ignore strenuously

Robin Sloan:

I want to under score it here: where the internet is concerned, we are in a crisis of discovery. Anyone with inter esting new work to share — their own or someone else’s — rummages in the tool shed, looking for a seed spreader or a slingshot, and emerges with an egg beater and a single unmatched glove. Is this all we’ve got??

Every now and then I realize that there’s something going on, somewhere on a random corner of the internet, that I have unaccountable and lamentably missed. Doesn’t happen often, but often enough to keep the flame of hope flickering. And curiously enough, the only site associated with the Big Tech firms where this happens is YouTube. (Make of that what you will; I’m not sure what to make of it.)

Robin continues: “The strategy is the same as it always was: cultivate small, sturdy networks of affinity and interest. Connect them to each other. Keep them lit.” When I find something, I make a point of sharing it, usually on my newsletter — but I bet I could do a better job of that.

And at the end of Robin’s post, this vital word, which I’ve been preaching for a long long time:

I would add: there is power and leverage in not being interested in the stuff everybody else is interested in — the stuff other people insist is urgent.

Map the regions of your own affinity and interest, across all relevant dimensions: intellectual, aesthetic, moral. The rest, you can ignore freely. Ignore strenuously!

I want to add that to my small hoard of encouraging declarations: Practice Hypomone! Read at whim! Festina Lente! (That’s one of Robin’s faves also.) Ignore strenuously!