From Paul Graham’s latest essay, “The Need to Read“:

… writing is not just a way to convey ideas, but also a way to have them.

A good writer doesn’t just think, and then write down what he thought, as a sort of transcript. A good writer will almost always discover new things in the process of writing. And there is, as far as I know, no substitute for this kind of discovery. Talking about your ideas with other people is a good way to develop them. But even after doing this, you’ll find you still discover new things when you sit down to write. There is a kind of thinking that can only be done by writing.

I haven’t been writing and it shows in my thinking; short, fitful, and halting attempts to grapple with ideas.

While I have struggled with the momentum of putting thoughts into words, I have been enjoying the long form writing on offer at Substack. It’s a stretch goal but as I try to get going again, I’d love to be a part of that ecosystem. Substack feels like an anti-twitter; the content is long form, well thought out, and focused. These qualities permeate the disparate interests I’m drawn to – whether I’m reading Common Sense, Declarative Statements, or Huddle Up, it’s the sort of writing that you can fill up a coffee cup and sit back and enjoy.

For the moment, however, the goal will be small. To write, to think – again.

Visual Futurist Syd Mead passed away early this year. I’ve been a long time admirer of his since making the connection of his work and the sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner.

When I was young I used to draw spacecraft and futuristic spaceports imagining an exciting world of the future. Little did I know there were people who actually did this for a living and I was, in my own amateurish way, trying to be Syd Mead. It was no different than when I’d shoot hoops in the driveway pretending to be Michael Jordan.

I’m fortunate to own a copy of The Movie Art of Syd Mead Visual Futurist and since his death I’ve spent a lot of time looking through his work.

There is a lot of polish to the final concepts but one thing I love about this book is the focus on how he would sketch his way into the final ideas.

His process was not of dealing with futuristic ideas in isolation; when he imagined the future it was a totality – an entire world. In interviews he describes coming to his ideas not just as a matter of “concept” but one of problem solving… thinking about the future and how it might take shape in the face of the conditions and circumstances of arrival.

This sort of design thinking requires detail: measurements, proportions, materials… many other things into which Syd wove his final ideas and renderings.

During his life he worked on many projects – it would be difficult for anyone to have missed his influence. Blade Runner still tops my list (with Aliens as a close second) but there are so many others. I leave off with a short documentary on his life.

Sadly this content emanates from a series of tweets. Although it has been unrolled, I’m adding a redundant backup here.

Brian Kopelmann on becoming a writer:

1) No teacher ever singled me out and told me I should consider a career as a writer. Come to think of it, no fellow student ever did either.

2) I was also a late reader. I had a big verbal vocabulary. A gift for remembering/using words. But I didn’t really become a reader until the summer after 4th grade. My mom gave me the book Tales Of A Fourth Grade Nothing. I stayed up all night to read it. Then read all summer.

3) Eventually, I taught myself to read very quickly. I didn’t develop some kind of technique, but I learned a kind of hyper focus–the entire world would disappear when I read which allowed me to read fast and comprehend a great deal.

4) Still, I struggled, badly, in school. If a subject was boring to me, I wouldn’t do the work in the class. Couldn’t, really, so, instead, I would read novels during class, hiding them behind the book I was supposed to be dealing with.

5) I acted in high school plays and assistant directed, but again, not once did a teacher or fellow student suggest I should try and make a career as a performer or writer or creator in the arts.

6) And, although I always felt great kinship with artists, I didn’t think I could be an artist either. I always thought artists were predetermined, special, picked out ahead of time, anointed.

7) Now, I don’t want to lie or be falsely humble: I knew I was a smart person, or smart enough, and I knew I had a way with words–that is, I could write an essay or paragraph and do it in a memorable, easy to read way.

8) But I truly thought that I didn’t have the stuff really creative people had. And I was, secretly, a perfectionist. So if I couldn’t spin gold right away when I tried to write something, I wasn’t able to finish it.

9) This inability to finish work, this giving up, this quitting, felt like suicide to me. Led to self hatred. Even as I found success professionally, in a related field, but not as an artist, I would sometimes try to write, and then quickly give up.

10) And then, months later, would wake up in the middle of the night, try again, delete it, throw it out, wake up hating myself. But somewhere in there, my wife, Amy, told me she knew I was a writer. That I should try it. That I deserved to try it.

11) Soon after that, our first child was born. Looking at him, I knew I didn’t want to be the kind of father who would lie, who would tell him he could be anything he wanted as long as he tried, if I, myself, hadn’t tried to live it, too.

12) And I realized that being blocked led to something dying in me. And that like any other kind of death, this death would be toxic, and the toxicity, the bitterness would leach out of me onto those I loved. I didn’t want that to happen.

13) And so, finally, my best friend @Davidlevien gave me Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way, and I found myself in it. I found what to call my fear and inability to work. And I started doing morning pages, each day. These pages unlocked and unblocked me.

14) They gave me a ritual, a beginning of the creative day, a way to get beyond perfectionism. They made me realize that no one can anoint you as an artist. You have to do the work, each day, and then, maybe, you just become one. By doing.

15) Shortly thereafter, I stumbled into a poker club, called Levien, told him there was a movie we should write. And that became Rounders. I tell you this because I see from the questions/ comments you ask that many of you are as scared as I was.

16) And I want you to know that you are smart enough. That the teachers didn’t know. That the echoes of their voices don’t matter. And that if you show up each day to do the work, you won’t need anyone else to tell you anything. You will just be, by virtue of doing, an artist.

17) (I understand the ways in which it was easier for me than for most. I was raised with money. I was a white man at a time when that gave me a huge leg up. I had no college debt. I made money young. But none of that stops you from doing. It just made it easier for me).

Brian Kopelmann, twitter thread.

These photos spark a rabbit hole of thoughts and emotion.

“The struggle of good against evil feels less like a cosmic battle than a longstanding sports rivalry between teams whose glory days are receding. The head coaches come and go, the uniforms are redesigned, certain key players are the subjects of trade rumors, and the fans keep showing up.”

A.O. Scott on The Rise of Skywalker

“…we perfect, most dangerously, our children. Let me tell you what we think about children. They’re hardwired for struggle when they get here. And when you hold those perfect little babies in your hand, our job is not to say, “Look at her, she’s perfect. My job is just to keep her perfect — make sure she makes the tennis team by fifth grade and Yale by seventh.” That’s not our job. Our job is to look and say, “You know what? You’re imperfect, and you’re wired for struggle, but you are worthy of love and belonging.” That’s our job.”

– Brené Brown