For years people have asked me, re: this blog and the newsletter, “How do you take in so much?”

I’m not sure I take in any more than anybody else, but I do try to stick with my genuine, self-directed interests and I also have systems for saving it and processing it.

Your output depends on your input, so one way to make your output more original or interesting is to make your input more original and interesting.

This sometimes requires actually staying intentionally ignorant of what everybody else is tweeting and posting about and getting outside the algorithms of social media.

“People forget that non-algorithmic browsing is still an option,” says Ann Friedman. “I subscribe to magazines in print and directly visit the websites of publications I like.”

My friend Alan Jacobs recommends subscribing to quarterly magazines. “Quarterlies don’t, because they can’t, deal with the newest news: they offer more considered, more reflective responses to the world we live in.”

The non-algorithmic searching I miss the most is the serendipity of the stacks: digging through thrift stores and book stores and record stores.

I miss that digging and scratching.

For now, it’s all about more search, less feed.