The Tohunga Lounge and the Writers Nook

July 31, 2019

The Tohunga Lounge and the Writers Nook

A while back, my friend JL ran an experiment in community building. He’s a wicked smaht guy (as they say in Boston) and he knows other really smaht guys (and gals.) He set up a Slack workspace called the Tohunga Lounge (Tohunga is the term the Māori people of New Zealand use for “really smaht person.”) JL started posting interesting content and inviting the Tohungas he knew to join and contribute.

I thought his idea was brilliant, and I told him so. I was enthusiastic. But after a while, I dropped out. The Tohunga Lounge became an attractive nuisance for me because of the mental afflictions that beset me.

I have AMD, IDD, EIFID, and TMTOMHD. This toxic combination makes me hyper-vulnerable to intellectually seductive content. For those who don’t know these TLAs, FLAs and SLA’s: AMD is Attention Management Disorder, IDD is Intention Deficit Disorder (each of which I’ve written about) EIFID is Everything Is Fucking Interesting Disorder, and TMTOMHD is Too Much Time On My Hands Disorder (about which I may write.)

(TLA, is, of course, the self-referential TLA for Three Letter Acronym. And if you can’t figure what an FLA and SLA are, you should be reading a different blog.)

The knowledge creation vortex

When a person like me with AMD, IDD, EIFID, and TMTOMHD comes across something interesting (hint: everything is fucking interesting, due to EIFID) and since I know that my purpose in life is to create knowledge I’m easily sucked into a knowledge creation vortex. Step 1 is knowledge acquisition and Step 2, if I ever get to it is remixing what I’ve acquired, because Everything is a Remix (video, site) and you need to acquire knowledge to remix it.

Once I’m in a vortex I will only emerge when (a) something more interesting catches my attention and sucks me into a neighboring vortex or (b) one of the obligations that I desperately try to avoid catches up with me, or (c) I fall asleep exhausted, or (d) I remix the acquired knowledge and make some new knowledge—like this blog post, or (e) something else that I can’t think of right now happens.

To deal with my AMD, IDD, EIFID, and TMTOMHD I quit reading Reddit (to which I am nonetheless indebted for one of the best ideas I’ve come across) and stop reading Twitter (which led me to another really good idea), and stop reading Facebook (link to a page of photos of .well, you can guess from the URL) (which has not yielded any ideas that I can recall and which still manages to waste time every time I go there to check on one of my kids who posts there) and I turned off my Google news feed (which about as much a waste of time as Facebook.)

And even though the quality was better than any of them, I stopped visiting the Tohunga Lounge. Sorry, JL.

Tohunga 2.0

But now JL has launched Tohunga Lounge 2.0, hereinafter “TL2,” or “TL” or “the Lounge,” (as lawyers and pseudolawyers like me say.) TL2 is based on Basecamp. I’ve used it before, and it’s a much better platform. I’m a big fan of founders Jason Fried and DHH and who gave birth to a new way of running a business 20 years ago and who wrote ReWork—a book about their business philosophy. DHH was a driving force behind Ruby on Rails and is the author of this screed about business models.

Within TL2, JL has created the “Writers Nook” hereinafter “the Nook.” or “WN.” I like the Nook.

Everything in the world manipulates us. Some things manipulate us in ways that harm us. Others, in ways that benefit us. JL and TL2 and WN seemed like they are manipulating me in a good way, by exploiting my euproductive proclivities.

And here’s some evidence: this blog post.

Euproductive proclivities

It might be useful to identify the said (as we say) proclivities. Useful to me, at least. Maybe for you.

Here they are, in the order I thought of them.

First, is routine: the Nook features nag-o-matic (thanks JL for automating, thanks Past Me for inventing.) I expect nag-o-matic will send me an email every day and remind me to write. I think it will help.

Next is accountability: other people in the group will see if I did or not write. If no one else, JL will see.

Then there’s community: writing is a lonely business, and it’s nice to be lonely together with other lonely people. That’s why I like writing in coffee shops. But the things that qualify as Coffee shops in Blue Hill are not that conducive to writing.

Then there’s novelty. I jump into new things with enthusiasm. Sticking with them, not so much. But nag-o-matic and accountability and community may overcome that tendency. At least I hope so.

There’s support. I might ask for support from other people, but to me, support means my love for supporting other people. I’ll do things to help other people in ways that I won’t do for myself.

Then there’s gratitude: I live in a state of more-or-less continuing gratitude for gifts unearned.

So here I am with about 1000 words behind me. I’m grateful to JL for including me in his circle and for inviting me to his creation. And giving me someone to be accountable to and creating a community.

And for nag-o-matic, 2.0.

Hey, nag-o-matic, I wrote something today.

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