What makes a word “real”?
This TED Talk will improve our understanding of the way language works and our view of dictionaries. I have thoroughly enjoyed it and it’s a good 17 minutes spent.
Language change, according to language historian and English professor Anne Curzan (emphasis mine): "The language is not going to change so fast that we can’t keep up; language just doesn’t work that way. […]
What Should Exist?
I’ve been ‘marinating’ overnight on this question from James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter. “What should exist?” is a question from Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft.
Clear’s newsletter this week focuses on resilience, growth, and new opportunities. I find it most timely as I’ve been revisiting visualization—not in the data visualization sort of way—but more in the way of using one’s imagination to create the life one wants.
Actually, as I write this, I realize we are generating data as long as there is still breath in us, so can we visualize the ‘data’ we are creating in the best possible way? […]
Svenska för invandrare (sfi) - kurs C
Fantastic news! I’ve been bumped up the level to Course C (skipping B)!
I’m currently enrolled in the Introduction class and had formally started my Swedish for Immigrant (SFI) program on Monday, 25 October. Starting Monday, 6 December, I will join the existing Course C group, which is at a higher level of proficiency.
Good Sentences
I never thought I would find beautiful, good sentences in a business book such as Measure What Matters by John Doerr but found them I did. […]
Quotes — “information acquired are grasped in their relations to one another”
“But information is AN UNDIGESTED BURDEN unless it is understood. It is knowledge only as its material is comprehended. And understanding, comprehension, means that the various parts of the information acquired are grasped in their relations to one another — a result that is attained only when acquisition is accompanied by CONSTANT REFLECTION upon the meaning of what is studied.” —John Dewey, author of “How We Think” (1933)
The “Mundanity of Excellence”
The “Mundanity of Excellence” was coined by the sociologist Dan Chambliss. It says that really great performance often involves doing a lot of ordinary—even boring—tasks exceptionally over and over again, with the intention of trying to improve a little bit each time.
This ties in really neatly with the concept of “deliberate practice” as the improvement method in the book Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool.
When I came across the Mundanity of Excellence, […]
Quotes — “much the way a mechanic might learn about an engine by taking it apart”
“every so often I’ll hear writers say that there are other writers they would read if for no other reason than to marvel at the skill with which they can put together the sort of sentences that move us to read closely, to disassemble and reassemble them, much the way a mechanic might learn about an engine by taking it apart.” —Francine Prose, author “Reading Like a Writer”
White Space
I enjoy reading Dorie Clark—be it her articles or books—and her podcasts and interviews are awesome too. A few days ago I started reading her latest book, The Long Game.
Part one of the book stood out to me: white space, which is essentially about carving out time for opportunity. Can we carve out 20% of our time working on what we think will benefit us most? The 20% concept was taken from Google where their employees are empowered to be more creative and innovative. Dorie says:
There’s something compelling about the idea of cordoning off time to experiment and see where your passions take you. […]