I'd like to add........................

 

...............................September 11th and the collapse of the Trade Towers, "Shock and Awe" in Iraq, and maybe the mini-series Roots to this list.

a processor.............................

 

. . . the human mind is a story processor, not a logic processor.

-Jonathan Haidt

Stories..........................

 

Stories that stir our emotions involve situations that feature both sides of a debate—the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, and the light and the dark sides of humanity.  Real-world conflict between positive and negative emotions brings up the issues of values, which make a story engaging.

-Kevin Ervin Kelley, Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together

On "appreciation"..................

 

Each day, we get to make a new decision about how to invest our time, our attention and our effort. If a community that used to appreciate our work doesn’t respond in a way we are hoping for, we can use that information to reallocate our work. “Thank you” is an appropriate response to a lack of appreciation, because we learned something useful. The audience didn’t owe us anything, but if they don’t want to dance with us in the way we hope, we can choose to find a new partner.

-Seth Godin

Opening paragraphs...................

 

     I was leaning against the bar in a speakeasy on Fifty-second Street, waiting for Nora to finish her Christmas shopping, when a girl got up from the table where she had been sitting with three other people and came over to me.   She was small and blond, and whether you looked at her face or at her body in powder-blue sports clothes, the result was satisfactory.  "Aren't you Nick Charles?" she asked.

-Dashiell Hammett, The Thin Man

"Cautious".............................

 

     Franklin, however, was no Malthusian pessimist.  He believed that, at least in America, increased productivity would keep ahead of population growth, thus making everyone better off as the country grew.  In fact, he predicted (also correctly) that what would restrain American population growth in the future was likely to be wealth rather than poverty, because richer people tended to be more "cautious" about getting married and having children.

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, An American Life

I suspect it will take.....................

 

........................more than a summer, but this is a mighty fine reading list.  Read half, looking forward to the other half.

Extra security.....................

 

................two hawks guarding my Sweetie's car:

Crack my head up..........................

Mamdani has also said that he’s intent on “seizing the means of production,” which sounds alarmingly like he wants to invade China.

-Martin Gurri,  It's Gurri, read the whole thing

Intangibles.....................

 

Economists in the 19th century described production as using tangible resources, notably land, unskilled labor, factories, and business equipment. But by the 21st century, it was evident that intangibles increasingly matter. Human skill level, business strategy, innovation, and the institutional environment determine how wealth gets created.

-Arnold Kling, from this episode

On building gardens..........................

    Lukas Nelson...........................Turn Off The News

 

autonomy...........................

 

Compensation follows autonomy.

When you need to be managed, there’s a cap on what you can earn. When you know how to create value and do it without being told, there’s no cap. This is structural, not personal.

The compensation gap isn’t about performance; it’s about autonomy.

-from this week's Farnum Street newsletter

One of the few valuable comparisons.........

 

All intelligent people should think primarily in terms of opportunity cost. When deciding whether to do something compare it with the best opportunity you have.

-Charlie Munger, from here

Seems true....................

 

humble supplication.................

 

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the Human Race in humble supplication that, since He has been pleased to favor the American people with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of government for the security of their union and the advancement of their happiness, so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

-George Washington, as he concludes his inaugural inaugural address

image via

indistinguishable..................

 

The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.

-Mark Weiser, from here

Twenty-two.........................

 

............................essentials.

Declaring..............................

 

..................................a hot streak.

specific opportunity..............

 

One should not search for an abstract meaning of life.  Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment.  Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated.  Thus, everyone's task is as unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.

-Viktor Frankl

remembrance.................

30.  Look down from above on the numberless herds of mankind, with their mysterious ceremonies, their diverse voyagings in storm and calm, and all the chequered pattern of their comings and gatherings and goings.  Go on to consider the life of bygone generations; and then the life of all those who are yet to come; and even at the present day, the life of the hordes of far-off savages.  In short, reflect what multitudes there are who are ignorant of your very name; how many more will have speedily forgotten it; how many, perhaps praising you now, who will soon enough be abusing you; and that therefore remembrance, glory, and all else together are things of no worth. 

-Marcus Aurelius. Meditations, Book Nine

Pretty good teammates..................

 

Inspiration is great.  Discipline is better.  

-Joe Rogan

Outcomes.......................

