This Is Not a Newsletter

This is not a newsletter. Sure, it looks like a newsletter, but things aren’t always as they seem. As René Magritte famously painted under the image of a pipe in his Treachery of Images, “This is not a pipe.”

Magritte’s point was that representations of things are not the things themselves. If that image he painted were actually a pipe, the viewer could pick it up, stuff it, and smoke it.

Marketers surround us with images that are designed to make us think they’re real. It’s more difficult than ever to separate commercials and ads from news, entertainment, and the products and services we use every day.

So, in the interest of being clear and describing things exactly as they are, I repeat: this is not a newsletter.

Each Tuesday (OK, most Tuesdays, except these last few weeks while I’ve been building this) for the last three years I have delivered a taste of what I’m reading, watching, and thinking about, right to your inbox. I have called these emails your Taste of Tuesday. In today’s world, most people would call this an email newsletter.

I’ll spare you the deeper dive into how we create meaning from pixelated representations of letters on our screens, or how basically our entire sensory experience is a movie that we play in our heads, which is why dreams seem so real… for now what’s most important is that this email newsletter is not actually an email newsletter at all.

(For the TL;DR kids in the back: If you’re getting dizzy, click HERE and then skip down to my usual snippets below and continue reading each week just as if the last few paragraphs never happened. For everyone with attention spans larger than fruit flies on fire who enjoyed the CURIOUS AF appetizer just now, tuck in and get ready for the main course.)

A few weeks ago I asked why you read this. Forty percent of you open these emails, which is a terrific response rate (thank you!). I want to give you more of what you find meaningful. Your answers helped me understand how I can do that.

Those of you who responded just received a personal gift from me. You are now a shareholder in this space, which from now on will be known as CURIOUS AF. You will continue receiving CURIOUS AF for free, and you will also get first dibs on everything else I add here, forever. The rest of us will eventually put some skin in the game. I invest a considerable amount of time creating and curating what I hope is meaningful content for you. In return, I’m going to ask you to experiment with me for the next three months as a shareholder. After that I’ll ask you to contribute $5 a month to continue.

Why add another monthly fee to life? Because this one represents an opportunity you can’t get anywhere else I’ve looked. Let’s start at the beginning. CURIOUS AF is an interaction in which we participate asynchronously. Over here, I consider, research, select, and write about ideas that I share to provide value for you. On your end, you respond in a variety of ways: maybe you open the file, read, think, smile, throw up in your mouth, forward, delete, curse, laugh out loud, fart, whatever. My actions and yours are what make this a “thing.”

“But how in the great wide digital world,” you may be wondering, “can we OWN a share in the
“thing” you’re describing?”

Enter Web3 and the Unlock Protocol. We’ve moved way beyond using the blockchain for bored apes and made up money. As digital philosopher and inventor of the spreadsheet Bob Frankston once told me, “The internet is a series of agreements about how we communicate.” The blockchain allows us to document those communications and agreements as discrete transactions. From that data we can make all sorts of meaning. Membership. Credentialing. Mastery. Why in the world would you hire someone based on their G.P.A. when you can see everything they’ve thought and learned from experts right out in the digital open? And why would you pay a school for your transcript when you can keep a more accurate and trustworthy learning record yourself right here on the blockchain?

That’s just the beginning. When you read something interesting here, or learn something new anywhere, you can get credit for it. Just being a subscriber identifies you as a curious consumer of interesting ideas, media, and technological innovation. Your CURIOUS AF membership shows that you're curious. In our next few issues I’ll show you how to use it to create a digital résumé of what you’re already thinking and practicing, and even tip people who give you something valuable to think about or guidance along the way.

