer arrives not as a lightning bolt, but as a whisper.
02.09.2025 11:01 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Po Bronson: "Confusing intensity and passion is a common mistake. Intensity is external; passion invokes something inside you. Passion is a call-and-response with your soul. Itβs not just adrenaline."
01.09.2025 20:47 β π 1 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0All your ideas are downstream from what you take in. Garbage in, garbage out. You improve your output with higher-quality input.
12.08.2025 12:15 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0A line graph where the Y axis is "vibe" and the X axis is "understanding." A line starts at the the top of vibe and comes down diagonally as it goes further on the understanding end.
βVibe coding is on a spectrum of how much you understand the code. The more you understand, the less you are vibing.β
β Steve Krouse
blog.val.town/vibe-code
I tend to discount AI chatbots as a fawning junior intern trying desperately to impress me but Harsh Claude and I might be able to get somewhere - wonderful piece
08.08.2025 17:30 β π 8 π 1 π¬ 0 π 0How has anyone achieved notable success? They worked hard and got lucky.
08.08.2025 18:16 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0A 4-box matrix called The Disapproval Matrix, where the Y axis top to bottom runs Rational to Irrational. The X axis runs left to right Know You to Don't Know You. Top left corner is Lovers, people who want to see you improve and thrive. Top right corner is Critics, experts in your field. Bottom left corner is Frenemies, people who don't wan to see you improve. Bottom right corner is Haters, jealous ignoramuses.
One way to separate pointless cruelty from productive feedback: The Disapproval Matrix, an oldie-but-goodie from Anne Friedman
www.annfriedman.com/the-disappro...
"In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care.
In a moment where machines churn out mediocrity, make something yourself. Make it imperfect. Make it rough. Just make it."
βObserve your respiration.β What I heard him say was, βObserve your desperation.β Yes, my desperation. I am desperate. I am so, so desperate.
04.08.2025 13:15 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0First issue of the newsletter went out.
Deep breath: You can't edit or unsend a sent email.
Linds Redding: "The trick to being truly creative is to be completely unselfconscious. Thatβs why children are so good at it. And why people with Volkswagens, and mortgages, Personal Equity Plans and matching Louis Vuitton luggage are not."
31.07.2025 11:15 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Martha Beck: "Your true self is intensely interested in your real lifeβs workβbut it could give a ratβs ass about anything else."
30.07.2025 11:15 β π 0 π 0 π¬ 0 π 0Chatbots β LLMs β do not know facts and are not designed to be able to accurately answer factual questions. They are designed to find and mimic patterns of words, probabilistically. When theyβre βrightβ itβs because correct things are often written down, so those patterns are frequent. Thatβs all.
19.06.2025 11:21 β π 36834 π 11365 π¬ 640 π 964