Audio: The Marketplace of Ideas - Interview with Merlin Mann
June 12, 2009 Download “The Marketplace of Ideas - Interview with Merlin Mann”
A conversation with writer, speaker, blogger and student of the creative mind Merlin Mann. In 2004, Mann founded 43Folders, a blog and community focused on tips, tricks, tools and techniques designed to improve one’s productivity, and in late 2008, he took the site in a new direction, toward the habits and thoughts of humanity’s best creators and what can be learned from examining them.
Marketplace of Ideas - Merlin Mann
Merlin Mann
It’s an honor to learn that a transcript of Colin Marshall’s June interview with me has made its way onto the home page of the esteemed 3quarksdaily. Given how spastic and discursive my ramblings tend to be, the print version of this 58-minute audio podcast works surprisingly well:
You’re gonna die. You’re gonna die. And nobody’s gonna care which version of the iPhone you used to make something on Twitter, or to go and post about your bowel movement on Facebook. And I’m not even talking about legacy; I’m talking about the fact that I personally feel most alive when I’m making something, and I feel least alive when I’m being led around by some obnoxious use of my attention that I wasn’t aware of. To me, that’s the thing. You can buy the jogging shoes and you can buy the Runner’s World, but until you put them on and walk out the door every day, you’re just a fat man.
Many thanks, again, to Colin, for doing such a swell job with this interview.
It was a lovely and very enjoyable walk past a lot of the topics that mean a lot of me; it’s easily one of my favorite interviews anyone’s ever done with me.
Thanks, man.