"There’s an attitude here that I think can be expanded to any work in which observation, noticing, witnessing what is before us is privileged over trying to make it into something else. There is a fundamental humility to working in this way, to acknowledging that our understanding of the world around us is always incomplete. This is an incompleteness without judgment: not incomplete as inferior or flawed but incomplete as open-ended, infinite, wondrous."
A powerful, beautiful analysis of a key aspect of writing, thinking, generally the creative process. Eye-opening!
#dreams #thinking #creativity #writing #undersense #TheUnPinDownable #MandyBrown
What a tour de force. An enlightening essay, making important connections between the current AI craze and long-standing traditions of "intelligence" ideology, racism, class systems. Much to think about. I will need time to digest. Bookmarked for repeat reading!
'“Work” must lose its centrality in the minds, thoughts, and imaginations of everyone. We must learn to see it differently: no longer as something we have—or do not have—but as what we do.'
~ André Gorz cited by @aworkinglibrary there: https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/exit-strategy
'The assertion that slop-makers will replace most jobs is a pathetic attempt at resurrection: only work that has been demeaned into the grave could be supplanted by such boring and obsequious ghosts. The real work has always been elsewhere. Perhaps it’s time we follow where it takes us and leave the dead to their tombs.'
~ Mandy Brown
#exitStrategy #exit #pivot #beliefs #burnOut #hope #ecology #ecologism #politicalEcology #degrowth #quotes #quote #MandyBrown #AISlop #genAI #generativeAI #book #career
"All communication is lossy", 2022, by Mandy Brown: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/all-communication-is-lossy/ 🧵
#communication #conversation #facilitation #collectives #attention #teamWork #conversations #feedback #joy #creativity #MandyBrown
"Our work is not only what we deliver for a boss or an organization, [but] all the ways we use our unique gifts to contribute to a living world, to our own liberation and to the liberation of every living being around us. This is the work that rarely shows up on a job description but we can never let go of, the work we yearn for even when we’re tired, the work we grieve when we’re cleaved from it"
https://everythingchanges.us/blog/what-is-your-work-now/
"Grief needs space and attention. Refusing to grieve is like wrapping a wound too tight—it can’t heal without light and air. We need to acknowledge it, to listen to what it’s telling us, to be patient with it. To accept it.
"The same is true for fear."
Mandy Brown wrote: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/take-care/
#quotes #acceptance #selfCare #purpose #hope #anxiety #mentalHealth #positive #choices #MandyBrown #TrumpWin #TrumpPresident #PresidentTrump #results #grief #fear #personalSafety
Misunderstanding why
Exasperated, the therapist finally suggests that she could stop writing. “Stop?” says the writer, blinking in surprise.
~ Mandy Brown, from A battle with the gods
slip:4uaowi8.
The challenge is to realize that the error I’m making is in thinking the writing part sucks. Of course it’s not easy— that’s what makes it fun. (Is the lesson I need to continue to work to internalize.)
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Use what you've got; change the course: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/change-the-course/
#agency #change #empowerment #struggle #workCollectives #collectives #community #teamWork #workPlace #dei #womeninTech #corporateLife #MandyBrown
Publishing while maintaining perspective
This is perhaps the greatest conundrum of our current technological era: the desperate need to connect with one another, because it is our only hope of survival; combined with the fact that nearly all the means of connection available to us are deeply—possibly irredeemably—fucked. Syndication, as I am currently experimenting with it, is then an effort to try and navigate that terrain, to find some productive way to play in the outskirts, to let the work out into the world while (hopefully) minimizing the misery that is reflected back.
~ Mandy Brown, from A peasant woodland
slip:4uaowi9.
Yes, to everything from Brown (and not just this particular piece.) Beautiful thoughts therein around why one should “publish own site, syndicate elsewhere (POSSE)”—my methodology since the beginning.
Unfortunately, the Internet went from “publishing your own stuff is difficult”, straight to “it’s easy to publish on platforms other people control.” To this day, it is still quite difficult to get your own domain name and begin publishing in a way that you control your own content. Worse, we went from people discovered and read your stuff (back in the “publishing your own stuff is difficult” era) to the now where no one can find or read your stuff regardless where you publish it (unless you pay money to the platform brunch-lords.)
Fortunately, if you have a little bit of time and a little bit of curiosity, you can still find everything that people are publishing.
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#InternetTech #MandyBrown #PublishingPlatforms #RSS #SocialNetworks
"Accepting that you have some #agency might hurt: you bump up against the systems that constrain your choices; you see more clearly how other people’s choices limit (or expand) your own. But it keeps you connected to that source, that font of energy that is yours and no one else’s. It keeps you hooked up to who you are, and to what you want."
#MandyBrown: https://everythingchanges.us/blog/haves-and-choices/
#quotes #acceptance #relationships #selfCare #purpose #hope #anxiety #mentalHealth #positive #selfStudy #choices
the roamer
Estelle Platini
Eric Maugendre on collectives
Enjoy
Craig Constantine
