Don’t be the best. Be the only.
Kevin Kelly
Kelly, Kevin. Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier. United Kingdom, Penguin Publishing Group, 2023.
h/t – David Perell’s podcast below:
Category: ideas
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I tell people who want to write they should try to write every single day without exception. They don’t all like hearing that. Obviously, it’s not how every writer works, but it’s a good initial test to see whether you really want to be a writer.
– Tyler CowenThis a good test of how badly one wants to write. Also, I’d take this as you don’t have to publish said writing.
You can keep it to yourself. Remember writing is a powerful method of thinking.
This from Tyler’s latest conversation with Rebecca F. Kuang:
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The trunk of an elephant might feel cool to the touch. Not what one expects, perhaps, from 200 pounds of writhing muscle, strong enough to uproot a tree, which tapers down to two “fingers,” giving it enough delicacy to detect the ripest berry on a shrub, and pluck it. Feeling an elephant’s trunk draws you to her other great feature: melancholic eyes that are veiled by long and dusty lashes. This combination of might with the suggestion of serene contemplation is surely the reason that elephants seem to embody a special state of grace.
I appreciate this description of an elephant’s trunk. It’s a surprising, captivating way to open a letter. Note the focus, the detail. Wang could have described the entire elephant, but instead he honed in on one appendage.
Good writing is specific.
Also, he recounts this admonition about learning he wrote in his 2017 letter.
“Knowledge can compound. I’d like for us to think more about how to accelerate the growth of learning. The traditional method of reading more books and trying to improve professionally are good starts, but it’s not enough to stop there. One can learn more by traveling to new places, being social in different ways, reading new types of books, changing jobs or professions, moving to a new place, by doing better and by doing more.”
– Dan WangLearning can compound.
Dan’s letters are beyond bookmarking. They are worth printing out and reading in hand.
Skip to the full 2023 letter below:
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Fate guides the willing; it drags the unwilling behind it.
Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. (letters, CVII)
– SenecaIf reading Meditations seems like a slog, maybe Sentences from Seneca would be more accessible.
It’s pamphlet sized, with some of Seneca’s most revered
tweets, sentences.A good entry point if you’re stoic shy.
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Every great movement in history has been prepared for and partly carried out through preaching.
Martin Luther King Jr.It’s easy to dismiss this idea, but the text book Dr. King annotated from lists the following movements:
– The Christian church
– The Crusades
– The abolition of slavery
– The reformation
– The labor movement
– Marxian Communism
Read the insightful post in full here
Hess, J. (2024, January 22). Martin Luther King Jr.’s Organizational Strategies and Tactics. [Blog post]. Jillian Hess Blog. Retrieved from https://jillianhess.substack.com/p/martin-luther-king-jrs-organizational
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Most of all, at Harvard, John Adams learned to be a child of the Enlightenment. What does that mean?
Thomas E. RicksMany books are filled with answers. I like the ones that ask questions.
Ricks, Thomas E.. First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country. United States, HarperCollins, 2020. pp55
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The recent tracks of the fox or otter, in the yard, remind us that each hour of the night is crowded with events, and the primeval nature is still working and making tracks in the snow.
Henry D. ThoreauNature doesn’t pause. This is something we inherently know, but it takes a keen observer like Thoreau to call our attention to it.
Thoreau, Henry D.. Essays: A Fully Annotated Edition. Italy, Yale University Press, 2013. pp28
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“Drawing is about two fundamental things,” I explained, my hand stabilizers compensating for the motion of the horse. “Use of shapes and use of shadows.” I did a quick sketch of her head, using broad, firm pencil strokes for the parts of the face. Some shading, a little more work on the eyes, and it started to pop. I’d always been good at faces; just don’t ask me do do hands.
”I’ve seen art before,” she said, curious. “But how do you make it seem so real?” “one of the tricks is something we call perspective,” I explained. “Some things are farther away, right? And some things closer? That goes for parts of a person too. On a face, some parts are close to you, other parts are farther away. The trick is to make it seem that way in a drawing.
”You can’t draw it like it’s flat. If I use shadows–and put the eyes on a curved line like this–and use just a touch of foreshortening. . .”
There’s a moment in drawing, at least for me, when a face transforms from shapes and lines into a person. The eyes were a big part, and the dots of light reflecting in them, but the lips were important too.
Was not expecting a flurry of drawing craft notes as we drive towards the conclusion of act three, but Brandon Sanderson…
Sanderson, Brandon. The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England. United States, Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC. pp284,285
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From his grandfather, basic principles anyone can apply:
he never forgot the sound principles taught by his grandfather: to concentrate on the task immediately in front of him and to control spending.
On choosing clients and deterring greed:
‘To this day, Charlie continues to influence the firm’s attorneys, reminding them, “You don’t need to take the last dollar” and “Choose clients as you would friends.”
Yes, Adam Smith is still relevant. How is that even a question?
I think you learn economics better if you make Adam Smith your friend.
Charlie MungerEvery page of this book has a takeaway. Could be the best thirty dollars you invest.
Munger, Charles T.. Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. N.p., Stripe Matter Incorporated. (Digital Edition)
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What Carson did was to approach the study of how to create X by turning the question backward—that is, by studying how to create non-X. The great algebraist Jacobi had exactly the same approach as Carson and was known for his constant repetition of one phrase: “Invert, always invert.”83 It is in the nature of things, as Jacobi knew, that many hard problems are best solved only when they are addressed backward.
– Charlie MungerIt’s not only Charlie’s bits of wisdom that leave you in awe, the number and variety of thinkers Charlie Munger references in each chapter is astonishing.
In this speech alone he draws on Samuel Johnson, Cicero, Johnny Carson, Moses, Benjamin Disraelias, Croesus, Issac Newton, Epictetus…
Stripe Press’s online version of Poor Charlie’s Almanack is what digital reading should be.
More to come.
https://www.stripe.press/poor-charlies-almanack/talk-one?progress=66.79%25
Floodlights and Goalposts 