 

The problem with democracy is that it does not always produce the outcome you want.

-Jonathan Turley, from this opinion

thanks Chris

the moral.....................

 

What matters is the moral.  If you got everything else wrong from The Odyssey, but you left understanding the importance of perseverance, the dangers of hubris, the risks of temptation and distraction, then you really learned something.

-Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic

delight and refreshment...........

 

7.  Let your one delight and refreshment be to pass from one service to the community to another, with God ever in mind.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Six

Summer vacation.......................

 

indispensable tension...........

 

     Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become.  Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being.

-Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Patience is a virtue............

 

Impatience is an expensive emotion.

Every app wants your decision in seconds. Every employer wants results this quarter. Every investment platform profits when you trade. Meanwhile, the boring investor who indexed and touched nothing decades ago owns your neighborhood. Who's winning?

The patient inherit everything the impatient leave behind.

-from this week's edition of the Farnum Street newsletter

A really good question..............

 

It seems to me that in the current media environment, both envy and suspicion have become supercharged. We’re all steeped in resentment. We’re all conspiracy theorists. Can we get past that?

-Arnold Kling, as he concludes this episode

Aging like a fine wine....................

 

It turns out that one key to aging is learning to live in a future you didn't see coming.

-Marty Goldensohn, from here

bonkers......................

 

being obliged...........................

 

I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.

-Ben Franklin, speaking at the Constitutional Convention, September 1787

on binary debates.................

 

     Where I get frustrated, though, is the binary debate I see in business, boardrooms, and books declaring that the ruthless efficiency of Amazon or Shopify has finally won out over the romance of life and that retail is dead.  Retail is not dead, but utilitarian retail is dead because there's now a much faster, cheaper, and more convenient way to acquire cheap commodities online if that's all you're looking to purchase.  Human beings, however, want more than commodities and have desires greater than their possessions.

     The debates between function versus emotion, literal versus imagination, and rock-bottom prices versus high-fidelity curation have been going on for generations in retail and will continue long into the future.  Fortunately, there's enough room in the market for many players and positions to win.

-Kevin Ervin Kelley, Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together

rating this mostly true............

 

And plumbers and electricians were usually more skilled in their trades than most journalist graduates were in their reporting.

-as culled from this VDH post

a process of elimination..........

 

Brooks asks Hughes what he most would like to have more of than an average person: power, money, pleasure, or honor. They go through a process of elimination. What does Hughes care least about having in excess of the average person? Power. Then what? money. Then what? pleasure. So Hughes cares most about honor. He wants to be respected by people who are important to him. I also would have eliminated power first and ended up caring most about honor, but I care more about money than pleasure. Money to me represents security for my wife and family.

-Arnold Kling, from here

Ours is a country.................

 

Ours is a country where you can hear 800 languages spoken in New York City, drive two hours, and end up among the Amish in Pennsylvania. We are 342 million people, from California to New York Island, gathered together as one.

Each of those 342 million will tell you that ours is not a perfect country. But we suspect most of them would agree that their lives would not be possible without it.

-from this episode of The Free Press

The wisdom of Calvin..............

 

via

Essence..................

The essence of Franklin is that he was a civic-minded man.  He cared more about public behavior than inner piety, and he was more interested in building the City of Man than the City of God.  The maxim her proclaimed on his first trip back from London—"Man is a sociable being"—was reflected not only in his personal collegiality, but also in his belief that benevolence was the binding virtue of society.  As Poor Richard put it, "He that drinks his cider alone, let his catch his horse alone."

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

character..................

 

     Tocqueville came to the conclusion that there was an inherent struggle in America between two opposing impulses: the spirit of rugged individualism versus the conflicting spirit of community and association building.  Franklin would have disagreed.  A fundamental aspect of Franklin's life, and of the American society he helped to create, was that individualism and communitarianism, so seemingly contradictory, were interwoven.  The frontier attracted barn-raising pioneers who were ruggedly individualistic as well as fiercely supportive of their community.  Franklin was the epitome of this admixture of self-reliance and civic involvement, and what he exemplified became part of the American character.

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

mobility........................

 

Social mobility was not very common in the eighteenth century.  But Franklin proudly made it his mission—indeed, helped it become part of America's mission—that a tradesman could rise in the world and stand before kings.

-Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin: An American Life

pressing advantages.............

What Alice Longworth said of her father, Theodore Roosevelt, is true of Mr. Trump, at least as far as his approach to international and domestic politics. He wants to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding, and the baby at every christening. . . .

The 47th president loathes crusades for democracy, despises multinational institutions, and treats international courts with the contempt he believes they deserve. While he genuinely hates war, Mr. Trump believes in pressing America’s economic, technological and military advantages as far as he can in pursuit of an expansive vision of the national interest.

-Walter Russell Mead, from here

hardwired................

 

Our elders tell us, "Don't judge a book by its cover."  Though well-intentioned advice, it doesn't entirely reflect the primitive parts of our brains that have had to make snap judgments for thousands of years to survive and thrive in our habitats.  We're hardwired to judge things by their covers because, in previous eras of lions, wolves, and marauding tribes, that's how our ancestors stayed alive.

     As evolved as we might seem today, this split-second context scanning and decision-making process never left us.  It's still a core part of our environmental awareness and innate survival system.  While we're not conscious of it, we prefer the world around us to be stable and predictable because it gives us a sense of control over our environment.  But deep down, we know stability isn't always possible.  So no matter where we are, we're constantly on the lookout for contextual clues and the slightest changes in our environment.

-Kevin Ervin Kelly, Irreplaceable:  How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together

aspects................................

 

Humans, like all other animals, are selective creatures; that is, our survival and flourishing depend on our ongoing, mostly unconscious, selection of aspects of our environment for attention, interaction, and transformation.  So, objects are events with meanings that 'stand out' within the context of a situation.

-Mark Johnson, The Aesthetics of Meaning and Thought

no idea.....................

 

. . . What am I to make of this?  Where did it come from to the weary human who'd rather parse the mysteries of oatmeal topped with strawberries, but then any kid knows that during the long night the imagination thumbs its nose at civilization as the lid of a jar screwed on too tight that has no idea what its true contents are.

-Jim Harrison, Old Times

Sadly..................

 

...........................reading cursive is now a superpower.  My kids can't read my parents' letters—and they were really good letter writers.

The failure to teach cursive in many of our schools may eventually be more harmful than we realize.

-Michael Wade

Fifty years ago...................

The Manhattan Transfer.........The Manhattan Transfer

 

old fashioned.............

 

You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. You need to be the one who shows up. Who is true to their word. Who can figure it out. Who does the boring things well. Who takes pride in their work. Who is reliable. Old fashioned things never go out of style.

-Sahil Bloom

Adulting...........................

 

All of this has left them with an excessive need for control, which makes them unable to deal with scenarios where being out of control is the whole point.

-Suzy Weiss, as culled from here

Ok, as long as I don't have to watch the kids....

 

Jonathan Haidt gave a platform to Emily Brownlee, M.Ed to deliver a rant against technology in schools. Contrarian that I am, my reaction to her screed was to think the solution is not to ban tech, but to ban schools.

-Arnold Kling, from this episode

A worthy goal...........................

......................to live life in radical amazement.

On summaries.......................

 

Everyone wants the summary. But the summary is what's left after someone else decided what matters. Their priorities aren't yours. Their filters aren't yours. When you operate on summaries, you're thinking with someone else's brain.

-Farnum Street

wisdom, understanding, and knowledge........

 

Do not be envious of evil men, nor desire to be with them.

2.  For their minds devise violence, and their lips talk of trouble.

3.  By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established.

4.  And by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

-The Holy Bible, Proverbs 24:1-4

conquer the need..................

 

     The next time you face a political dispute or a personal disagreement, ask yourself: Is there any reason to fight about this?  Is arguing going to help solve anything?  Would an educated or wise person really be as quarrelsome as you might initially be inclined to be?  Or would they take a breath, relax, and resist the temptation for conflict?  Just think of what you could accomplish—and how much better you would feel—if you could conquer the need to fight and win every tiny little thing.

-Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic

enmeshed...........................

 

We do ourselves a disservice when we think of human beings as exclusively logic—or knowledge—driven,  and fail to pay attention to the role of emotions.  The two systems are enmeshed because that is the way our brain and our organism have been put together by evolution. . . .

