Posts
Enlightenment to Romanticism, Cybernetics to Complexity
The shift in the source of light
What’s left when you can’t use it
On Aesthetics, the general and the specific
Thirdness and the Efficiency Singularity
Week 9 of 10. Creative Surplus: A Chapter a Week.
No technology makes a meaningful exchange any better than it already is.
This week covers the most ground
Meaning-Making as Economic Activity
Creative surplus isn’t something you build toward or earn through years of grinding in a job you dislike. It’s the baseline condition of being a thinking,
From Communities to Circles
Week 8 of 10. Creative Surplus: A Chapter a Week
A circle is a band practice for solo artists.
In 2019, I set out to build an intentional
On Generative Value
Self-leadership begins when we learn to draw a frame without drawing a picture. Every other mode of communication is, in effect, telling people what to do rather
The Entropy of Creativity
CBS is opening an AI Literacy school in Brooklyn. Learn more →
There is a law that governs not just physical systems but human ones: left alone, things fall
AI, Embodiment, and the Limits of Replication
I recently met myself. Or something that was supposed to be me. Delphi had been trained on my content. ElevenLabs had been trained on my voice. By any
How Outsiders Thrive in the AI Economy
Otroversion, solitude, and creative surplus — why individuation is the only thing AI cannot replicate
The Practice of Discovery
Week 5 of 10 – Creative Surplus: A Chapter a Week
In abundance, all we have is philosophy.
Discovery is the first movement of creative surplus: paying attention to
Motion Without a Line
There is a particular kind of overwhelm that doesn’t feel like being stuck. It feels like the opposite. You’re flooded with energy, with ideas, with urgency.
The Economics of Mutuality
On living practice, self-authorship, and what can’t be optimized
Against a Personal Brand
There is a version of your life that is working exactly as designed. Your attention flows toward the same kinds of problems. Your professional network reinforces the same
Flat Work
If your entire professional identity is organized around serving clients, you’ve collapsed yourself into a role. You’ve become the helpful expert. The reliable partner. The one
Belief
Before You Believe Many Things, You Believe One Version of It
Why This Matters Now
PSA: I'm excited to announce the first online elective at Critical Business School — A Little Death, with Danya Shults, on endings and what they make room
The Edge Assumes a Self
The Block essay that Jack Dorsey and Roelof Botha published last week is worth engaging with. The historical arc and the argument that AI can now perform the
What No One Is Asking For
Week 1 of 10 – Creative Surplus: A Chapter a Week
The Costly Confusion
The highway can be built. The accidents require something else.
What We Wish Algorithms Could Predict
In a recent AI Literacy workshop, I asked the prompt: *What do you wish an algorithm could predict?* As the answers moved from the practical towards bigger, harder
The Margin as Center: Derrida, Self-Authorship, and the Work of Creative Surplus
Deconstruction is the act of noticing what you’ve had to set aside about yourself to stay legible. Derrida developed it in the 1960s from a simple observation:
Beyond Authorship
How We Grow Into Complexity
Building a Meta Community: 6 Years on
I started a meta-community in early 2020, just before we all stayed at our desks. The goal, as I wrote at the time, was to build a