The personal blog of Caneel Joyce PhD, executive coach & culture builder. Work is a spiritual journey and sometimes a total cluster.
I don’t worry about inspiration. I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, ‘Well, now it’s writing time and now I’ll write.’ There’s no difference on paper between the two.
Frank Herbert, science fiction writer (via @academicladder)
If you want to write, you can. Fear stops most people from writing, not lack of talent, whatever that is. Who am I? What right have I to speak? Who would listen to me if I do? You’re a human being with a unique story to tell, and you have every right. Yours enlarges the circle.
Richard Rhodes: How to Write: Advice and Reflections, Harper, 1995.
Summer at the LSE. Londoners seize the day & students pause from their exams to enjoy the brilliant sun at Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
That initial element contains an enormous number of built-in decisions that limit the scope of the intellectual or visual problem at hand, thankfully preventing the paralysis that results from the overwhelming unlimited scope of decision contained in a blank page or empty space. The initial element provides a leverage point for expression. Also that starting element helps to find a problem that one can actually make progress on.
Edward Tufte’s The blank page, the empty space, the paradox of choice on Ask E.T. Forum, 2006. {This was one of my inspirations for The Blank Page: Effects of Constraint on Creativity}
There’s a big difference between adding a feature to an existing product and building a product around a philosophy.
Dustin Curtis (via 9-bits)
If you are a knowledge worker, cognitive capitalist, or a Reichian symbolic analyst, you will not be retiring at 65. Period.
The 15 Minutes that Could Save Five Years – Michael Schrage – Harvard Business Review
“Everyone reading this should take 15 hard minutes to ruthlessly reassess the reality of the “new” final years of their future career. The finish line has become elusive; the goal posts have been pushed back. Based on your current skill set and competences, what do you think your workday will look like when you’re 70?”