The point of all this is that it is not the existence of knowledge but the convergence and cross-pollination of knowledge that drives progress.

Now, the challenge with the internet is that it’s a medium increasingly well-tailored for helping us find more of what we know we’re looking for, but increasingly poorly suited to helping us discover what we don’t yet know exists and thus don’t yet care to be interested in.

[…]

So how do we discover what we don’t yet know we’re interested in and take an interest in what doesn’t appear to be “useful”?

Seems to me that reading widely (perhaps with the help of your local library? ;)) is a good step in the direction of finding things you don’t yet know you’re interested in. Social media and internet sources of information can be quite useful in this way as well.

(Source: pulse.infoneer.net)

When put under increasing pressure, the values that have kept us afloat through these lean years become tainted with cynicism, one of the most concerning risk factors of burnout (Maslach, 2011, p. 46). Marathons and long races are meant to be sporadic occurrences, with ample rest afterwards to avoid injuries. With both exercise and work, you can motivate yourself to work much harder than usual when you know the end is in sight, but what if there is no end? Or if the end is simply beyond our means?  What happens when the “vision” becomes a culture in which we are expected to work harder and faster all the time, forever?

[…]

Pausing is even more challenging when our work culture, a culture we’ve been forced into by our dire need to prove our value, focuses on results to the detriment of the process. Effective marketing for libraries is essential, but is the constant stress on results causing us to devalue the necessary downtime? What about brainstorming time? Replenishment time? These aren’t the kinds of activities we want to list in our advocacy campaigns or our annual reports, yet in the exercise and scholarly worlds, coaches and teachers know that these are the foundations of success. Cutting them back would be unthinkable.

I really appreciated this post, since I find that alternating tasks really helps me get things done effectively (especially if I can interrupt a really focus-heavy task with something relatively mindless, like checking Twitter).

The publishing industry’s current overnight sensation, erotica author E.L. James, began writing her best-selling book “Fifty Shades of Grey” as “Twilight” fan fiction. She began posting her X-rated take on Ms. Meyer’s tame paranormal romance online three years ago. Her “Twilight” homage, titled “Master of the Universe,” evolved into a series starring a powerful CEO and a young woman in a sadomasochistic sexual relationship. The books were acquired by Vintage, a Random House imprint, this spring and have sold 15 million copies in less than three months. Now, in a sort of literary infinite feedback loop, fans of the trilogy have begun writing their own takes on “Fifty Shades,” including an inevitable parody that mashes up “Fifty Shades” with “Twilight.”

Oh, geez, a mashup? Can’t say I’m surprised, but it’s not like that will require much effort, given the source material of Fifty Shades. ;)

I’m a little baffled, though, by the fact that the article repeatedly mentioned the site wattpad.com as a source for fanfic when I’ve never even heard of it before (and I’ve been writing fanfic for over a decade now!). And I don’t find it easy to navigate at all.

If you want to find fanfic on something, you’re better off with fanfiction.net or archiveofourown.org—their sorting capabilities are pretty good, and it’s easy to narrow things by fandom. After that, where you’ll find stuff depends on the fandom; livejournal.com is a big source of Sherlock Holmes/Sherlock (BBC) fic, for example.

(Source: twitter.com)