Emotions and feelings are not a luxury; they are a means of communicating our states of mind to others.  But they are also a way of guiding our own judgments and decisions.  Emotions bring the body into the loop of reason.

-Antonio R. Damasio, Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

surveillance capitalism..............

 

Technology was an exciting tool we could use to make our lives better.  But instead of humans using technology as a tool, it now wants to use us as a tool to harvest and sell the data it reaps from us to the highest bidder, which has enormous market value.

     The partnership between technology and Wall Street sees humans as a profit-making venture for investors to "make a killing" and become unicorn billionaires.  Many of us, however, are now having second thoughts about all the "surveillance capitalism" operating in our lives.  We're not comfortable with Google tracking our every move, Facebook's outsized role in influencing politics, X's propensity to divide us into extreme camps, Instagram's effect on mental health and body-conscious concerns, and TikTok's ability to monetize our attention and shape our opinions . . .

-Kevin Ervin Kelley, Irreplaceable:  How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together

I never seem to be reading..............................

..................................what Tyler Cowen reads.

Facts can be elusive, but......................

 

...........if you are interested in the goings on at the various hot spots around the world, do yourself a favor and visit the Institute for the Study of War.

No kings......................

 

more fun here

 

more fun here

A bridge..............................

 

.....................................................too far.

Please..................................

 

.............................................don't wait.

seeing..........................

 

The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes.

-Marcel Proust

voids.................

 

Everyone in business wants to know, "What's new?"  But a better question for creating new market opportunities is to ask, "What's missing?"

     One of the major voids we see across demographics . . . is people's need and desire to make good friends, feel less isolated and lonely, and belong to something more meaningful.

-Kevin Ervin Kelly, Irreplaceable

Curiosity..............................

 

.............is supposed to fend for itself, apparently.

talking about..............................

 

....................................................gaps.

the way......................

 

Before listening to the way, do not fail to wash your ears.

Otherwise it will be impossible to listen clearly.

-reasoning here

imitation......................

 

We learn best through other people.  Our ability to learn from each other greatly exceeds our ability to solve problems on our own. . . . "The secret to our species' success lies not in our raw, innate intelligence or in any specialized mental abilities," writes Harvard anthropologist Joseph Henrich.  Instead, he argues it's the ability to learn easily from the innovations of others that makes us uniquely capable as a species. . . . Imitation is the foundation for human ingenuity.

-Scott H. Young, Get Better at Anything

Reexamine....................

 

Dismiss whatever insults your own soul

-Walt Whitman

better than you were...................

 

     The legendary music producer Rick Rubin was asked if there's anything the artists he's worked with (which includes some of the all-time greats: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Run-D.M.C., Eminem, Adele, Dr. Dre, and on and on) have in common.

     They all struggle with self-doubt.

    To overcome self-doubt, Rubin tells them, "Make it your goal to just be better than you were."

     Make it your goal, he says, to focus on goals you have control over.  "Compete only with yourself.  If you say, 'I don't want to write unless I can write better than The Beatles,' that's a hard road.  But if you say, 'I want to write a better song today than I wrote yesterday,' that can be done."

-Paul Rabil, The Way of the Champion 

forces at work..................

 

     All art is a form of poetry.  It's always changing, never fixed.  We may think we know what a piece we made means, yet over time that interpretation may change.  The creator stops being the creator once they finish the work.  They then become the viewer.  And the viewer can bring as much of their own meaning to a piece as the creator.

     We will never know a work's true meaning.  It's helpful to remember that there are forces at work beyond our comprehension.  Let's make are, and let others make the stories.

-Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

demands....................

 

If we accept that life is imperfect, we'll make fewer self-defeating demands for perfection on ourselves and others.

-Brad Jacobs

gentle...........................

 

1.  A gentle answer turns away wrath,

But a harsh word stirs up anger.

2.  The tongue of the wise man makes knowledge acceptable,

But the mouth of fools spouts folly.

-The Holy Bible, Proverbs, 15:1-2

an enormous refuse heap.............

 

The ideology of progress has led to barbarism, and modern science has become a tool of enslavement rather than a tool of liberation.  In this post-Nietzschean world, the enslavement was not restricted to dictatorships, the usual recipients of the epithet "totalitarian"; it was just as pervasive in the "democratic" countries of the West, where the all-embracing power of the culture industry had nearly buried the possibility of independent critical thought beneath an enormous refuse heap of commodified artifacts and reified minds.

