When the world saw too many morons, we needed oxymorons. Likewise for the intellect—we need oxyllects. For the world around us and inside us—where momentum is more important than structure.
Ever since I started working in technology, I was reading or watching content of my career interests—user experience, marketing, pitching, product management, SaaS and startups, content strategy, Product Hunt in the year 2014, international conferences, community projects and volunteering, and a lot more.
In the lot more, it was architecture and urban design, sustainable cities projects such as by SPACE10, SideWalkLabs, CityLabs, civic design projects such as by Code of America, Helsinki as City As A Service (2019), Frame Publishers, and many newsletters and publications by founders and technology leaders, VC funds, and more.
Every time, I was trying to make sense of the information and the knowledge collectively—not thinking that learning to make tea in Vienna, or to trek in New Zealand, or to set up campaigns in Marketo could be co-related.
The way you describe a B2B dashboard has definitely something to do with how you will describe your dental visit for an extraction.
The way you experience season’s first rain cannot be too different from how you might prepare for your first call with a new B2B prospect.
There is a connection and most of us either miss out on strengthening this connection or do not keep their canvas broad enough to see these together.
In this series, I plan to share what I see for my own self—one post a month trying to build.
(The backstory will not be a part of the future issues.)
It is like a first time trip to your dream city in the pre-Internet era. This is not about technology or art or food or the trek, or cities. You never know where you find that technology park too. This is for everything life around us, in some way, where small is also big.
Think of the people who care for you, and the ones you care for, and think of all of them while reading this post—will something in this post resonate with them? If yes, share it with them.
Take our twenty minutes to read it exclusively—no phone or notifications unless you are expecting something important.
Read it with zero expectations—it helps us stay calm and in the moment.
How temptation works
Imagine the temptation to write and then the temptation to leave it unfinished because I want to go out for my evening run. Temptations are complicated but sometimes in a positive sense too. This Aeon essay gets into it, nicely.
A Sublime collection on Resilience, photo by Unsplash
Our social graph
It comes back to us—what we make, by Henrik Karlsson.
Our social graph—by Henrik Karlsson
Water design
The stories of tap designs and door handle designs are well documented. This is what we had at our home—I often hurt my thumb while using this tap.
Tap design failure is water design failure.
Tap design failure is water design failure—by Vinish Garg.
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The defaults
A few weeks, I participated in a series where the contributors were writing on the state of design in 2024. When I thought about it on day one, I asked myself how we are writing about the defaults.
Design is the default. In the above example of tap design, this is not an engineering failure and a big consultancy corp might call it a leadership failure. They are not wrong but in my world, we call it a design failure.
On September 2, 1752, the people of Great Britain went to bed, and didn’t wake up again until the 14th—when 11 days were removed from the calendar. (Story)
Location: Whidbey Institute, Washington State, US (link)
Led by Emergence executive editor and Sufi teacher Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, this retreat will encourage participants to turn their attention to the deeper patterns around and within through spaces of requiem, invitation, and celebration—each offering a way to remember and realign with the Earth’s many rhythms.
Through talks, nature connection practices, meditation, discussion, and writing workshops, we will look toward an ancient understanding of seasonality, place, and cycle amid the discord of our time.
Really enjoyed this read! Thanks Vinish 🙏