Reading

Reading represents quotes and book references from personal reading across technology, philosophy, creativity, and culture.

On Learning

In the beginner mind there are many possibilities; in the expert mind there are few. — Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginners Mind

After you have practiced for a while, you will realize that it is not possible to make rapid, extraordinary progress. Even though you try very hard, the progress you make is always little by little. — Shunryu Suzuki

Even in wrong practice, when you realize it and continue, there is right practice. Our practice cannot be perfect, but without being discouraged by this, we should continue it. This is the secret of practice. — Shunryu Suzuki

The purpose of studying Buddhism is not to study Buddhism, but to study ourselves. — Shunryu Suzuki

When you want to hurry something, that means you no longer care about it and want to get on to other things. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

On Truth and Reality

Truth, uncompromisingly told, will always have its ragged edges. — David Shields, Reality Hunger

All the best stories are true. — David Shields

Human memory, driven by emotional self-interest, goes to extraordinary lengths to provide evidence to back up whatever understanding of the world we have our hearts set on—however removed that may be from reality. — David Shields

The stories you tell come true. If you believe everyone is untrustworthy, youll build that into your systems so that even the best people have to act like the worst people to get anything done. — Cory Doctorow, Walkaway

Meaning, ultimately, is a matter of adjacent data. — David Shields

On Technology and Power

Security is about how you configure power, who has access to what. That is political. — Joseph Menn, Cult of the Dead Cow

Small groups with shared values can do even more, especially when they are otherwise diverse in their occupations, backgrounds, and perspectives. — Joseph Menn

We were pirates, not mercenaries. Pirates have a code. — Joseph Menn

If you need to pay me to do math, thats because youve figured out how to starve me unless I do a job. A job creator is someone who figures out how to threaten you with starvation. — Cory Doctorow, Walkaway

On Information and Connection

Copies have been dethroned; the economic model built on them is collapsing. In a regime of superabundant free copies, copies are no longer the basis of wealth. Now relationships, links, connection, and sharing are. — David Shields, Reality Hunger

Value has shifted away from a copy toward the many ways to recall, annotate, personalize, edit, authenticate, display, mark, transfer, and engage a work. — David Shields

On Systems Thinking

Some interconnections in systems are actual physical flows. Many interconnections are flows of information—signals that go to decision points or action points within a system. These kinds of interconnections are often harder to see, but the system reveals them to those who look. — Donella Meadows, Thinking in Systems

Systems can be nested within systems. Therefore, there can be purposes within purposes. — Donella Meadows

Youll be thinking not in terms of a static world, but a dynamic one. Youll stop looking for whos to blame; instead youll start asking, Whats the system? — Donella Meadows

On Creative Work

For the morning writing, her ritual is to rise around 5:00, make coffee, and watch the light come. Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact. For me, light is the signal in the transaction. — Toni Morrison, Daily Rituals

You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do. — Shunryu Suzuki

When you bow, you should just bow; when you sit, you should just sit; when you eat, you should just eat. If you do this, the universal nature is there. — Shunryu Suzuki

We ourselves cannot put any magic spells on this world. The world is its own magic. — Shunryu Suzuki

On Travel and Experience

You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car youre always in a compartment. On a cycle the frame is gone. — Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Life doesnt happen along interstates. Its against the law. — William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways

As soon as my worries became only the old immediate worries of the road—Whens the rain going to stop? Who can you trust to fix a waterpump around here?—then I would slow down. — William Least Heat-Moon

On Community

Thats the walkaway dilemma. If you take without giving, youre a mooch. If you keep track of everyone elses taking and giving, youre a creep scorekeeper. — Cory Doctorow, Walkaway

What bothers me about the whole concept of pacifism, is that its fundamentally elitist. Poor people who have to live every day with violence by police arent going to see anything admirable in inviting police violence passively. — David Graeber, Direct Action

Humor is one of the great binding things in the world. The thing about acidheads is, they think authority is funny. — John Perry Barlow

On Personal Growth

Bit by bit, she learned to surf the moods. She recognized the furies as phenomena separate from objective reality. They were private weather, hers to experience alone or share with others as she chose. — Cory Doctorow, Walkaway

When your mind becomes demanding, when you long for something, you will end up violating your own precepts. If you keep your original mind, the precepts will keep themselves. — Shunryu Suzuki

Books Worth Reading

Technology: - Cult of the Dead Cow by Joseph Menn - What the Dormouse Said by John Markoff - The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner - In the Plex by Steven Levy

Philosophy: - Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig - Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

Systems: - Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows - Company of One by Paul Jarvis - The Utopia of Rules by David Graeber

Creative Process: - Reality Hunger by David Shields - The War of Art by Steven Pressfield - Daily Rituals by Mason Currey

Culture: - Direct Action by David Graeber - Notes of a Native Son by James Baldwin - Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon

Fiction: - Walkaway by Cory Doctorow - The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin - Exhalation by Ted Chiang

Note

These quotes come from years of reading. They are starting points for thinking, not final answers. Read the original books. Find your own connections. Keep questioning everything.