Dopp Juice Archive

Nic Askew put together a video interview of Seth Godin speaking on curiosity. It’s so great to see Seth‘s animated face and voice speaking on the topics that I usually get only from him via text.

Here’s my quote mashup of the interview, for those who don’t have five minutes to watch:”What’s a fundamentalist? A fundamentalist is a person who considers whether a fact is acceptable to their faith before they explore it. As opposed to a curious person, who explores first and then considers whether or not they want to accept the ramifications.”

“What we’re seeing is that fundamentalism has nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with an outlook, regardless of what your religion is.”

“These are the people who still have a 12 flashing on their VCR. They are fearful, they are stuck, they’re not interested.”

“What we’re seeing is about a 5 or 10 or 15-year period where people start finding their voice, and they start realizing that the safest thing they can do feels risky, and the riskiest thing they can do is play it safe.”

“These people are the curious. Curious is the key word. It has nothing to do with income, nothing to do with education. It has to do with a desire to understand, a desire to try, a desire to push whatever envelope you’re interested in. Here’s the reason these people count: not because there’s a lot of them, but because these are the ones who talk to the people who are in stupor. They’re the ones who talk to the masses in the middle, who are stuck. The masses in the middle have brainwashed themselves into thinking it’s safe to do nothing.”

I love Seth Godin’s post today on Workaholics:

A workaholic lives on fear. It’s fear that drives him to show up all the time. The best defense, apparently, is a good attendance record.

A new class of jobs (and workers) is creating a different sort of worker, though. This is the person who works out of passion and curiosity, not fear.

The passionate worker doesn’t show up because she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it’s a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation… because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it’s a lot more fun than watching TV.

I have been trying for years to explain this to friends and family: why I’d rather build a website than read a book or watch TV.

“What do you for fun?”

“I work!”

“No, seriously…”

“No. Seriously.”

I’m not gonna say that I always get it right — the balance between work and self-care — but I will say that it’s an absolute gift to be living in a world where I get paid to do what I already do for fun, and where “going to work” and “doing my hobby” are often the exact same thing.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there are a heckuvalot of tools out there. Here’s what’s working for me right now:

• Thunderbird – Managing my email (loving: filters, folders)
• Firefox – Browsing the web (loving: tabs, the web developer extension)
• WordPress – This blog (loving: admin panel, active community of developers)
• Google Reader – Blog-reading (loving: tags/folders, shortcut keys, starring)
• Ma.gnolia – Collecting miscellaneous links (loving: bookmarklet, preview thumbnails)
• LiveJournal – Keeping track of friends (loving: filters, threaded comments)
• Flickr – Sharing photos (loving: tag searches)
• Twitter – Microblogging and keeping track of tech pals (loving: SMS integration, Twitterrific, the fact that I can display my most recent tweet at the top of this blog)
• Last.fm – Listening to music (loving: discovering new music that I actually appreciate)
• SocialText – Keeping track of work notes (loving: separated workspaces, useful text editor)
• LinkedIn – Professional networking (loving: the reviews people have left for me there ::blushes::)
• GreenCine – Keeping my apartment stocked with good movies (loving: the independent film selection, not giving money to NetFlix)
• EggTimer – Timed reminders (loving: the “repeat alarm” feature, for jumping-jack breaks every ten minutes during bust-ass sessions. seriously.)
• Electric Sheep – Screensaver (loving: being continually surprised and impressed)
• Skype – Group chats (loving: conversation history, decent emoticons)

You’ll notice that I didn’t name Facebook, Gmail, or Google Docs — the current darlings of the web tool landscape. I have accounts with all of them, but to be totally honest I don’t have much use for any of them right now. And I’m okay with that.

If you’re curious about my hardware, here’s what I keep nearby:

• A dented and refurbished (yet sticker-free!) 15″ Mac PowerBook G4 Laptop (in a backpack that does not look like a laptop bag).
• 30 GB ipod (with cheap-ass black earbuds that do not look like they’re coming out of an ipod)
• Treo 650 (which is not meeting my needs as well as I’d like, but I just had it replaced, and I’m not ready to upgrade)
• Whiteboards – Capturing ideas, organizing quick lists, brainstorming, doodling
• A Moleskin 1-page-per-day calendar notebook – Recording major tasks, goals, and hours worked each day
• A regular lined Moleskin notebook – All other notes, journaling, lists, and spontaneous poetry
• My Roomba – Vacuuming (loving: automated scheduling, how incredibly freaking adorable it is)

The missing piece for me right now is a camera (mine recently bit the dust), but I’ve already put in a good word with Santa on that one.

This post was inspired by Web Worker Daily’s list today.