Today I thought, "Why not read and respond to Visa's word vomit that corresponds to my favorite number?" One time no thought:

The throughline is a discussion of attention. If you care about tech why do you spend your attention writing about it instead of doing it? If you know what to work on why do you spend your attention on petty arguments? These examples are interesting to me because they're examples of a preoccupation with other people's attention: "Please read my articles. Please see things my way."

I'm not immune to caring about others' attention but the word vomit has me thinking: why? I ought to like the things I create regardless of whether 0 or 1000 people pay attention to them. And yet the mere thought of 1000 people paying attention gives me a jolt of dopamine. It's quite different from the pianist Visa mentions who doesn't want applause because they're not present during their own performance.

I'm usually present when writing or coding. An indication of my amateur status I suppose. I remain skeptical of Sasha's advice to write quickly even though it produced one of my better essays this month. I just think think think what should the next sentence be? But if I do this for myself then maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe the ability to write down the next sentence quickly is more important than the sentence itself. Hmmm? Hmmm!

This reminds me of a thought leader tweet about how the value of note taking comes from the action of taking the notes, and any future value is a bonus. Like the writer who doesn't edit while they draft. Like the absent pianist. Just do the thing and don't let your silly thoughts interrupt.

I also get a jolt of dopamine at the concept of effortlessness. Almost everything I do is effortful. I'm not sure what to do with that information though since I usually like the end result. I'm afraid that effortless creations are less good than effortful creations. But what if I weren't afraid? What if I didn't care about other people's attention?