Aesthetic Musings

Good Blogger

This is an interesting guy, with interesting ideas.  He’s one of the better “productivity” bloggers, mostly because he probably cringes when people call him that.  On his blog recently he talks about creating real authentic meaningful work, rather than producing for the sake of productivity.  He also seems to share my distaste for the “hack”ing of lives.

In response to his question (what should he do in 09), I’ll say he should shift away from productivity bullshit and towards meaningful creation even further than he already has.  And not just talk the talk but also walk the walk - create something not about creating, but as a creation itself.

That’s what I plan on doing in 09.  I want to make more music, write more philosophy, start writing fiction, start writing poetry (not just for lyrics for my music), start painting again, start developing a real system of thought about the world.  I have a lot to say - I just haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet.  I haven’t refined it yet.  I’m in the process of figuring out what I think about a lot of things.  I can talk about lots of subjects, and I feel like there is something uniting what I have to say about everything, but I haven’t discovered it yet.  It may be profound, it may be obvious.  The point is, I don’t know yet, and I have to discover it for myself.

-Nathan

merlin:

I asked people on the Twitter to Toot me their ideas for projects I should do in 2009. Lotta yuk-yuks, a few B-minuses, and several bits of shiny gold.

My Five Six Favorites

Remy: - redesign the concept of how a technology conference/expo should run so that they’re not such a waste of everyone’s time. Balut: Write about how successful late-bloomers with diffuse, vague, or conflicted interests managed to find their special niche. jdickerson: Write a novel or book & also write abt process to chart creativity,focus, attention, mastery, etc. Or u do one; I’ll do other Remiel: Obsess Out Loud ‘09, live-broadcast symposium: (anti-)Thought Leaders (Hodgman, Gruber, more) talk about Creating Well, Often stevewhitaker: if you’re serious: I’d love to hear a series of interviews you do with people whose work you admire/appreciate. justinlilly: I would like to see more video production. Things like wallet-guy are quite nice. I also enjoyed the video of ylnt.

By Way of Consensus

And my gut check on what people like that also interests me:

• write a book
• do more You Look Nice Today (and in different flavors)
• revive The Merlin Show
• just go do something cool

You Rock

Thanks to everybody who chimed in. I’m grateful you’d share your ideas with me. Here’s hoping we all throw down some good stuff in the aught nine.

[(Nearly) all responses below.]