In 2018 I gave a talk at M.I.T. describing how we might be able to use the blockchain to document and assign value to our learning in real time. Imagine: you want to juggle. That desire is evidence of intrinsic motivation and speaks to your character. There will be a way you can mint a CURIOUS AF collectible for that. Your desire leads you to select a YouTube video that teaches you how to start juggling. You practice. More recognition. You record your first successful attempt. Validation. You reach out to a juggling expert for feedback and guidance. More proof and validation. Maybe you put a CURIOUS AF juggling badge on your digital résumé so everyone on LinkedIn can develop juggling envy or bring you in to talk about balancing multiple priorities in project management (see what I did there?). Are you getting the picture?

Those of you who know my work with Open-Source Learning can probably see where I’m going with this. This is the beginning of what could very well lead to a global system of public education. A learning economy. It’s possible to integrate chains and use them in very specific ways to create communities of support, mentorship, and critique. We will be able to use CURIOUS AF to demonstrate networking and job skills, to be sure, but we can also bring our whole selves and combine interests and disciplines that traditionally don’t seem related. Imagine: “I want to find a juggling world champion pizzaiolo in my neighborhood in Taipei,” or “Who can I ask whether I’m optimizing my nutrition and training for the Boston Marathon – in this massive banana costume?”

Take the first step right now and become a CURIOUS AF member. All you have to do is click HERE and follow the prompts. If anything gets weird, send me a reply email and we’ll figure it out. For the next six months we will use this for all sorts of fun.

With all that in mind, here is the part that looks just like what you’re used to seeing:

What I’m Inspired By –

The Tour de France just ended, and the Olympics are halfway done, and I love watching both. The athletes inspire me with their talent, skills, strength, speed, and endurance, but also with their dedication and resilience. I grew up admiring athletes like Rocky Bleier who came back from career and life-threatening injuries. These last couple weeks I watched Jonas Vingegaard come back from “breaking every bone in the upper right side” of his body and puncturing both lungs to ride 2100 miles over three weeks and place second in the Tour de France. Then I watched Simone Biles and Suni Lee return to form after extended health-related absences to win gold and bronze, respectively.

Every day, beyond the bright lights of major televised sporting events, real people persevere through unimaginable adversity just to get out of bed and go to work. And then, every once in a while, tragedy strikes and someone dies. Or nearly dies, suffers a massive brain injury, lives, and then runs 314 miles with his wife. Meet ultra marathoner Todd Barcelona. From The Atavist: “After a horrific accident, doctors told Todd Barcelona that he’d likely never run again. So he and his wife decided to run farther than they ever had before.” Todd’s wife Allison is at least as amazing as he is. This love story in sneakers kicks Romeo & Juliet’s ass.

Then there is Emma Carey, who survived a 14,000 foot fall from a helicopter. (You read that right.)

I’ve never skydived without a parachute or won a gold medal, but I have eaten thirty of my dear friend Monica’s pumpkin chocolate chip muffins in one 24 hour binge, so I can identify with one Olympian. Of course I’m impressed with Katie Ledecky’s dominance and Leon Marchand’s rise to the top, but my favorite begoggled Olympian in Paris is Henrik Christiansen, a Norwegian swimmer whose love of the chocolate muffins in the Olympic Village has taken on a life of its own.

What I’m Zipping –

Some of the best technology has been around my whole life. I love a good zipper. But how can something so mechanically simple become so frustrating? They stick. They separate. They taunt you with those little teeth. Don’t worry, here’s How to Fix Every Common Zipper Problem.

📺 What I’m Watching –

I was looking for two hours of fun and The Fall Guy delivered (where did they find Lee Majors, and why don’t they find him more often?!). Rolling Stone UK sums it up: “Light on plot, heavy on action, but deliriously entertaining. It might not be perfect, but the first blockbuster of the summer is the definition of a brilliantly mindless popcorn flick.”

🤔 Quotes I’m pondering —

The life so short, the craft so long to learn.
– Hippocrates

You can’t always write a chord so ugly to say what you want to say, so sometimes you have to rely on a giraffe filled with whipped cream.
– Frank Zappa

Thanks for reading, and please feel free to reply to this email. Which bite is your favorite? What would you like to see more or less of? Any other suggestions?

Best,