Ryan Holiday: “Wanting to be a "writer" was your first mistake”

“The problem is identifying as a writer. As though assembling words together is somehow its own activity. It isn’t. It’s a means to an end. And that end is always to say something, to speak some truth or reach someone outside yourself.

[...]

No one ever reads something and says, “Well, I got absolutely nothing out of this and have no idea what any of this means but it sure is technically beautiful!” But they say the opposite all the time, they say “Goddamn, that’s good” to things with typos, poor grammar and simple diction.”

Holiday is one of those guys who has achieved quite a lot at a young age, and can dole out advice like "go do interesting things" as a 26-year-old without a hint of pretension.

This particular post really speaks to me for two reasons:

1. I do self-identify as a writer. It's my standard response whenever asked what I do for a living.
2. I don't lead a particularly adventurous life. A happy one, sure, but it's hard to write interesting things when most of your time is spent at home.

If nothing else, Ryan has given me some food for thought. Perhaps a little more adventure in my life is in order, hm?

* * *

If you want to read more from Ryan Holiday, I recommend his book, The Obstacle is the Way. It's all about applying the tenets of stoicism to view life's obstacles in a totally different light. He also has an excellent book recommendation newsletter I've been subscribed to for years.

Drafts 4 for iOS

Huge update to one of my favorite apps. There are more new features than you can shake a stick at, some of which I listed in this Tools & Toys post only minutes ago.

Drafts 4 is a $5 paid upgrade for existing users, which I hope I never see a complaint about because Greg works hard to keep the app up-to-date and relevant. This is an app I use all the time, and I'm happy to support him again.

iOS 8's Time-Lapse Feature

Dan Provost of Studio Neat examined how the time-lapse feature in iOS 8 works and shares his findings.

“Time-lapse videos look best when they are buttery smooth, and dynamically selecting intervals in this fashion would create a jittery and jerky video. So what does Apple mean by "dynamically selected intervals"?

Turns out, what Apple is doing in quite simple, and indeed, pretty clever.”

Apple's method is indeed clever, even elegant.

(By the way, can I just geek out for a moment about how gorgeous the Studio Neat website is nowadays? My goodness.)

Josh Gintner's Review of the Olympus E-M10

Though I consider Shawn's review of the Olympus E-M10 to be the canonical one—sure, I'm biased—I also enjoyed Josh Gintner's take on the camera.

“I was utterly amazed at the difficulty in finding an online review that documented the real aspects of buying and owning a camera. Every review talked about f-stops, ISO settings and RAW capabilities. All I wanted was a camera that could take pretty great photos on the spot without having to fiddle with four dials in the process.”

Josh's review clocks in at over 4,000 words and includes plenty of eye cand- er, sample photos. He really did his homework on this one.

A Little More Playful

Yesterday, Shawn Blanc guested on Myke Hurley's podcast, Inquisitive. They discussed the Tools & Toys redesign, as well as the site's history and how our editorial team came together. The parts about starting projects and managing teams were particularly interesting.

Side note: I listened to the show live, and it was a bit surreal to hear Shawn talking to someone else in real-time about how he originally discovered my old site, Unretrofied, two years ago.

All-New Tools & Toys Coming Tomorrow

I just returned from a week-long vacation, and didn't get a chance until now to link to Shawn Blanc's announcement about the upcoming relaunch of Tools and Toys. Better late than never though, right?

“Starting next week, we’ll begin publishing several new types of original content. This will be in the form of photo essays, editorials, gear guides, reviews, and interviews. This will all be in addition to the daily posts we’ve always been publishing; we will continue linking to new and cool things that are out there.

The site is also getting a complete design overhaul, including a brand new logo. My friend, Pat Dryburgh, has done an amazing job re-imagining the site’s design. I cannot wait to pull back the curtain on it next week.”

I cannot tell you how excited I am about this. We have tons of awesome things in store for Tools & Toys, which you wonderful readers of The Spark Journal are sure to love. The new design alone makes me giddy.

As I write this post, the T&T site has officially shut down while we prepare everything for the official unveiling tomorrow and the days thereafter. Be sure to sign up for the email newsletter to be notified when the new site launches, and so you can be entered to win something cool.

Scenes from the New American Dustbowl

Similar to the previous link, novelist Alan Heathcock made a visit that provided real perspective about the climate problem:

“I feel badly, not just because others don’t care, but because I was reluctant to care, too. It’s hard to make people care because there’s a general mistrust of desperation, as if a desperate person has replaced logic with emotion, truth with exaggeration. Each night I’ve gone through my notes and fact-checked the farmers, doubting what they told me. Even after seeing the land and meeting the people I second-guessed their claims and statistics, only to find, time and again, they were telling the truth.”

People tend to write off climate concerns as something that only affects poor people in faraway places, too distant to be concerned about. But it's happening right here, right now.

Even if you're not one of the insane people who deny climate change entirely, you must understand this isn't just a problem for your great-grandchildren to deal with. We will likely feel its effects within our own lifetimes. Our children certainly will.

Think about that the next time you decide to write about how you didn't like your huge iPhone.

Meet the Real Victims of Climate Change

Brooke Jarvis visited Papua New Guinea and was confronted with the issue of climate change more directly than even she had anticipated:

“Elias had heard that ice was melting, but hadn’t heard why. No amount of reading or writing about climate change can really prepare you to look into the face of someone who will soon flee her home and explain the greenhouse effect.”

As if by cruel joke, my cigarette-smoking, motorcycle-obsessed neighbors across the street decided to rev their engines SUPER loud and peel off down the street just as I reached the end of this piece.

Notebook Tagging

Adam Akhtar shares a clever tagging system for physical notebooks:

“[...] notebooks are hard to organize your ideas. You either split your notebook into several sections for each 'category' and end up wasting valuable pages in the quieter sections or you just write your ideas as they come along making them hard to find later on.

If this sounds familiar then you are going to love this little hack I was taught here in Japan by a friendly salariman. It's a little messy, and not something I'd use all the time but for the right subject could come in handy.”

May implement this idea in my own notebooks soon.

"Like a Bubble Surfacing in Water"

While doing research for this Tools & Toys post about the 2015 Hobonichi Techo planner, I came across this quote from Shigesato Itoi, the guy who created it (emphasis mine):

“When people are alone, they have this hazy, blank period of time they can’t put a name to.

The nameless feelings experienced during those nameless times make up a major element of a person. And one day, like a bubble surfacing in water, something will emerge in the form of words. I hope the Hobonichi Techo can serve as a means to keep those words.

I’d like the Hobonichi Techo to be a fishing net to catch all the things you think and feel during your unnameable times. Of course you can use the techo as a scheduler, but there are already other tools you can use for that. I get the feeling there’s never been a container to keep things that surface during unnameable times, unimportant things that stick with you, or things that resonate with you when you don’t know why.”

This translates well to how I think about and use Day One.