LAUNCH
I. Baby Steps
“A year from now, you will wish you had started today”
Karen Lamb
Last April, I had just turned 22 and was preparing to graduate from college. While attempting to figure out what I wanted to do with my career, I visualized starting a personal website for sharing both original essays and a compilation of the best creative works I have encountered on the internet. Around the same time, Marc Andreesen released his rousing essay “IT’S TIME TO BUILD“. After reading it, I had to grapple with the question of what I would actually be building through a conventional entry-level desk job. I could not successfully provide an answer. However, I felt that through creating a personal site I could begin building a space that fulfills me. While it wouldn’t be building much, it would be a start.
Now, a year later, no site has been built. Thus far my relationship with this idea is all ponder and no product. Additionally, with several months of typical 9-5 work under my belt, my prior suspicions have come true: I have not really built much through my job either. Consequently, my conviction to start this project has reached a decisive point. So, here we are. I’m going for it. I’m doing it. While I wish I had already begun this endeavor, I’m proud to say I’m starting now. I’m excited to write on the internet.
II. What I will be building
“I’m writing for an audience of one. I write for myself.”
Morgan Housel
On this site you will find my own essays and commentaries alongside curated lists of my favorite items (whether that be writings, video, audio, or otherwise) from around the internet and occasionally the physical world. Both the original essays and the lists will cover a variety of topics. Currently, I plan to center the site around the universes of golf, clean energy, movies and music, and a broader section which I’m entitling Better Thinking (for now). This final section will feature works that provided striking arguments which made me either reconsider a position on a specific topic or recalibrate what I truly value in this world. There will also be occasional discussions of urban design, different sports, physical art, personal experiences and a host of other topics that I have failed to mention. All works featured in the lists will have satisfied me intellectually and thus, I believe, deserve to be easily accessible to others.
With regard to the lists, previously I had mentally compiled this slew of exceptional works in my head until there were so many things present that I could no longer remember them all, let alone why they engaged me in the first place. I needed a better place to store and share this personal archive. The lists present will be for myself just as much as they are for others.
Let us pause. Above are topics that genuinely interest me. They may not always interest you. That’s OK. My interests may change over time. That’s OK. I am writing for myself.
Site Features and Schedule:
Personal essays published once per month through the end of 2021 and then potentially moving to weekly publications thereafter.
Lists, possibly ranked, compiling my favorite resources from the categories listed above, updated whenever I encounter something new and deserving of placement.
Accompanying each link will be a short blurb detailing the specific reasons that the piece is deserving of its feature.
For other’s work to be highlighted on my site, it will have to pass a completely subjective threshold of enjoyment, engagement or ingenuity. Generally, if I was not enthralled by the work when first encountering it, it will not be present.
Another note on the lists: Across the internet there are all of these great resources on any given topic, but it is often challenging for a newcomer to that topic to be aware of them right away. Although one will slowly be introduced to more high quality material over time, since I have already gone through that same process myself on the given topic, I can share my favorites to hopefully assist others by saving them time and effort.
I am an intellectual work in progress. Therefore, these lists will obviously be evolving over time. Right now, many of the resources I have thoroughly cherished across the internet are also cherished by millions of others. My inputs are not unique and I don’t want to seem as though I have all the answers. Ideally, I will eventually be discovering and promoting sources of information that are not widely known.
A submission zone
Is there something that has moved you, the reader, deeply or captured your full imagination that I have never looked into? Please submit it here so I can check it out!
Since my goal is to create the best possible aggregation of internet links, I want to have the best possible bank to pull from. Plus, this will help reduce any blind spots I may have on topics.
Not everything will be long form and styles may vary (such as within this post), but here it will be …
I would like to append two words to the end of that tweet: and beyond.
III. Inspiration for Writing
Tim Urban
In my time browsing the internet, I’ve stumbled into plenty of Whoa moments. It is fascinating that encountering a stranger’s thoughts can produce such a stirring feeling. I have found inspiration across the internet in three main ways:
First, I have been inspired to write through the revelation that reading can be fun! After advancing beyond academic literature and reading purely for internal enjoyment, I have enjoyed the act so much more. It is amazing what genuine interest in a topic will do and one of the reasons I am so excited to start this project. I have had great fun reading the following:
Tim Urban’s Wait but Why blog. An article from WBW was already linked in this post and deservingly so as this is by far and away the most fun I have ever had reading. I believe I have read almost every word Tim has written on the site. In fact, Tim’s beautiful conception of Whoa moments gave me a Whoa moment.
Mike Solana’s Pirate Wires. I have never enjoyed reading about the news more than when it is from this author. He covers topics that are not often highlighted by mainstream media and does so in a delightful manner.
The blurbs at the Art Institute of Chicago, which might be too good. Consider the description of Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks or this one on Jasper Johns’ Alphabet. It is exciting to read prose which so precisely pinpoints the mystique of each image that there is almost no other way to interpret the art after reading it.
(I also came to understand the enjoyment of writing in the latter half of college, particularly through assignments that were open-ended and allowed me to take the essay I wanted it to go. When you are not boxed in, you can find more enjoyment in the process as you instill your personality into the work. The process of writing was intellectually stimulating and the completion of each essay was extremely rewarding. In time, I plan to rehash some of these essays for this site.)
Second, I have encountered ideas that light a fire under my ass and inspire me to alter my life in some way. Some examples include:
The opening answer from Maria Popova about how to start a successful blog from this episode of Tim Ferris Show. Her response struck a chord within me and made me incredibly headstrong about starting this site.
When I signed up for David Perell‘s Why You Should Write Online email list, I was skeptical at first but found immediate inspiration in the first email: “Writing is free. You already have everything you need: an internet connection and easy access to a computer. You pay in time, not money. The only thing standing between you and your writing goals is discipline. Learn to write”. This too stimulated my desire to start my own site.
David Brooks’ words in this essay made me want to strive to become a better intellectual. Having just virtually graduated from college, this piece truly became a stand-in commencement speech. I never want to look back on my life and realize that I have stopped growing as a thinker. I need to continually push myself.
The following tweets from Jack Butcher’s @memebuilders because I felt as though they were targeting me directly. I felt I was being taunted by the memes while I sat idly in 2020 and never wrote anything. I needed to build something.
Lastly, I have encountered writings that have been inspiring through the beauty of their construction. Witnessing the artistry pouring out of another person’s brain makes me proud to be human. Below are some pieces that all combine disjoint ideas into a seamlessly flowing narrative:
My goal with the assembly of this site is to readily provide some combination of those three forms of inspiration to my readers.
IV. Blast off
Latin Proverb
So, to cornily answer Marc Andreesen’s question, I am building, in the most crude terms, an online warehouse for my favorite thoughts from others and myself; In the most noble terms, a sanctuary for celebrating high quality human output. I am building a space to better myself (and hopefully some of you) intellectually. I expect it to be challenging, but rewarding work.
If you have made it this far, I anticipate this site may be for you.
My name is Will Lonnquist, but my friends call me Lonny. Simply put, this site will contain things I like.
Welcome to Lonny Likes.