I need to make dinner reservations for this upcoming Friday, but I figured I’d distract myself by writing this weeks newsletter and buying King Krule tickets for his upcoming tour. Messy messy messy flow. Here’s a song to play on loop while you read.
I went home to the Poconos for the Thanksgiving break, taking some proper time to tune out. However, I did bring the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson with me. Naturally, I’ve meant to read this for a while. Just never found the time or place for it. Holed away in the Poconos while I battle an annoying cold matched up well.
Little has surprised me about the book so far, other than the somewhat basic writing. However, I guess I didn’t realize how early and often Steve starting dabbling with LSD. (as a side note i think we’ll have extremely small micro-dosed infused seltzers within 10 years in certain states) Along with the fact that his India voyage was when he was about 19.
So much of his early life was dedicated to taking the time and space to be aimless, to understand who he truly was. Yet in this aimlessness, was a very rigorous and obsessive person. Deliberately crafting his intentions and energy. Stepping away from tinkering and electronics to fast and meditate and farm.
Steve is one of maybe three or four tech people I care to go back and watch video of, or read their interviews. It’s probably the most cliche tek boi thing about me, and I’m sure I’ve written about it before. But I don’t mind. It is what it is. And going back has been really enjoyable. In a weird way it has allowed me to carve out space to reflect on this year… where I went from not being able to pay rent to getting flown out to Lisbon to give a talk on product… as well as the past 5, 8, 10 years.
I’ve hit this point where I’m now searching for the space to place my reflection. More and more, I don’t enjoy being very public about my life. I don’t feel the need for it. I just want to work, have people look at my work, understand it. I view this newsletter as part of the documentation of where my mind has been issue over issue.
I think I have the unique luxury, given all the circumstances and those that have given a piece of themselves for me to be where I am, that I get to wake up daily and ask. Just exactly, who do I want to be.
I don’t know if I actually care very much for business in the traditional sense. I like money, I like having it, I like using it. But most importantly, what I care about for any organization I choose to craft is the ability to build something -> that allows others to create something new that is revealing of themselves. I think the act of team building is exactly this exercise. Pulling in outsiders, to have them buy into an organization, in order for them the manufacture something new.
One of the reasons I love aesthetics is because it’s the manifestation of an emotional search, that has the ability to translate into a rendering I associate as a piece of my consumable identity. Put simply, our aesthetic choices are reflections of how we relate to ourselves. Not to say that our aesthetic choices can’t act as lies to our true selves… that fact in itself is another layer to the complexity of expression.
I don’t own a single piece of Supreme, because there is nothing about Supreme that is Reggie. But there is a lot, or at least I like to think there is a lot about ALD that is me… or Frank Ocean’s music… or a Hilma Af Klint painting. And that too… the belief that something represents you. Whether it is aligned or not, is equally as important as something actually representing you well. Because there are a set of values/principles/utterances that you’ve tied yourself to, delivered through these artifacts. Something something mimetic desire……. i’m trailing
My point in this was that all creation is spiritual, and there is a felt difference between that which is churned out for the sake of generating cash and that which is crafted with the intention to make you feel something new.
This is probably why I don’t buy a lot of things. I don’t feel things from most products. But film, food, and music. A dope ass jacket done through a collab. A video game that never gets old. The Eames Lounge Chair. These are crafted differently.
Cash is the residual of making a good product. The process you want to live on is the enduring effect of emotional attachment and catalyzation through your product. We do this by creating new stories to consume (film, music, a book) or paradigms to create in (figma, iphone camera, eternal hopefully).
And so although I want to return the fund fist over fist, I must recognize this as a byproduct of the core object: that my product will either exist as a vessel for someone in Boise to express themselves in a way they never before thought possible, or it won’t.
some images i felt like adding, you can stop here if you’d like, i’m not writing anymore
Congrats you scrolled further down. Lately I’ve been wanting to delete my twitter, but it’s too important to the tech community and just… crap we do. But lately I’ve just been finding it so wasteful for my energy. I had a whole 3 paragraph rant written, but I deleted it because it wasn’t worth putting out there. But you should know it existed because that’s how bleghhhh i feel. Ok that’s my e-boy shit for the night. Peace.
I don’t do edits really, so excuse typos and things that don’t make sense.
Thanks so much for giving me your attention. I hope it was worth it, if not… unsubscribing will not hurt my feelings, and will give you back time you literally cannot have back.
Much love.