Solitude and Leadership

January 24th, 2012
Solitude and Leadership:

Multitasking, in short, is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think.Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information…

Takes a little while to get going, but overall a great article about the virtues of seeking solitude from distractions in order to develop your own original thoughts.

Like this entry? You can follow me on Twitter here, subscribe via email here, or get the RSS feed if that's how you roll.
|

2 Responses:

  1. Notes of Interest: Volume 001 says:

    [...] A fascinating read on the loss of leadership in America, a trend the author ties to an absence of solitude. (via Mike Industries) [...]

    #1 - January 25th, 2012 at 9:44 pm
  2. ed says:

    This is quite clear in regard to what I have been trying to get across for years to folks.
    The value of Critical eclectic thought.

    The ability to break away from being one of the sheep.
    If there is anything that is going to save our freedoms in this country it is this. Vote Ron paul

    #2 - February 20th, 2012 at 10:38 am

Leave a Reply:

Shared
How to Do Philosophy:

If you’ve ever suspected that most classical philosophy is a colossal waste of time, Paul Graham tells you why you’re probably right.

TIME: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us:

Stephen Brill follows the money to uncover the pinnacle of corruption that is the U.S. Health Care system. A must-read article if there ever was one.

DIY Dot Org:

A beautifully designed site full of fun and challenging DIY projects. I could spend months on here.

The Steve Jobs Video Archive:

A collection of over 250 Steve Jobs videos in biographical order

Self-portraits from an artist under the influence of 48 different psychoactive drug combos.

Water Wigs are pretty amazing.

David Pogue proposes to his girlfriend by creating a fake movie trailer about them and then getting a theater to play it before a real movie. Beautiful and totally awesome.

Jonah Peretti's letter to BuzzFeed’s employees:

If you’re wondering what a excellent blueprint for a modern media company looks like, look no further than Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti’s latest email to his employees. In it, Peretti explains a lot of his company’s virtues, the most important being a relentless focus on always providing what’s best for the user. Vox Media (operators of The Verge) is the only other company I can think of which approaches this level of reform and execution.

The Covers Project:

I love this so much: a cross-referenceable database of cover songs, searchable by song or artist. Slowed down, acoustic covers — no matter the song — are so enjoyable to me that I wish it was a requirement to play one at every show. If you like them as much as I do, make sure to check out M. Ward’s Let’s Dance or Sun Kil Moon’s entire album of Modest Mouse covers.

“More and more people in this country no longer make or do anything tangible; if your job wasn’t performed by a cat or a boa constrictor in a Richard Scarry book I’m not sure I believe it’s necessary. I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter.”
- Tim Kreider’s denunciation of the cult of busyness is excellent. (via jimray)
The iPhone and Disruption: Five Years In:

Take your pick of about 20 great quotes from this Daring Fireball article. My personal favorite:

The iPhone is not and never was a phone. It is a pocket-sized computer that obviates the phone. The iPhone is to cell phones what the Mac was to typewriters.

sirmitchell:

Challenges of Getting to Mars: Curiosity’s Seven Minutes of Terror

The precision and innovation that is required for space exploration just blows my mind. I did not realize that Curiosity will have to basically land on Mars completely unaided by man, but it’s so much more complicated than that.

High speed liquid flowers. Beautiful.

Negative Equity Visualization by Stamen Design and Zillow:

Very cool interactive infographic showing you what percentage of homes in your area are underwater (mortgage-wise, not wetness-wise).

The Facebook Fallacy:

A well reasoned, extremely pessimistic outlook on where Facebook is going and how much of the ad-driven web it will take down with it (hint: all). Lots of great quotes in here, and lots of warning signs to heed. Part of me thinks the end of low rent display advertising on the web might be a good thing, however.

View Shared Archives