The requested resource
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is no longer available on this server and there is no forwarding address. Please remove all references to this resource.” – diveintomark.org 10 Oct 2011
Breaking inertia is hard work. It puts up a good fight, has the upper hand, and knows when you’re not serious.
This is why the Atkins diet starts with an Induction phase and the U.S. Army starts with bootcamp.
Want to make a big change? Want to break inertia? You gotta seriously fuck shit up right from the start. And hold it for 30 days.
Go Vegan.
Deactivate your Facebook.
Turn off the radio.
Unsubscribe.
Stop engaging that person that makes you feel badly about yourself.
Disengage that aspect of your life that no longer makes you profoundly and annoyingly giddy.
Drop 410s on your websites.
Opt out.
Mark Pilgrim’s work was inspiring. His departure should be equally inspiring.
(Mark – if you’re interested in providing background material for the Opt Out book – my email’s in the right column. Thanks.)
Calling Mark’s departure inspiring is an insult to the work that he did. His departure shows level of disrespect to both the work he built on and the work built on him – a level of disrespect that is more comparable to defacing public artwork than the “taking his ball home” analogy used when whytheluckystiff departed.
Does this anger personify a certain sense of entitlement? Absolutely. Can you imagine a world where Sun Tzu decided “actually, nevermind, I’m going to destroy that book because I’m moody”? And imagine how we’d condemn any culture that supported an author that made that decision.
It is our duty to preserve knowledge, not applaud its destruction.
Eric – thanks for stopping by.
My favorite artists are no longer regularly releasing work – and haven’t for so long that their work is not longer easy to find. I’m still a fan. I still enjoy experiencing their work. They’re doing other things now. Many outside of the music business.
Every couple of years a high-profile member of the online community steps away without a trace. It’s always surprising. But not unique to our world. I believe the history is littered with people that fully stepped away from their profession after a achieving a measure of success. Nothing wrong with that. Especially if it leads to greater personal satisfaction.
Requiring anyone to be bound by work no longer representative of who they want to be and what they want to be known for is career imprisonment. This is why I applaud his decision. He’s knew he had to leave – and he did. That’s a challenging decision to arrive at and make.
Thankfully, Mark released a significant percentage of his work under an open license (CC-BY I believe). So, anyone is welcome to continue to carry the torch that Mark no-longer wants to carry. Just like all those that adopted _why’s projects.
(I still use Hpricot everyday). To me – that’s another of the responsible, forward-thinking, inspiring things Mark did.