Bookmarks

As Naval says: "If you want to make the wrong decision, ask everyone." The right decisions come from you. Even the "wrong" decisions are the right decisions in the big picture—because we learn from them either way, and learning is winning. So, before looking outwards to seek endless inputs from others—ask yourself: what do you think?

Naval Ravikant — on making decisions

Before I had this sense of self-trust, though, I was always optimizing for optionality, keeping the "doors open." Indecisiveness plagued me in my formative years—those years where you make the decisions that quote-unquote determine the trajectory of your life.

On self-trust and optionality

Don't see making your own web page as a nostalgia, don't participate in creating the netstalgia trend. What you make is a statement, an act of emancipation. You make it to continue a 25-year-old tradition of liberation.

Olia Lialina, From My to Me

Make an index, family tree, chart, or diagram of your interests. All of them, everything: visual, physical, spiritual, sexual. Leisure time, hobbies, foods, buildings, airports, everything. Every book, movie, website, etc. The totality of this self-exposure may be daunting, scary. But your voice is here. This will become a resource and record to return to and add to for the rest of your life.

Exercise: An Archaeology — Jerry Saltz

At this point, we've gotten really great at "writing it down." We've been trained to take notes, snag photos, and add things to our bookmarks so we don't forget about them. The more important question that nobody has bothered to ask is what to do with it all. Components are ultimately the building blocks of a story, project, or idea, but accumulation means nothing without connection. What are the footprints of your life adding up to?

Accumulation means nothing without connection

Find the best sources. Combine with your existing knowledge, arrange to your mind map. Format in such way it can grow. Add your secret ingredients, compose in such way it touches harmony. Enjoy the beauty and the force of the creation you are part of. Sensing → Filtering → Reasoning → Creating → Enjoying. Use all existing tools to open as much channels as possible. Keep the process simple, natural, make it fun. Re-invest in your tools and channels. Focus on adding structure to the unstructured, to order the unordered. Be capable to name things and make them yours. Make sure your ideas are followed. Structure → Name → Fame.

Sensing → Filtering → Reasoning → Creating → Enjoying

So, I love the internet because I love that a random set of clicks I made as a teenager led me to a blog that has become one of the few constants in my life. I love the internet because, even though I might not read every Cup of Jo post with the same rigor I used to, I still check her site almost every day—partly out of habit; partly because it still really hits; and partly because I love that there's a place that so many versions of myself have visited.

Delia Cai — I still <3 the internet

Because it is about norms, it can be used for good when it's coming from people who were disempowered. It's a way of challenging accepted ways of being and working and valuing that haven't been examined. Or it can be used destructively. Gossip from the empowered can often be used as a way of stifling resistance, stifling challenge, and stifling critique. And one of its effectiveness is, of course, its invisibility.

Karen Adkins — on gossip, power and resistance