About How About This
In a world that’s overwhelmingly digital, racing at a cutthroat speed of change, How About This is a place where you can relax, recharge and get inspired by a combination of timeless tools and wisdom and some of the best ideas and techniques of the modern age.
This is a newsletter (and community) where pen and paper provide a welcome addition to racing electrons and dizzying pixels - it’s a healthy alternative to doomscrolling. You’ll also find ways to make technology your tool, not your slave master. You won’t learn anything about cryptocurrency, celebrity gossip or political corruption here unless it’s in service of some greater wisdom.
Here’s what you can expect to see here during a typical week and what I hope you get from it:
Mondays: occasional interview posts, frequency currently being adjusted
Wednesdays: Curious Realizer, where I write about some of my interests and passions, including: writing, creativity, cognition, thinking on paper, creative problem solving, and ways to be a better, smarter, more self-actualized person.
Sometimes geeky, nerdy stuff will appear, as if by magic: fantasy and science fiction across the media. And if there’s something that I’m particularly passionate about you’ll see posts creeping in on other days. My goal is to share what I’m passionate about in the hopes that you might see something that you’ll also enjoy.
Here are some examples of the kind of posts you’ll find here:
The Knowledge That Won’t Fit Inside Your Head: a series of posts about paper based tools to help with creativity and writing:
Part 2 - Antinets (or Zettelkastens) - knowledge on index cards!
How to entertain the possibility that your opinion might be wrong - revisiting Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit, a powerful critical thinking tool that’s more important than ever.
Curious Realizer - monochrome was the palette of the unreal, envy and nostalgia - remembering black and white television and it’s affect on an Atlantic Canadian lad.
The backstages of our own private Seahavens - where I talk about the differences between front stages and back stages in life, referencing The Truman Show
Strangely familiar but new worlds - *spoiler warning* - a review of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, a great new science fiction TV show.
How About This is an E-mail newsletter written and published by Mark Dykeman (that’s me!) I’m an IT professional and project manager based in New Brunswick, Canada. I’m a card-carrying member of Generation X but I think that wisdom and interesting stuff resides with everyone, no matter their age.
I’ve been writing in one form or another for years and published the blogs Broadcasting Brain and Thoughtwrestling around 2008 - 2011. I’ve guest posted in a number of blogs and publications and I’ve also had two magazine articles published. I even did a newspaper column for about a year called Your Internet Adventures, back when Web 2.0 was new-ish.
You can contact me by E-mail at markdykeman@gmail.com.
Thanks for reading, I hope you join me and a growing number of readers on this journey.
