Wise piece. The 'only tweet things I wrote yesterday' rule is good. I do that too sometimes. Even then, many would-be tweets remain in drafts.
I like the building metaphor of fame too. I have a shed account and i've felt vertigo when a skyscraper account has retweeted or replied me to higher elevations however briefly .
I'm sure I'd tweet a lot more and more frivolously under anonymously. Under my own name/face, I feel the pressures or performance and conformity that you mention, so (skill issue aside) keep my engagement 3-10x (100x?) lower than impulse would have me.
This is a really wonderful article! I would describe it as an excellent, concrete guide to staying "true to yourself" as you gain any sort of success with personal work
"true to yourself" has always sounded a bit wishy washy to me (why _shouldn't_ I change myself in response to feedback, what's what growth is all about, right?) but this paragraph concretely answers that for me:
> Here are some specific examples of the behaviour I am drawn to. Writing cutting tweets, taking ever edgier positions, mainly commenting on commentary rather than the issues themselves, defending my "side", seeking to antagonize the “enemy”, forgiving myself and my friends small errors while holding others to high standards. And in a different direction, posting ever more [obscure] jokes, developing a single repeated "bit", jumping on tiktok, being in with the cool kids. In general, it is a focus on being seen rather than doing something well
It seems similar to an organization internally optimizing for fulfilling OKR's rather than delivering value. Or, more simply: like studying for the test at the expense of learning & mastery.
A lot of the advice you give makes sense, the one that was a new insight to me/that I was most surprised by is "cultivate my north stars". I've always kind of thought of this as needing to figure out my north stars as "principles" of some kind, not as like, a community of people. But that makes a lot of sense (it's more flexible, as you change and grow, the people as-north-star are people who change and react to you)
Yeah and I think I am particularly wary of turning off the kind of people who would warn me if I were going insane or who filling my north stars with yes people.
Wise piece. The 'only tweet things I wrote yesterday' rule is good. I do that too sometimes. Even then, many would-be tweets remain in drafts.
I like the building metaphor of fame too. I have a shed account and i've felt vertigo when a skyscraper account has retweeted or replied me to higher elevations however briefly .
I'm sure I'd tweet a lot more and more frivolously under anonymously. Under my own name/face, I feel the pressures or performance and conformity that you mention, so (skill issue aside) keep my engagement 3-10x (100x?) lower than impulse would have me.
Here's to keeping my shed tidy for now!
This is a really wonderful article! I would describe it as an excellent, concrete guide to staying "true to yourself" as you gain any sort of success with personal work
"true to yourself" has always sounded a bit wishy washy to me (why _shouldn't_ I change myself in response to feedback, what's what growth is all about, right?) but this paragraph concretely answers that for me:
> Here are some specific examples of the behaviour I am drawn to. Writing cutting tweets, taking ever edgier positions, mainly commenting on commentary rather than the issues themselves, defending my "side", seeking to antagonize the “enemy”, forgiving myself and my friends small errors while holding others to high standards. And in a different direction, posting ever more [obscure] jokes, developing a single repeated "bit", jumping on tiktok, being in with the cool kids. In general, it is a focus on being seen rather than doing something well
It seems similar to an organization internally optimizing for fulfilling OKR's rather than delivering value. Or, more simply: like studying for the test at the expense of learning & mastery.
A lot of the advice you give makes sense, the one that was a new insight to me/that I was most surprised by is "cultivate my north stars". I've always kind of thought of this as needing to figure out my north stars as "principles" of some kind, not as like, a community of people. But that makes a lot of sense (it's more flexible, as you change and grow, the people as-north-star are people who change and react to you)
Thank you for writing this
Yeah and I think I am particularly wary of turning off the kind of people who would warn me if I were going insane or who filling my north stars with yes people.
super helpful! thanks for modeling thoughtful intentionality