Legendary science essayist Stephen Jay Gould, who took his last breath 11 years ago this week, on why making unexpected connections is the key to creativity.
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The Emotionary, “words that don’t exist for feelings that do.” Complement with some playful takes on unusual words that do exist and a Cat-to-English translation.
Soul-warmer of the day: Maira Kalman on happiness and the human condition. Pair with the equally wonderful Fail Safe.
People who feel they deserve success are among those most likely to fail when challenges arise, research from New Zealand has revealed.
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“People who believe that they don’t need to work for good grades – that they are just entitled to them by right – are annoying, but there wasn’t any evidence before now that it’s actually a self-destructive strategy,” says study co-author Professor Jamin Halberstadt, at the University of Ontago in New Zealand.
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The study also supports the notion that people who feel excessively entitled believe that others are responsible for their success or failure, and are less motivated to put in extra effort when required.
“When an entitled person encounters obstacles to achieving an outcome, they feel like they shouldn’t have to work for it,” Jamin says. “In fact, you should see a challenge as evidence that you need to work harder.”
Australian study confirms that entitlement is the enemy of excellence. Pair with the psychology of how to prevent such entitlement when raising children.
I love animals. Growing up, the two things that made my blood boil were religious intolerance and animal cruelty. I’ve never understood it. I can’t stand to have an animal in pain. I’ve got to get it out of my head. It makes me angry, I want to cry, I want to stab someone. I don’t know where that comes from, really.
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Whenever I do a thing about animals, there’s always someone that goes, “What about children dying in Syria?” Yeah, that’s bad, too—can’t we care about both? Sometimes I go, “You carry on all your good work for the fucking children in Syria, and I’ll do this.” I love the fact that there’s a hierarchy of things that you’ve got to care about. I tweeted “I love humans—they’re just not my favorite animal.” That was to annoy people.
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No, I’m not a maniac. Of course humans are my favorite animal. [pauses] But I’ve never met an animal who was a cunt.
Ricky Gervais, like many of yesteryear’s most celebrated public figures, loves animals.
On a semi-related aside of a rant, how infuriating when articles offer no single-page view option – a massive F-U to the reader, in which the publication (hello, GQ) clearly shows ad pageviews matter more than the reader’s experience. In that regard, Jaron Lanier is on to something.
When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly.
Gretchen Rubin and other celebrated minds on the rhythm of creativity.
This Periodic Table Song from AsapSCIENCE – who have previously illustrated such mysteries as the science of love and what marijuana does to your brain – is for science-lovers what The Elements of Style Rap was for literary nerds. Enjoy, then wash down with the elements of the periodic table, personified as anime-inspired heroes.
You should care because the unexotic underclass can help address one of the biggest inefficiencies plaguing the startup scene right now: the flood of (ostensibly) smart, ambitious young people desperate to be entrepreneurs; and the embarrassingly idea-starved landscape where too many smart people are chasing too many dumb ideas, because they have none of their own (or, because they suspect no one will invest in what they really want to do). The unexotic underclass has big problems, maybe not the Big Problems – capital B, capital P – that get ‘discussed’ at Davos. But they have problems nonetheless, and where there are problems, there are markets.
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There are only so many suit customisation, makeup sampling, music streaming, social eating, discount shopping, experience curating companies that the market can bear. If you’re itching to start something new, why chase the n-th iteration of a company already serving the young, privileged, liberal jetsetter? If you’re an investor, why revisit the same space as everyone else? There is life, believe me, outside of NY, Cambridge, Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, L.A. and San Fran.
Despite its questionable parenthetical insinuation that STEM funding goes mainly towards the development of inane apps and its use of the word “wantrepreneur,” this article by MIT’s C.Z. Nnaemeka on “the unexotic underclass” makes some good points about innovating in the middle.
Some magnificent motion graphics in this lovely short portrait of typography powerhouse Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones, winners of the 2013 AIGA medal, by Brooklyn-based studio dress code.
Also see Hoefler and Frere-Jones in this short and sweet PBS micro-documentary on typography, then pair with 10 essential books on typography.
Good life-advice in this fine addition to Tyler Adam Smith’s ingenious project, 100 Books That Should Be Written: Busy Is a Decision by Debbie Millman, a title borrowed from her very real synthesis of 10 hard-earned life lessons.
Luckily, Millman did write an actual book, and a most excellent one at that, of illustrated wisdom on life.
The cultivation of aptitude, far more than coincidence or inspiration, is responsible for most creative breakthroughs.
Debunking the mythology of creativity – a must-read.
