Week of Monday, January 12 to Sunday, January 18

12-Jan-2026

(Article/Essay) The Ladder of Inference, from Matik Nicholls

The ladder has seven steps (starting at the bottom rung):

1. Observable data and experiences. Raw facts that we hear and see.

2. Select data. Data that we designate as important while ignoring the rest.

3. Add meaning. We interpret the data based on our personal and cultural values.

4. Make assumptions.

5. Draw conclusions.

6. Adopt beliefs. My conclusions based on this situation become firmly held beliefs that go beyond this one instance.

7. Take action. At the top of the ladder I act based on my beliefs.

The most insidious thing about the ladder of inference is that our beliefs dictate the data we select next time.

(Article/Essay) Discipline is Overrated: The Devotion–Friction Matrix, from Anne-Laure Le Cunff

The Devotion-Friction Matrix of devoted action has four states:

- Flow (high devotion, low friction) where action feels natural and repeatable;

​- Strain (high devotion, high friction) where caring is high but the cost of doing it is high too;

​- Coasting (low devotion, low friction) where you keep going mostly because it’s easy;

​- Avoidance (low devotion, high friction) where the task feels both unrewarding and hard to start, so it gets postponed or completely dropped

13-Jan-2026

(Article/Essay) Analogcore: Another Aesthetic You Can't Afford, from JV Ordoñez for Esquire Philippines

are we genuinely trying to wean off the doom scrolling dungeon that is social media and our rectangular slabs of glass, or is this just another run-of-the-mill counterculture aesthetic? Are these online personalities earnestly trying to advocate for shorter screen time or are they just fueling another obsession with cool gadgets from the recent past?

Just a few years ago, people were trying to live minimalist lives by cutting down on things they owned, but now consumerist culture is built on being okay with getting things as long as they are "the right stuff" like books and analog accoutrements like vinyl or CDs. Living out the "chronically offline" advocacy is unattainable for many of us with jobs, emails, and deadlines to run after and could be seen as an out-of-touch concept for the majority.

(Micro-post) from @amandapourlesintimes on Threads

reading vincent van gogh’s letters and he keeps repeating the same thing: that i may be of use in the world. he repeats it over and over, in questions, in musings, in desperation. how can i be of use in the world? (the most precious question!) how can i be of use in the world? (how can anyone?) reminds me of that mary oliver quote: to pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

(Article/Essay) who are you when you’re not pleasing anyone?, from Lina Jun of The Science of Being newsletter

the more fluent you become in other people’s needs, the harder it becomes to locate your own. you lose sight of where you end and they begin. you start performing yourself in ways that earn connection but cost authenticity. and eventually, the self you’ve constructed becomes a mask that sticks. and what you believe is peace and compatibility, in reality is more self-erasure and compliance.

(Video) from @ghostinthesam on Instagram:

• Sam talks about "prediction markets" like Kalshi and Polymarket and how they are symptomatic of our current relationship with critical thinking. She notes the "opinions & takes economy" as the next stage of the "attention economy" where the "correct" conclusion is more important than the reasoning it took to get there, which is why we outsource our reasoning to the likes of genAI or to prediction markets.

If the attention economy emerged because we are unequipped to sort through how much we were seeing, the "opinions and takes" economy emerges because we are unequipped to understand what we are seeing, especially in this age of AI, rage bait, and institutional decline.

(Video) from @ghostinthesam on Instagram:

We don't comprehend media on its own anymore, but as a composite of itself, its reactions, its reposts, its discourse, all in one go. And that shift is training us away from primary source understanding. Say you encounter something new. You're making a few determinations pretty quickly: What am I looking at? How do I feel about it?.

But because so much discovery is mediated through these digital platforms, you're also unavoidably exposed to additional context, framing, and reactions at the same time. There's often no time to form an opinion before the algorithm serves up a take. And getting all that info in one go shapes how you understand the media in the first place.

Quote from Martha Graham, as quoted in her biography Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham by Agnes De Mille:

“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open."

(Article/Essay) Make Something Heavy, from Kai of Dense Discovery newsletter

> “No matter how many you stack, Tweets and TikToks don’t add up to something heavy. They don’t solidify. At best, they’re a pile of snowflakes, intricate yet ephemeral. Beautiful while they’re here, gone before they hit the ground.”

Anu Atluru gets it. She writes brilliantly about ‘creative weight’ in one of her essays. We instinctively tie weight to value, and the modern internet has created a machine that actively resists the creation of heavy things.

14-Jan-2026

(Resource) Year Compass

• The Year Compass is an annual, free reflection booklet that's been updated and released every year since 2012. I forget when I last did it, but it's been brought to my attention again!

Truthfully, {name}, there's more. But it's been a challenging week mentally, and I haven't been able to "process" the last 4 links I had bookmarked. I hope this is more than enough to spark an insight.

Lovingly,
Apple