I tend to notice things other people don't

Obviously unrelated problems tend to be non-obviously related

I had a LiveJournal once.

And then I had a Blogger.

And then Twitter happened and blogs kinda went out of fashion and with them so did details, nuance, and depth—look, back in my day, you couldn’t just get on your phone and bang out some SMS-length half-idea. We had to blog uphill—both ways.

But Twitter is now X and X marks the spot where Twitter died. So here you are, reading a blog. And here I am, blogging again. For the first time.

Anyway, like I was saying, I tend to notice things other people don’t, like

• how the unresolved anger towards your parents is actually the reason why you aren’t getting your dream job

• how a comment such as "all men are trash" is less a truth and more so a reflection of who you are attracted to as well as who you're capable of attracting

• how Fendi and Fenty are two separate companies and that should be fucking illegal what the fuck? WHO is allowing this?¹

And as I write this out, I'm realizing that when I say I notice things, what I really mean is that I notice the non-obvious connections and relationships between things. I notice them because I’ve spent a lot of time and energy cultivating the skills of paying attention. And in 2024, that’s actually really difficult.²

When you pay attention and think deeply about what you notice, you realize that so much of what seems to be unrelated is very much related. When you think deeply about a seemingly obvious problem, you start to see non-obvious solutions. And non-obvious connections. And our lives improve in sustained ways as opposed to the dopamine hits of the quick-fix band-aids we see on Instagram.

Although whenever anything is handwritten it just feels more right?

I think I accidentally developed this skill being a film editor.

Editing is all about problem solving. I could teach pretty much anyone to put a scene together. But a lot of the time, you do that and the scene just doesn't work. Now what? The solutions are many but are all generated from knowing the film on a foundational level and thinking deeply about how the story, characters, and themes are connected.

So yeah I went to school to make movies and it turns out I'm also kind of a millennial philosopher with a clear voice and strong perspective or whatever.

I express my perspective in my private journal, which I've written in daily for over a decade. Also to my therapist, who thinks I'm very charming and funny and no that's not because I'm paying her, I always make her say it the moment the session is done so I get a real, off-the-clock compliment. It also leaks out through my completely inane Instagram stories. And let's not forget all the unprompted pseudo-therapy sessions AKA voice memos to friends. Regardless of how my perspective is expressed, I have started to think of these expressions as wisdom. My friends think of them as “please stop sending me 12 minute voice memos.”

For most of my life, I thought everyone noticed the underlying issues and either didn’t have the right tools to fix those issues or simply didn’t care enough. But very recently I’ve discovered that

• most people aren’t paying attention to the world as much as they’re paying attention to what other people think about them (answer: nothing)

• having the patience to notice and pay attention is now a difficult skill to learn that will become more and more valuable over time, giving us a competitive edge in almost every area of life

• 12 minutes isn't even my voice memo record—I think Sharn got a 20-minuter one time

I'm going to post ideas weekly. Sometimes they'll be short. Sometimes they'll be long. Sometimes they'll be fully realized. Sometimes they'll be a seed—a shower thought that isn’t quite ripe. And I think that’s a good thing. This space is a digital garden, where crops of ideas will be planted and pruned and continually shaped into increasingly specific philosophies that will, if I'm successful, be helpful for those who stumble across it.³

And I’d love for you to come on this journey with me, both as a reader and also as a member of an engaged community where we hone the skill of paying more attention to the world and uncover the non-obvious connections. And in doing so, improve our lives. Together.

Okay, it got a little AMC “we come to this blog for magic” at the end there, but you get it.

So let’s GO. I have a growing list of topics and ideas that I want to discuss, but you know me pretty well. I want to hear from you about what you’d like me to cover—click the comment button below and let me know. Let’s just play in the dirt and have somefun together.

1. Don’t even get me fucking started on Louis Vuitton and Louboutin.

2. 24 BCE on the other hand? Much easier due to fewer distractions (assuming you hadn’t been conscripted into your city-state’s latest military campaign).

3. I mean this literally: posts will be posted but they will be updated over time with revisions, new perspectives, and links between related concepts as I discover them. Fun!