Finding nourishment vs. identifying poison An Article by Austin Kleon & Olivia Laing austinkleon.com A useful analogy for what [Sedgwick] calls ‘reparative reading’ is to be fundamentally more invested in finding nourishment than identifying poison. This doesn’t mean being naive or undeceived, unaware of crisis or undamaged by oppression. What it does mean is being driven to find or invent something new and sustaining out of inimical environments. I would like to adopt that line as a mission statement: “To be fundamentally more invested in finding nourishment rather than identify poison.” Because you can identify all the poison you want, but if you don’t find nourishment, you’ll starve to death. Poison sniffers hopereadinggoodness
v0.crap I couldn’t seem to convince my writers that I was genuinely ok working with a super rough first draft — i.e., that I’d harbor no hidden judgment about their intelligence, commitment, or excellence at their craft. So I came up with a new word. “Just give me a v0.crap.” (Pronounced “version zero dot crap”.) v.0.crap works because it’s attuned to the psychology of the situation. It’s punching through our innate desire not to “look bad”, plus years of corporate conditioning that tells us not to share less-than-polished work. It’s easier for people used to delivering exceptional work to feel they’ve exceeded the goal of “crap”; they can sit comfortably in “good enough for the current purpose.” Courtney Hohne, The monkey, the tiger beetle and the language of innovation blog.x.company Writing, Briefly qualityideaswritingmaking