07/27 2025
The coolest people I've ever met are unaware of how cool the way they do things actually is. They're not analyzing the systems behind their actions --- they're just doing the thing. Take reading, for example. Let's consider two men for whom reading is a hobby.
The first man has never heard of Goodreads. He has never heard of e-readers. He has a library card and visits twice a week, often talking to the elderly man who works there about new releases or things he enjoys. At home, he has a notebook where he occasionally writes down books he particularly enjoyed, buying them when they go on sale. His shelves are chaotic. At first glance, they seem to be in alphabetical order, then not, then maybe grouped by genre --- but no, he insists, they're arranged. There's another pile on the windowsill. You ask how he finds anything. He looks at you and says, “What do you mean?”, and that is true, they're right there.
The second man organizes everything neatly into collections. Goodreads is used to track everything he has ever read, and everything he will read, and he is told what to read and he listens because data does not lie. Or, he is suspecting data could lie depending on if it earns the company money, but at this point he's too invested to attempt anything else, he says to himself. Maybe if another company in the future comes up with a solution, he could switch to that. But it helps him, for now, so what? He has some books at home, but he is working on switching mostly to his e-reader. The problem there that he is trying to solve is that he is reading so much, and so many different books, that it is becoming hard to find what he is looking for. If only Amazon could push an update so one could organize everything automatically. Now he has to spend time organizing it manually. His strategy is to create folders by genre and then alphabetically, so he ends up with for example Amish Romance a-z, Retirement fiction c-e, and so on. Whenever he buys physical books, it messes up his organization system since a physical book can't be in two places at the same time. If Amazon would only fix the Kindle, everything would be automatically fixed, and he could focus on reading again.
But organization is important! Yes, it is. But at what point is it taking away from the actual thing you are attempting to do? At precisely the point where you start to think about it.
The reason I started thinking about it was I when I read a fantastic blog post about music discovery (read it!), which in turn led me to spend more time consuming new music. Which also made me start thinking more about organization. How are other people organizing their music libraries for discovering new music? How about their existing libraries? I haven't upgraded my headphones in a while. But wait, IEMs are apparently more bang-for-your buck, but which one should I choose, which one is everyone else picking, but what if some are paid off or are just bots, and how can I know the difference; Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, or going vintage iPod, but then how to get MP3s legally, do I care about legality, I don't know --- I looked out the window. I saw a man walking on the street with a hoodie, listening to music using wired iPhone earbuds from his busted looking iPhone. I envied that.
And what does that say about me?
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Try as I may
I am always kept safe
In my, in my right minded hell
We build our own versions of hell and call them home because we prefer planned cities made out of concrete and glass which maintains our grand vision of ourselves, rather than chaotic cities which have grown piece-by-piece after needs arise organically because we think hard and care much about the things we do. It's the same desire as nicotine helps fix, isn't it? As Allen Carr says, nicotine is like wearing a tight pair of shoes just for the relief of taking them off at the end of the day. Yes, exactly. There is a very clear connection between cause and effect. It is definitive and totally under your control, without ambiguity. In that sense, cigarettes are actually very rational of a tool. They create a very special perpetual circle of hell, but it is rational and logical. Especially if it is used to protect yourself against some other idea. Wouldn't you rather think about how much you'd like a cigarette, something you can easily fix on your own, rather than how bad of a reader you are even if you enjoy it a lot, and how you could potentially fix it by analyzing yourself and your flaws? And that's not even mentioning acting on that analysis, which is the really difficult part. Million, if not billion, dollar companies hinge on the very notion that you won't change anything about yourself.
The coolest people I've met take what they love very seriously. They hold themselves accountable. Their systems aren't about having the best method. They're about making things work, preserving agency and momentum. From the outside, their system looks like chaos. But to them, it's precise. The books aren't unsorted. They're just not sorted for anyone else.
Though, I have found a few commonalities to these systemless systems:
Remember, if you know how to swing a hammer you can build a house but only if you pick it up.