-Wilfred M. McClay, Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America (1994)

only in fairy tales.............

 

     "Of one thing, however, be certain," says Warren Buffett, "If a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance.  Only in fairy tales are emperors told they are naked."

-Peter Bevelin, Seeking Wisdom: From Darwin to Munger

this admirable order...............

 

In the heavens, therefore, there is nothing fortuitous, unadvised, inconstant, or variable:  all there is order, truth, reason, and constancy; and all the things which are destitute of these qualities are counterfeit, deceitful, and erroneous, and have their residence about the earth beneath the moon, the lowest of all the planets.  He, therefore, who believes that this admirable order and almost incredible regularity of the heavenly bodies, by which the preservation and entire safety of all things is secure, is destitute of intelligence, must be considered to be himself wholly destitute of all intellect whatever.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, Cicero's Tusculan Disputations

Learned skills.......................

 

Once upon a time, social skills were acquired and honed during front porch conversations with neighbors, Little League games, bowling tournaments, poker or bridge nights, board games, and club meetings.

Those weren’t just meetings and events. They were training sessions in the soft skills that often are missing in the modern workplace. In those old-fashioned exchanges, we learned how to read one another, how to listen and tell jokes and stories along with how to deliver or receive sensitive news. Those are skills that require practice, often involving more than a few fumbles, and are rarely completely mastered.

-Michael Wade

All kinds.........................

 

The older I get the more I realize how many kinds of smart there are. There are a lot of kinds of smart. There are a lot of kinds of stupid, too.

-Jeff Bezos, as quoted here

Just say no............................

 

............................................to bad advice.

stop digging.................

 

Today, give yourself the most simple and doable of tasks: just don't make stuff worse.  Whatever happens, don't add angry or negative emotions to the equation.  Don't react for the sake of reacting.  Leave it as it is.  Stop digging.  Then plan your way out.

-Ryan Holiday

On parking apps........................

 

We do a lot of clerical labor to register ourselves with entities that have figured out ways to intervene in matters that were once direct and straightforward. For example, you have to download the Parkmobile app and set up an account before you can park your car in Santa Cruz, if you are anywhere near the boardwalk. Maybe you are ready to unwind on the beach after a hard day, or maybe you have a carload of kids with low blood sugar, two of whom desperately need to find a bathroom. But you are going to have to find a cell signal, register your credit card and make a password before you can go on your way. Of course, since the app freezes during the final step, you’re not sure you really did pay for parking, or if instead you will be paying an $85 parking ticket at some point in the future. It’s super relaxing. Ask me how I know.

If you don’t have a smart phone, you are out of luck. You may be paying taxes to maintain the street but you can’t park on it, since you are not quite a full citizen.

-Matthew B. Crawford, from this episode

the country we're visiting..........

The reason literacy is important is that literature is the operating instructions. The best manual we have. The most useful guide to the country we’re visiting, life.

-culled from this post at The Hammock Papers

Really look.......................

 

3.  Look beneath the surface:  never let a thing's intrinsic quality or worth escape you.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Six

Nature designed us...............

 

     But something incredibly human and essential to society gets lost in translation in the digital expression of life.  After all, we're social animals wired to be with and around other people in real life, not just from the chest up on a grainy 2D Zoom call.  Nature designed us to see each other face-to-face.  To make eye contact and sync up with others.  To gauge their body language, catch their ever-so-slight facial inflections, and to pick up on their tone of voice.

-Kevin Ervin Kelly, Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together

Fifty years ago.....................

       Earth, Wind & Fire....................Shining Star

 

a gentleman's agreement................

 

Up to then there had been something of a gentleman’s agreement among those who might be called The Good Journalists of Washington that the Kennedy Administration was one of excellence, that it was for good things and against bad things, and that when it did lesser things it was only in self-defense, and in order that it might do other good things.

-David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest

accepts.......................

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation, he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.

-Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

a good society................

 

It may be, in the end, that a good society is defined more by how people treat strangers than by how they treat those they know.

-James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds

Let's see AI do this....................

 

We don't just need our brains and our brawn, we need a capacity for self-insight, trust, cooperation, and a mix of big-sky visioning with pint-sized actions.  And let me grab my megaphone for this one: We absolutely cannot talk about the future without inviting emotion, intuition, and awe back into our lives and our decision-making.

