The case for rereading An Article by Mandy Brown aworkinglibrary.com Reread a book enough times, or often enough—keep it at hand so you can flip to dog-eared pages and marked up passages here and there—and it will eventually root itself in your mind. It becomes both a reference point and a connector, a means of gathering your knowledge and experience, drawing it all together. It becomes the material through which you engage with the world. readingunderstandingconnection
Misinterpretation as inspiration A lot of people think dreams and drugs involve some magical inspiration. I think otherwise. I rarely get inspired by dreams or drugs, but I have my own secret source of inspiration: mishearing other people. Somebody says something, I misinterpret it, and the misinterpretation is quite interesting – more interesting than anything I would have come up with on my own if asked to generate an interesting idea. Maybe it’s a clever joke or turn of phrase. Maybe it’s a neat idea. Sometimes I misunderstand people’s entire positions, and end up with positions much more interesting than the ones they were trying to push. Scott Alexander, Negative Creativity slatestarcodex.com Mondegreen mistakesinterestdrugsdreamscreativitymondegreens