Stepping Stones

Yesterday's note was the first of a 100 day challenge of publishing at least 100 words every weekday.  I'm doing this challenge to create a body of work in order to get an idea of the topics that I'm actually interested in writing about.

This technique is inspired by Kenneth Stanley's “objective paradox” — as soon as you create an objective, you ruin your ability to reach it.  His solution to this paradox is to collect "stepping stones," ideas used as building blocks in the future.

Stanley says:

"There's basically two pieces of advice I would give. One is collect stepping stones and honor interestingness... The second piece of advice is the more visionary angle, which is to recognize stepping stones when they snap into view for the first time."

I've come across this concept at least three other times, which is why I'm committing so much attention to this project.  That and I find I have a ton of ideas that slip through my mind like tears in the rain.  Short essays should be perfect for capturing these ideas to be used in the future.

“My life seemed to be a series of events and accidents. Yet when I look back, I see a pattern.” - Benoit Mandelbrot

“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” - Soren Kierkegaard

“You cannot connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards” - Steve Jobs