Intersectional Idea Wrap Up: 2021

Aftertaste, big picture x tiny details, Zettelkasten

Hello intersectional thinkers 👋

Greetings from Vancouver, where I’m ready to wrap up the year!

Ready to glide into the new year!

Here are 3 intersectional ideas to wrap up the year:

1/ Create an aftertaste: Interesting has evolved to be a politely derogatory term. If you ate something “interesting”, it’s usually borderline offensive.

But isn’t that border where creatives want to be?

We are attracted to what’s interesting, not what’s perfect.

This is one of my favourite mental models from Malcom Gladwell, storyteller extraordinaire. The idea itself might be a cliché, but the association with an aftertaste leaves a memorable sensory impact.

“You want an aftertaste, and that comes from not everything being perfectly blended together…The question is: What is interesting? That’s what has to drive any creative act.”

– Malcom Gladwell

Imperfections, flaws, quirks tantalize. Lifeless perfections bore.

2/ When big picture meets tiny details: 2021 marks a personal turning point.

I’m not one for details. Thanks to an insignificant detail, I lost a kids speed-clothes-wearing contest on local TV at the age of 5 precisely because I didn’t do up the neck-restricting button between the collars. Which five-year-old would ever wear a shirt that was buttoned up all the way to the neck?! That detail missed the point. At least that’s what I thought.

The point is in the big picture. The direction. The goal. Details don’t make or break the idea. So, I’d quote Naval, priding myself on an efficient way of life:

"If you don’t know yet what you should work on, the most important thing is to figure it out. You should not grind at a lot of hard work until you figure out what you should be working on."

– Naval

It wasn’t until this year that I realized I had collected a bucket full of ideas, directions, goals. But I wasn’t getting to where I wanted to go.

Unwillingly, I took down Naval’s wise advice, and swapped it with this ego-stabbing reminder:

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.”

– James Clear

Time to put in the work towards unlocking that new identity. I’ll start by doing Ship 30 for 30 in January for my Twitter writing habit.

Here’s my $100 off coupon for anyone who wants to write for 30 days with a built-in Twitter engagement pod.

3/ Fleeting notes, literature notes, and permanent notes: I just started reading Matthew McConaughey’s Greentlights.

He kept a diary for 35 years:

“Notes about success and failures, joys, and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. Thirty-five years of realizing, remembering, recognizing, gathering, and jotting down what has moved me or turned me on along the way. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to get what I want. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.”

- Matthew McConaughey

It’s a love letter to life. And I’m keeping track of mine on Obsidian.

To be intentional with my notetaking habit, I’m using the Zettelkasten method. It’s the secret sauce to thinking intersectionally and tracking ideas effortlessly.

In a nutshell, Zettelkasten is a simple notetaking system that (1) captures your everyday (shower) thoughts and ideas from consuming content, and (2) systematically help you turn them into your unique insights.

Here’s my beginner’s Zettelkasten Guide on YouTube if you want to start taking notes on life.

Bonus: an important update to the 2021 favourite quotes category:

“We are not merely human beings having a spiritual experience, we are also spiritual beings having a human experience.”

- Maymie Chan

That’s it for 2021. If I find something else interesting between now and Dec 31, I’ll let you know on Twitter.

See you around the bend!

- Vicky