What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.
Most, if not every, opportunity in life begins with a conversation. Want more opportunities? Actively pursue more conversations with more people.
“Rage, rage, rage, world,
and break;
I stand here and sing
in secure peace!”
Tobe, tobe, tobe Welt, und springe;
Ich steh hier und singe in gar sich’rer Ruh!
– From the Bach Cantata “Jesu Meine Freude”
If you know photographers, the joke is it’s the finest form of delayed adolescence ever invented.
– Rick Smolan, EG Conference 2007
I myself find that I trust my own writing most, and others seem to trust it most, too, when I sound most like a person from Indianapolis, which is what I am. What alternatives do I have? The one most vehemently recommended by teachers has no doubt been pressed on you, as well: to write like cultivated Englishmen of a century or more ago.
- Find a subject you care about
- Do not ramble, though
- Keep it simple
- Have guts to cut
- Sound like yourself
- Say what you mean
- Pity the readers
— Kurt Vonnegut, “Palm Sunday”