hxh
Some of my favorite tips -- emphasis mine:
tl;dr:
- be bold about using bold
- short headers, few letters
- jump cuts work in text too
- variety in sentence structure makes for good reading, variety on a plate makes for good eating
- hey little reader lemme whisper in your ear ^58oqr1
- don't enjoy the little detours[1]
- build an unhealthy addiction to writing for people you'll never meet
Make the post skimmable
Since 1994, Jakob Nielsen and John Morkes have been conducting studies to learn how people read online. Their conclusion, which remains true, is that readers rarely read the whole page.
Online readers are active. They like to scan and skim, picking the information they need. Most readers will read only 20% of the words in a given article. (View Highlight)
• Writing short (8 words or less) and interesting headers that tell a story. Don’t go deeper than H2 or H3.
• Write short paragraphs of less than 5 lines.
• Use bold or italic fonts to emphasize important parts of your text.
• Separate sections with plenty of whitespace.
• State the idea behind each paragraph in the first sentence. (View Highlight
Never go for longer than three paragraphs without using one or more of the following:
• Pictures
• Diagrams or charts
• Code snippets
• Lists
• Headings
• Tables (View Highlight)
“This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety.”
— Gary Provost, 100 Ways to Improve Your Writing.** (View Highlight)**
The language you use can either bring you closer to the reader or create distance.
Write using I, we, and you. Don’t be afraid to express your opinions and views. Imagine you’re speaking to a close friend and don’t write anything you wouldn’t say in a conversation.
There are instances in which rules or style guides recommend not using such pronouns. Even so, you can still maintain a friendly tone by writing in the first person for the first draft and removing it on a second pass. It may sound like extra work, but it brings warmth into otherwise dry writing. (View Highlight)
Once the clutter is controlled, it’s time to check for missing links in your reasoning and places where you branched off the topic. Each paragraph should build on the previous one without any detours. This is very careful work that demands composure. Expect the draft to undergo multiple revisions until all paragraphs perfectly line up. (View Highlight)
• Make writing a habit: find the best time to write and make a habit of writing every day. Some people like the morning and night owls write best under the cover of darkness.
• Change the scenery: go to a cafe or the park. The library works too.
• Go for a walk: turn off the computer and do some exercise. Some of the best ideas I’ve had came to me when I wasn’t at the desk.
• Sleep on it: if you’re overwhelmed, let it rest for a few days and focus on other articles. When you come back, things will fall into place a lot faster. (View Highlight)
Each of us has many, many maps in our head, which can be divided into two main categories: maps of the way things are, or realities, and maps of the way things should be, or values. (Location 808)
The more aware we are of our basic paradigms, maps, or assumptions, and the extent to which we have been influenced by our experience, the more we can take responsibility for those paradigms, examine them, test them against reality, listen to others and be open to their perceptions, thereby getting a larger picture and a far more objective view. (Location 868)
Our character, basically, is a composite of our habits. “Sow a thought, reap an action; sow an action, reap a habit; sow a habit, reap a character; sow a character, reap a destiny,” the maxim goes. (Location 1163)
The world we live in is an amalgamation of physics, biology, and chemistry. These are invariants, facts about the universe that build the blank canvas that we live on.
On top of this, people have individual preferences (Joe decides to open a pizza shop because he thinks he's good at making pizza and he likes money), and societal preferences (Joe's pizza shop becomes a societal phenomenon, and people demand that it stays open, and serve them the hours that they want pizza).
There is a interesting emergent property where (human) reality is the agreed (or imposed) shared values of a society. The location and rent of buildings in Manhattan, to the acreage of a farm come down to shared values about property ownership, on the backdrop of physical reality (you can't have a 200 acre farm in the middle of Times Square, so the solution is to build vertically -- but you also can't herd cows on the 30th floor of the Grace Building, so the solution is to go wide).
Genetic determinism basically says your grandparents did it to you. (Location 1465)
Psychic determinism basically says your parents did it to you. (Location 1467)
Environmental determinism basically says your boss is doing it to you—or your spouse, or that bratty teenager, or your economic situation, or national policies. (Location 1471)
I'm of the belief that personal values are the final "sieve". In every individual, environmental, genetic and social dramas play out, and the individual forms their own mental framework to deal with these stressors. The result is preferences, and preferences whittled down become values over the long term.
Indeed, I have my own values and as far as I can tell, they emerged from what I consistently rank as personally important. Values Document
It’s also worthy of mention that every pattern has at least one small bias, and one day it will tip itself over, or fall from one page to another. (Location 3278)
An amateur is defensive. The professional finds learning (and even, occasionally, being shown up) to be enjoyable; they like being challenged and humbled, and engage in education as an ongoing and endless process. (Location 1334)
at this age, i'll be a contender!
But he has the secret of those people to whom success comes by itself, whether it is due to being born under a lucky star or whether it is magic, or whether he has learned it from the Samanas. He always seems to be playing at business, it never makes much impression on him, it never masters him, he never fears failure, he is never worried about a loss.” (Location 598)
“Do not scold, my dear friend. Nothing was ever achieved by scolding. If a loss has been sustained, I will bear the loss. I am very satisfied with this journey. I have become acquainted with many people, I have become friendly with a Brahmin, children have sat on my knee, farmers have showed me their fields. Nobody took me for a merchant.” (Location 607)
It is not for me to judge another life. I must judge for myself. I must choose and reject. (Location 329)
“But you did want. Listen, Kamala, when you throw a stone into the water, it finds the quickest way to the bottom of the water. It is the same when Siddhartha has an aim, a goal. Siddhartha does nothing; he waits, he thinks, he fasts, but he goes through the affairs of the world like the stone through the water, without doing anything, without bestirring himself; he is drawn and lets himself fall. He is drawn by his goal, for he does not allow anything to enter his mind which opposes his goal. That is what Siddhartha learned from the Samanas. It is what fools call magic and what they think is caused by demons. Nothing is caused by demons; there are no demons. Everyone can perform magic, everyone can reach his goal, if he can think, wait and fast.” (Location 549)
Siddhartha is a true hunter! Simple technique, expertly executed.
Hunters must always be on the hunt for something.
https://hunterxhunter.fandom.com/wiki/Hunter_Bylaws
^dc13d3
that bass line UGHHH, this whole video is SO GOOD
Some of my favorite frames (literally every still frame could be a desktop wallpaper):
How can you kill people who have nothing to do with you?
-- Gon
Why indeed? Because they have nothing to do with us? No. On second though it isnt that simple…How to verbally express our motives…I'm not fond of it…But oddly enough…Or perhaps it's not that odd. Is that the key to understanding myself?
-- Chrollo
Hunter x Hunter - Gon and Killua get captured by the Phantom Troupe
Sorry! I'll stop following, so can you let me go?
^ed8b85
Are values intrinsic or are values built over time Values Document?
Certain values are heavily based in millennia old traditions…but all traditions had to start somewhere.
Other values are highly individual, and are created by a person to fulfill some sort of need. We see this a lot in anime MCs, where their stubbornness propels them toward some kind of goal and each event in their life confirms their overall narrative.
For example this is why Gon in HxH ends up losing his mind when he can't align the world to his perspective of it. He only became free after shattering his illusion of self.