Keep passing the open windows

That line, ‘keep passing the open windows’, is a quote that wrenches at me from John Irving’s novel, The Hotel New Hampshire. I’ve also used it cheaply as a gag about preferring Macs to PCs. But having now made that same gag and having now also quoted you a quote that I love in context, let me get on with it. Here’s a video that argues in favour of our just staring out of the window.

I tell you, I’m concerned because I see elderly people obsessing about the hundred metres square that they can see from a window and I don’t want to do that. But this quite serene video points out that in looking out of the window, you’re looking at so much more than you can see.

Video: Don’t Follow Your Passion, Not Exactly

Not everyone has a passion for something, not everyone has found what they could be so passionate about. But even if you have, this fella argues that you shouldn’t pursue it as your life’s career. Rather than look for the thing that fires you up the most, look for the thing that you’re best at. That either sounds like defeatism or hair-splitting but I suppose if you’re great at something and you do it for a living and it goes well, you can fake the passion.

Ben Horowitz co-founded Andreessen Horowitz – it’s a venture capital firm and you know what crazy creative bastards venture capitalists are – just gave a commencement speech at his old university and boiled this idea down.

Ben Horowitz, cofounder and partner of famed venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, delivered the commencement address at his alma mater Columbia University last month and offered up some pretty unconventional career advice. The gist: don’t follow your passion. 

Via 99U

Writing as a career – in 1940s America

Say, are you a young boy looking to make a career in hard news journalism or a young girl who wants to write about cake decorations? Never fear: Arthur P. Twogood tells you all you need to know in this instructional careers video from around the 1940s. Apart from a so-painful-it’s-funny segment about women journalists, it is rather fist-on-your-chin fascinating to see how news writing used to be. If you redid this video today, we’d see someone receive a PR email, copy and paste it into a website and go home.