Espresso Shots 2-22-26

It's that time again for my weekly update, which includes a short collection of noteworthy finds, posts that inspire, as well as a few reflections from the past week or two. I'll aim to land these in your inbox by the weekend, in time to pair with your morning coffee (or your preferred cup of inspiration).

The Latest Drippings ☕️

• My Writing Journey. Writing is thinking, which is why I try to write something every day. My routine is now a habit: When I wake up, I write a sentence or two in my journal about what's on my mind. I take random 'fighter pilot' thoughts down throughout the day. Occasionally, I even write longer thought pieces, not to build an audience, but because it's 'cheaper than therapy'. 'I often talk about the importance of writing. It's a critical form of communication, and the better you are at it, the more likely it is that what you have to say will be heard. But it's more than that, and I called it out myself nearly 50 years ago: writing requires thinking. Your teachers were right: you can't write well about what you don't understand.' Side benefit: writing helps build critical thinking skills.
• Incremental Theory. 'Individuals who have an incremental model for organizing life experience believe that their true potential is essentially unknown and unknowable. It is the clay in the potters hand, ready for them to formed through experience. In the nature-nurture perspective, they focus on the nurture elements, knowing that environments may significantly create change.' I've observed that many talk about having a growth mindset without really pushing all corners of it and seeing how many personal qualities are malleable. 'Instead of internalizing a mistake as an identity—thinking 'I am a failure'; this mindset allows you to view it simply as an event 'I failed today' — which serves as informative feedback rather than a permanent label.' Learning is a continuous process, and I try to view life as a work in progress. Alan Watts: 'You are under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago.'
• Intentionality Through Scarcity. One of my favorite mental tricks is the power of artificial constraints, and how it can bring focus. 'Don’t bother spending time thinking about all the things; focus on thinking about the things that matter most.' It's also probably why I enjoyed the concept behind intentionality through scarcity: 'Basically, it’s the idea that you create better focus and better results by deliberately limiting your options, so what you choose actually matters.'
• On Being Stuck and How to Escape It. 'It took reading a recent essay to improve my own theories: we can get stuck because we keep trying what won’t work but can not see it.' I really like where Scott is going with his upcoming book, Rules to Live By. 'We forget that we’re struggling with a situation not necessarily because of its challenges, but because we are stuck in who we were when it started.'
• The Questions I'm Finally Asking (And Why Hope Looks Different Now). An incredible and deeply reflective view on asking the wrong questions. 'I'm asking different questions now. Where I used to ask, 'How do I get ahead?' I'm asking, 'What actually feels like living?' Where I used to ask, 'What will this achieve?' I'm asking, 'Does this reflect who I want to be?' The old questions were all about acquisition and advancement. The new ones are slower, messier, harder to measure.' Get busy living, or get busy dying.
• Better Sleep in Ten Days. I've never been a good sleeper - the slightest light or noise, and I pop awake, and my brain starts going. I've tried reducing blue light, taking supplements, sleeping cold, etc., but I'm lucky to get more than 6 hours. On a good night. Some good strategies in here that I have to try. 'Something pop into your mind? Have a notebook by your reading chair or your bed. Tossing and turning in bed and not sleeping? Since your bed is only for sleeping, get out of bed and read or listen to some music. Or maybe something a bit more woo-woo, like handpans or singing bowls (a playlist). There is research that sounds in the human vocal range have a calming impact on both our physical and mental systems.'
• The Omnipotence Dilemma. 'We tend to think more capability automatically leads to more progress, so that sounds great in theory. But what I’m noticing is that when the cost of taking action approaches zero, a strange dynamic seems to appear.' I really enjoyed this post on the dangerous loop that Anne-Laure Le Cunff refers to as 'The Omnipotence Dilemma'. 'The deeper cost is that you outsource the hardest but most important part of creative work: forming a view. What becomes scarce is no longer skill or access. What becomes scarce is attention, conviction, taste, trust, time, and responsibility. And what worries me the most is that this cost shows up slowly. Projects that don’t quite make sense. A subtle loss of our ability for strategic thinking and meaning-making. Being unable to articulate why in the first place you’re doing this work.' The cognitive debt is real.
• Why Most Organizations Get Sick (and Keep Treating the Wrong Symptoms). In '​Zen and the Art of Organizing​', Dr. Steve Morlidge describes a series of organizational diseases: 'These quietly spread through companies, often without anyone noticing. They are so common that most leaders assume they are just how things are done. But they are not. They are symptoms of deeper structural problems. And once you see them, you can’t unsee them. You begin to recognize that the organization itself may be unwell.' A really interesting read on why organizations get sick, and with a powerful viewpoint (and one I agree with) that 'organizational illnesses stem from broken systems, not broken people.'
• Diffusion of Responsibility. There's a lot of discourse on the Internet these days about AI. Some of it is doomerism, some of it is real, and I'm sure we'll land someplace where no one is currently expecting. 'What do we get? Slop. Slop generated by guys who – when called out for their irresponsible behavior – just start crying about how they only wanted to “share” or “inspire” or “educate” while handing out running chainsaws to kids. And that was what makes me fucking furious. Not just these dudes being spineless but the disrespect to those who have run serious projects for decades to build a more humane stack.'
• 30 Facts About Childhood Today That Should Terrify You. Ok, the stats in this one broke me: 'The average child now plays outside for only 4-7 minutes per day' and 'lack of physical activity is so extreme that teachers report children arriving at school without the strength in their fingers to hold a pencil or even a knife and fork.' 🤯
• Hackers Made Death Threats Against This Security Researcher. Big Mistake.. This one reads like a film script - and it's a wild journey. 'Anonymous personas targeted Nixon because she had become a formidable threat: As chief research officer at the cyber investigations firm Unit 221B, named after Sherlock Holmes’s apartment, she had built a career tracking cybercriminals and helping get them arrested. For years she had lurked quietly in online chat channels or used pseudonyms to engage with perpetrators directly while piecing together clues they’d carelessly drop about themselves and their crimes. This had helped her bring to justice a number of cybercriminals—especially members of a loosely affiliated subculture of anarchic hackers who call themselves the Com.' If you don't have access to MIT's Technology Review, you can read the full post in this archive link.
• Amazon Web Services Vibe-Codes Itself an Outage or Two. Shocked.
• Do You Need a Writer's Room?. Having a dedicated space to think and to write is incredibly valuable. 'The tools for writing are cheap and omnipresent; an audience is waiting; the room is optional. If all that’s true, then what’s stopping you? The challenge has to do with language. Words have to refer; writing has to be about something.'
• Embrace Your Baldness and Be Free. The key takeaway from this one: Just be you. I'll leave it at that.
• Colossal Woolly Mammoth 'On Track for 2028' as Perception Around De-Extinction Evolves. Haven't we all seen movies that start like this and they end in total disaster? Just leave well enough alone.

Amor Fati ✌🏻