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Doing the same exercises at the same level at the same time and place with people who are interested in the same thing as you is like, one of life’s cheat codes after school (whether it’s compulsory or collegiate) especially if you’re in a new city and don’t have an existing support network / friend group (added benefit is keeping your mind active and learning and getting better at new skills 😎)
I’ve taken filmmaking, comedy writing, and DJing classes and after each one I’ve picked up at least one new friend I could hit up for a coffee, dinner, or in the best case, to collaborate on a project I’m excited about but am struggling to find the motivation to get started on.
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I like going to my little classes. Learning never stops, and also you don’t have to try to learn a new skill alone ! rejoice !
Feb 5, 2025
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Look for community classes in and around you and try one, alone or with a friend. It’s a good way to learn something new, and to learn things about yourself— it’s especially good to pick something you’re bad at, and stick with it in spite of being bad! Learning can be clumsy and imperfect.
Feb 7, 2024
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something so special about seeking learning experiences once you’re out of school! my brain is a sponge babe we’re on the up&up
Feb 7, 2024
Top Recs from @alaiyo
Mar 23, 2024
a treatise on the attention economy - checked it out on libby and got through it over the course of a work day, a lot of really interesting social and cultural explorations about how time itself is the final frontier of hypercapitalism and what decommodification of our attention and time should look like
the book starts with a story about the oldest redwood tree in oakland and how the only reason it’s still standing is bc it’s unmillable, and how being uncommercializable is essential to our survival. it ends with an exploration of alt social media platforms (mostly p2p ones) and what keeping the good parts of the social internet and rejecting the bad ones should look like
all in all a super valuable read; my only nitpick with the book is that odell isn’t just charting the attention economy but also attempting to “solve” it and relate it back to broader concepts about labor and social organizing, but her background is in the arts which leads to some really wonderful references to drive the points home while also missing some critical racial + socioeconomic analyses that one would expect (or at least really appreciate) from the book she promises to deliver in the introduction. but this does also make the book easier to read which is good because everyone should definitely engage with what she has to say
will definitely be revisiting
Mar 25, 2024