About The Extract
One of my biggest fears is that our society is hollowing out thanks to digital innovations and mass media. Not in a curmudgeonly, old person way, but quantifiably. Our attention span is now measured in seconds, book consumption has been steadily dropping, and older hobbies are dying out altogether. Which brings us here, to The Extract.
People need real hobbies: crafts that take time to master, new approaches to life that reshape your perspective, creative outlets to explore. We need shared experiences to build communities around, windows into each other’s lives, regular meetings to form bonds. While the internet is great for a lot of reasons, it has some significant flaws: it steals attention, and it can fabricate very convincing imitations of social interactions. But humans need something more. Something real.
That’s where The Extract comes in. I want to help you find a new, interesting hobby, something to get excited about, that can help you push past everyday life and create memorable experiences. I learn about interesting things (usually for the first time), design interesting posts, and attempt to convince you to try and use this as the jumping off point. It might be a hobby, a valuable skill, a branch of philosophy, or just a bit of knowledge you’ll find useful. My goal is simple: to help you make the next step.
If you’re on the fence about it, I get it. Trying a new thing is hard. There’s no guarantee that you will actually enjoy it, and everything comes with a required time and money investment. Moving from Netflix show to Netflix show is easy, and video games are fun and designed to be engaging. But at the end of the day, you never find fulfillment -- just fleeting entertainment.
This is not a replacement for learning, but an appetizer.
Ultimately, The Extract should be a tool for you, a way to help you identify interesting paths to traverse and explore. It should make hard or complicated concepts accessible and help you get to the deep end faster. But please, if you find something compelling, do not stop here. Grab one of the books I suggest, email me for advice, or find someone who already knows how to do it, and go learn.
After all, the world was not meant to be lived in a box.