Ari Wallach, Longpath: Becoming the Great Ancestors Our Future Needs

Epiphanies.....................

 

      Epiphanies are hidden in the most ordinary moments: the casting of a shadow, the smell of a match igniting, an unusual phrase overheard or misheard.  A dedication to the practice of showing up on a regular basis is the main requirement.

-Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

Fifty years ago...............................

             Rod Stewart.....................Sailing

 

narrowing.............................

 

Serendipitous connections become less likely as increased communication narrows our tastes and interests.  Knowing and caring more and more about less and less.  This tendency may increase productivity in a narrow sense while decreasing social cohesion.

-Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone

a place for us niche players.............

 

While the Amazons of the world may have a lock on price, variety, and convenience, they don't have a monopoly on joy, delight, surprise, and social bliss.  There's a massive opportunity for those who design places, whom I call "place-makers," and those who fund and run places, whom I call "place-operators," to adopt a new frame of mind and equip themselves with the right set of tools for making the crucial places of our society irreplaceable.

-Kevin Ervin Kelly, Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together

be prepared....................

 

. . . the mind must be prepared for knowledge as one prepares a field for planting, and a discovery made too soon is no better than a discovery not made at all.

-Louis L'Amour, The Walking Drum

"here to help"........................

 

The frustrations of entering into that Kafkaesque world of chatbots that are “here to help,” or phone menus that seem imported from some generic template, are such that it is worth taking an hour to drive to the CVS pharmacy, or the DMV, or the UPS store, or some medical practice, and collar a human being. Usually they are able to solve my problem in short order.

-Matthew B. Crawford, from this substack

Fifty years ago..........................

                

              Sweet....................Fox On The Run

 

born..........................

 

 So long as we continue to know the faults of our enemies, and to be ignorant of the faults of our friends and ourselves, it is possible for men who have no bad desires to join in the hatred produced by pride and fear, and to contribute, against their will, to the forces of antagonism which stand in the way of a better spirit. Righteousness cannot be born until self -righteousness is dead.

-Bertrand Russell, Justice In War-Time

teach yourself...................

 

36.  Observe how all things are continually being born of change; teach yourself to see that Nature's highest happiness lies in changing the things that are, and forming new things after their kind.  Whatever is, in some sense the seed of what is to emerge from it.  Nothing can become a philosopher less that to imaging that seed can only be something that is planted in the earth of the womb.

-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Four

adding by subtracting........................

 

Most people are too loyal to their distractions to ever meet their destiny.

The courage isn't in taking on more, it's in cutting off everything that doesn't feed your goal.

Focus requires subtraction.

-Farnum Street, from this episode

without.......................

 

Intelligence without social skills and the regular practice of interacting and cooperating with others makes for a dangerous society.

-Kevin Ervin Kelley, Irreplaceable:  How to Create Extraordinary Places That Bring People Together

interaction..........................

 

Nature's approach to growing a brain relies on receiving a vast set of experiences such as social interaction, conversation, play, exposure to the world and the rest of the landscape of normal human affairs.  This strategy of interaction with the world allows the colossal machinery of the brain to take shape from a relatively small set of instructions.

-David Eagleman, Livewired:  The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain

Wisdom.............................

8.   Does not wisdom call out?
       Does not understanding raise her voice?
2 2     At the highest point along the way,
    where the paths meet, she takes her stand;
3 3   Beside the gate leading into the city,
    at the entrance, she cries aloud:
4 4    “To you, O people, I call out;
    I raise my voice to all mankind.
5 5    You who are simple, gain prudence;
    you who are foolish, set your hearts on it.[a]
6 6    Lsten, for I have trustworthy things to say;
    I open my lips to speak what is right.
7 7    My mouth speaks what is true,
    for my lips detest wickedness.
8 8    All the words of my mouth are just;
    none of them is crooked or perverse.
9 9    To the discerning all of them are right;
    they are upright to those who have found knowledge.
10 10    Choose my instruction instead of silver,
    knowledge rather than choice gold,
11 11    For wisdom is more precious than rubies,
    and nothing you desire can compare with her.

-The Holy Bible, Proverbs 8: 1-11