San Francisco is great on all fronts but my personal writing. Objet n°2 is coming on Oct. 4th. If you want to embed memories into your clothing, RSVP here.
⏳ Since we’re talking about memories, handle them with care. Julia delivered a banger on Reboot: A Strange Kind of Memory.
Our brains can’t store every observation, thought or perception that passes through and that isn’t a bad thing. Constraints and selections are what allow us to stay sane in a world of complete sensory overload.
❤️ Talking about bangers, Cab touched upon something very close to heart in that essay: Here for the Wrong Reasons.
The distinction between the two modes I’m trying to define is that one side takes the position that being fascinated with something or someone in the world has a benefit that is self-evident. Being able to feel love towards something or someone is a gift in and of itself. The other side (the side that annoys me) orients fascination or association or effort towards a direction with the primary goal of having some kind of quantifiable reward. But if you’re really focusing on the moment, on something you love, on something in the world that feels like it’s made for you, you can’t be thinking about how it will benefit you, or how it will reflect back on you. These two modes are at odds with each other. True attention requires that you don’t view something in the world through the lens of “what can this thing do for me?”
🪩 This one came handy. Part because I miss Berlin. Part because I enjoyed a proper club night in SF -well, in Oakland to be more accurate- last Saturday. Bottom line: I want to be optimistic too. Has the club run out of things to say?
🚲 I just love the story of the Strider Bike. It feels very personal as well since that’s exactly what we used with both our kids -and by age 3 they were happily going around with ‘real bikes’ -i.e. with pedals- with no assistance at all [and I can’t emphasize enough how it makes them happy and proud of themselves]. The underlying philosophy resonates so much -first time I’ve read it was in Skin in the Game by writer Nassim Taleb: ‘via negativa’. Powerful thoughts here: Take Something Away.
While training wheels or a tricycle might stabilize a rider, neither allow a kid to equalize their weight on a bike.
The reason?
The extra wheels do all the balancing. They simply serve as a crutch.
So what did McFarland do?
He decided to engineer a very different type of bike, but rather than adding something to the bike, he chose to take something away — in this case the pedals.
🇺🇸 That one feels personal as well, especially these days: An immigrant living the American dream. Many things resonate:
The network density of talent in the Bay Area is just off the charts. […]
One of the biggest mental shifts you need to internalize is that in Silicon Valley culture, failure doesn’t matter, only success matters.
💻 And talking about talent, I just met Anjan yesterday and got to try his Daylight tablet. It’s not only the product that blew my mind, Anjan the person is full of wisdom, and just extremely nice, a great listener too. Obviously, I want one now -especially since I heard him describe it this way:
a middle-finger technology + a love-letter technology
📖 Substack Summer Read Highlights were fun. Thanks The Flâneurs Project, Blackbird Spyplane and The Supersonic.
