Hmm, I claim neither refined taste nor superior marketing ability. I’ve only cultivated minimum viable mediocrity at both. But I’m indifferent to both in a very specific way that makes them marginal concerns to me. Except I can’t name the central concern they’re marginal to.
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For years people have accused me of both a) leaving $ on the table, by not marketing myself enough and b) trafficking in middlebrow non-aesthetic stuff. But these are not a result of deliberate intent to self-sabotage or offend connoisseurs. They are side effects of solving for X
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I feel like there’s a triangle with beauty/taste at one vertex, money at another and X at the 3rd. I used to think X = make sense in 2012, but now I don’t think so. I don’t think I solve for making sense. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/08/09/the-interesting-times-triangle/ …pic.twitter.com/5Uh4ArRkNA
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I probably solve for some function of elan vital. Flow-of-Aliveness. Ymmv, but solving for either money or beauty as the principal component of utils has always seemed like a deeply acting-dead activity to me.
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Solving for aliveness, but in a mediocritizing way not optimizing way. If you solve for 100% alive you’re doing it wrong. I shoot for 60% where my base is probably 40%. So feeling 50% more alive than I’m temperamentally predisposed to, but 40% less than what my brain can handle
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“solving for” is essential engineer speak which may be why this quote stuck with me for years: “Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced”
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that's exactly why I use that language, to turn away the damn experiencers

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