🧵 View Thread
🧵 Thread (12 tweets)

Yes and: this was actually also possible before the internet, by writing letters, and I think that was the most egregious omissions from my education. But most educators are incompetent writers themselves so how would they teach you? You have to go searching yourself. https://t.co/kXdrJvZVyk

Ohga wrote himself into becoming Sony’s President https://t.co/vlQYI1rYSn

Around this time, a little earlier, an opera & physics nerd named Norio Ohga wrote a highly critical letter to Sony about the many failings of their tape recorder. Akio and Masaru were so impressed, they hired him as a part-time consultant, & eventually made him Sony's President https://t.co/l0vCha8VCO


Pirosh wrote himself into a new career and then an Oscar https://t.co/GEvPJOXDvk

My favorite 'cold email' – in 1934, by Robert Pirosh, a copywriter who dreamed of becoming a screenwriter. This letter led to him becoming a junior writer at MGM, and 15 years later he won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for the war film Battleground. I too like words 😍 https://t.co/2XLpKhlVcv


Erasmus wrote himself into significance, another bastard orphan who became mutuals with kings and popes https://t.co/v8SdXhAROq

TIL about Erasmus – (probably well known to Europeans, there's a student exchange named after him) – one of the most prolific men of letters in the 1500s, corresponding with literally hundreds of people. he was born out of wedlock, both of his parents died in the plague... https://t.co/msUcui2O6H


once you start looking you see the patterns. if you could get yourself into a position to learn to read and write (and tbf if you go back a few centuries, this requires luck and privilege), a path of real influence available to you if you were serious about it https://t.co/bDadbgN8PE

~50 years after Erasmus came Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), an ordained Catholic priest who was called "the post-box of Europe". He was mutuals with Descartes, Pascal, Hobbes, Galileo, Huygenes. If you wanted to get something to someone, you sent it to him, and he'd reroute it https://t.co/v8SdXhAROq https://t.co/xnQQQSho7K


Gertrude helped make Picasso, with her “cult-writing” https://t.co/Lgzseh5Njv

Montaigne was born very privileged and probably had access to Aristotle-tier tutors, which must’ve been part of why he saw this so clearly 500 years ago. Good writing will be your wingman to opportunity, and it never sleeps https://t.co/RgLYyUxkV1

"If my humors happen to please some worthy man... he will try to meet me. I give him a big advantage... for all (the) long acquaintance and familarity could have gained for him in several years, he can see in 3 days in this record, and more exactly." https://t.co/xDaLzqcQh2

https://t.co/zT2hAHekEL https://t.co/JQyu0STFgS


I have no doubt that a whole bunch of people around these parts are going to go on to do great things, https://t.co/GIO36T8yID

you can teach yourself to get people to care. it’s not that hard to figure out https://t.co/nFcoMqIll0

A thing I noticed fairly early-ish on is that people care about things more once they’re framed properly. Like, if you watch a documentary about a pit crew or a kitchen or a tattoo shop, you become invested in those people’s struggles and you start to care about them personally https://t.co/ejLo5XAbUP

the deeper question is - if you see that this is a game that can be played, is, will you? are you serious? https://t.co/MvfGIffJcF

@visakanv This thread helps me to understand my current relationship to AI: Using these tools is like learning to read. It’s going to be the same kind of leg up. It creates new potential to “write” your way into a life. https://t.co/Myal23w1ke
