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It's been a few weeks since we issued our #100Days challenge, where writers of any level challenge themselves to write every single day for 100 days. Why? To explore. To discover a deeper well from where our thoughts come. At some point, you'll run out of things to say—so what will you write about then? That's the challenge. And make no mistake about it—it's not easy. But you come out the other side stronger. Keener. Sharper. Writing becomes a natural instinct. You never stare at a blank document and think to yourself—there's no way I can fill this with words. You don't think that, because…

There's something old-fashioned about trying to predict the future. I get a little uneasy when someone says "if it's like this now, imagine what it'll be like 10 years from now!" I feel a sense of robbery happening on the part of the future. A modern person attempting to predict the future conjures fantasies and prophecies as quaint as a first century prophet. Although I too can't help but let my mind run with seemingly autonomous calculations that assume a future value given a present value, I find it not respectful enough of the complexity of the human system. And were I so keen at this…

It’s wonderful to see how many of you are taking on the 100 Day Writing Challenge. The writing that you’re sharing is nothing short of genuine, sincere, and unfiltered. This was what we hoped for when issuing this challenge; that it would be an outlet for you to share who you are without worry and without judgement. If you haven’t read some of the posts of our members in the Listed Community, you owe it to yourself to have a read. Not just the #100Days challengers, but also the Listed members who write as a means to express themselves, whenever inspiration strikes. Writing on Listed is like…

Could you write every single day for 100 days? Most people find this idea mad. Write for 100 days? Surely my life is not that interesting. I would run out of things to write about. And that's where the magic lies. Yes, you will run out of things to write about. So what will you write about then? Ah—that's when imagination begins to explode. That's when creativity reaches its peak. That's when you discover—you're a much better writer than you thought. Yes, you can write 100 days in a row. And when you do, you'll never doubt in your ability to produce again. You'll never doubt in your…

There's been a lot of great bustle on Listed this week. Sure, we've had our regular contributors continue to bring us great reads, but the pace of users sharing their thoughts, notes, and personal progress has also increased positively. So, welcome to those that made their first post this week, and to all who continue sharing their stories. You've shared words that inspire, educate, and most importantly, resonate. The power of honest writing is that we see ourselves in everyone else. That is the potent connection that Listed aims to bring about. One of the cool features of Listed, besides…

On Listed, there's a wide variety of content, which shows just how diverse our community is. Since your listed page integrates seamlessly with Standard Notes, there's really no easier way to publish your thoughts to the world. If you haven't taken a look at some of the Listed pages in our community, I encourage you to have a look around at some of the great, and oftentimes, personal content being created here. There are several ways to interact with one another, or allowing your readers to interact with you as well. There's done-for-you email delivery of each new post, a guestbook, and…

Say you have before you a kitchen cabinet with three shelves. On the top shelf you have your most delicious snacks and delicacies. Chocolate chip cookies, crispy cheetos, and frozen pistachio gelato. In the middle shelf you have snacks that are "not bad", but not the most scrumptious. Maybe some beef jerky, plain pretzels, and a granola bar. On the bottom shelf, you have your survival snacks. You wouldn't eat them unless you were starving. For me that'd be plain almonds. I've found that when I'm in the mood for a snack, my hand will always reach for top-shelf items. If the cabinet is stocked…

A world in which advertisers know your every interest is scary. But a world where entrepreneurs build products no one ever hears about is even scarier. A few years ago, I bought a pair of $60 Nike shoes. They were thicker than your average modern Nike shoe, and much taller, reaching just above the ankle. They were great for moving around, playing basketball (when I did that), and just sort of general every day use. And as they started to deteriorate, I began looking for the exact same pair to replace them. But no matter where I looked, they could not be found. They seemed to be a much older…

When I was just a bit younger, I had dreams of becoming filthy rich. I wanted to do things big. If I were to found a company, it wanted to be a 500-person company. Hundreds of millions in revenue, headed straight towards an IPO. As I grew older, I found it more sane to focus not on size, but value. What problem do I want to solve? And how can I best engineer a solution? Numbers and scale became irrelevant. A lot of it was philosophically backed. We are constantly told to be happy with what we have. That “this is it”—if you can’t find contentedness with what you have now, you never will. And…

I’ve very well internalized the fact that things can only make you happy once. Then fade into drudgery. An addiction to material purchases and consumption is one for fools. No, I shall hook into a better addiction. One that can actually drive me to live a better, more fulfilled life. The consumption of information. The search for truth, meaning, and origin. Surely, with speed of light access to the world’s top source of information, I shall unencumber myself from these earthly chains, and ascend to scholarly, other-worldly status. I shall glide through life with buttery ease, and use the…

I had, until that point, managed to avoid spotting any references of a plane crash or incident. But here, thousands of miles away from the closest English speaking country, it had found me. Waiting in the hotel lobby of an archaic hotel in Colombia, I glimpse the Spanish headline on the table newspaper offered so generously to guests: 120 something something de aviacion something something. And a picture of a crashed plane. I knew what it meant, even without understanding the words. I avoided staring at the picture directly, but was able to infer its contents based on the enclosing context.…

It’s easy: what feels good in the short run feels bad in the long run. And what feels bad in the short run will probably feel good in the long run. Now, don’t go treating this like an absolute maxim—you’ll find plenty exceptions. But for my circumstances, I find this wickedly true. Anytime you attempt to optimize for short term gain, you are borrowing from the future. The life equivalent of technical debt. And anytime you optimize for long term gain, you are likely going to have to forego some “valuable” present chunk of time to perform some dull, painfully boring task. But, this alignment…

I’ve been playing images in my head. Sort of making believe how things might go, were I actually to act on them. When I’m imagining the things I would do, or the things I would say, or the places I’d go, I receive a small compensation for it. A tiny bubbling taste of serotonin. Yum. Delicious. Now let’s not change a single thing and go back to life exactly as it was. Every action requires some sort of positive energy expenditure. And unfortunately, my inner brain optimizations are on the highest setting. > Optimizing for minimum energy expenditure... What!? No! Don’t do that! Override…

Privacy is a question that I never quite seem to find a satisfying answer for. In the past, when I’ve asked myself why digital privacy is important, and why it’s worth struggling for, the answer I nestled on was that privacy is important because privacy is power. But that’s about as far as I got. Privacy was about keeping a balance of power between those who would abuse it for their own gain, and those who live out their lives, unconsciously leaving valuable trails of information behind. The idea was that privacy isn’t necessarily about you, but about building a long-term better society.…

In the game Factorio, your goal is to create a well-oiled factory that produces objects which are then used in other parts of your factory. I had a flash addiction to this game, meaning I played it intensely for a period of two weeks, then never touched it again. The game was dangerous. It synthesized the human incentive loop into a mind-wrapping game one could not help but be mercilessly sucked into. The game's purpose was mostly up to you, but, in order to upgrade your factory parts, in order to research new scientific methods of production, you needed to produce certain items at certain…