Montaigne loved open debate. “No propositions astonish me, no belief offends me, whatever contrast it offers with my own.” He like being contradicted, as it opened up more interesting conversations and helped him to think–something he preferred to do through interaction rather than staring into the fire like Descartes. His friend Florimond de Raemond described his conversation as “the sweetest and most enriched with graces.” Yet when Montaigne was not feeling sweet, or when he was carried away by the topic of discussion, he could be vociferous. His passion led him to say things that were indiscreet, and he encouraged others to do the same.
Bakewell, Sarah. How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer. New York: Other Press, 2011 pp170.
Category: ideas
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What if across your lifetime, you could only choose one book to read?
You can only read so many books in a lifetime. I mean, part of me thinks we’d be better off picking one book and never reading another book, and just getting through that one book very well.
The Cultural Tutor. 48:46Which book would you choose?
For readers, it would be challenging to only read one. Dipping in and out of books is proven method for determining what to read. But the idea of rereading for a deeper understanding is invaluable.
See philosopher/entrepreneur Johnathan Bi‘s careful reading approach:
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Beer incentivizes science.
From Will O’Brien’s piece in the Fitzwilliam
Taken over its entire history, Guinness may just be the most successful company Ireland has ever produced. In 1930, it was the seventh largest company in Britain or Ireland. It is one of our oldest companies of note. Considering that it predates the Bank of Ireland and the State itself, it could even be said that Guinness is the longest-running successful large institution in Ireland.
Will O’BrienThe Irish brewing company has relentlessly innovated on multiple fronts.
- Workplace benefits
- Annual leave
- Free meals (today would be a company cafeteria)
- Family trips
- Healthcare
- Pension
- Housing!
- The creation of a Guinness Research Laboratory
- The Easy pour system (1959) – Invented by mathematician Michael Ash. Allowed lesser skilled bartenders to serve a quality pour.
- Project ACORN (1969) – Advanced. Cans. of. Rich. Nectar. The first attempt to improve the can or bottle pour.
- “widget” – a gas filled, tennis table sized ball at the bottom of the can that releases a gas that creates bubbles. This greatly improved the taste of home-served pints.
- Branding – Guinness is good for you, Guinness is bad for you, The Guinness Book of Records, producing a Nigerian action film.
Guinness is proof that companies who endure, innovate across multiple areas of their business over an extended timeline. Innovation doesn’t pause.
A must read piece if you’re interested in history, economics, marketing, or beer.
- Workplace benefits
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More from the
twitterX isn’t all terrible files
So much in one tweet.
Inspiring. Picture Fermat coming home from the office and working on maths after dinner, for fun. What’s your after dinner fun?
Interesting how ambition can fluctuate between people, but success occur. Colossal Descartes. Modest hobbyist Pierre de Fermat. Both with immense contributions to mathematics. Descartes inventing analytic geometry, and Fermat the “founder” of the modern theory of numbers.
How does a lawyer from Toulouse go on to be what Britannica calls “one of the two leading mathematicians of the first half of the 17th century“?
(Boyer, Carl B.. “Pierre de Fermat”. Encyclopedia Britannica, Invalid Date, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pierre-de-Fermat. Accessed 19 September 2023.)
h/t @netcapgirl
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Morale is real. Don’t dismiss it.
Brilliant weirdos Alexey Guzey and Brian Timar explain morale. Worth bookmarking this one for discouraging moments. It could help you figure out why your morale is low.
First, ponder this idea:
Morale is your motive force, and you live or die by its maintenance.
Brian Timar & Alexey GuzeyAlexey and Brian go on to share a list of 10 + things that increase and decrease morale.
ThreeFour morale boosters from their list that resonate:11. doing
35. making a decision
3. going outside
13. stopping a thief
Three morale sappers to be wary of:
4. being a coward
5. punting decisions
9. spending time on a task and not feeling closer to finishing it
Consider morale booster #11 – doing. Don’t only read these, go on and create your own list of morale increasers.
Some increasers (sunlight) are perennial, but many more will be personal. Same applies with morale sappers (sleepiness).
Read the piece in full here. Also, pair with Guzey’s post: Why You Should Start a Blog Right Now
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Whatever the work is that you are doing, love it, and commit to it. – Zohar Atkins
“Love work” is different than “Love what you do”—for the injunction is less about finding the right work to love and more about finding any work to love. If romanticism suggests that there is only one thing that you can do and be happy, Shemaiah’s approach is closer to the logic behind arranged marriage: once you are prepared to love work your work becomes lovable. Meanwhile, the FOMO caused by wondering “Am I in the right line of work?” leads to restlessness. As the average time in any one job or company declines, one contributing factor may be the grass is always greener effect. A person who eschews status will not be as prone to this fallacy.
Atkins, Zohar. “Love The Work.” What Is Called Thinking?, 2023.
https://whatiscalledthinking.substack.com/p/love-the-work. Accessed 16 September 2023.Read Zohar’s full piece here. And pair with Dorthy Sayers opening paragraph from her essay Why Work?
I have already, on a previous occasion, spoken at some length on the subject of Work and Vocation. What I urged then was a thoroughgoing revolution in our attitude to work. I asked that it should be looked upon, not as a necessary drudgery to be undergone for the purpose of making money, but as a way of life in which the nature of man should find its proper exercise and delight and so fulfill itself to the glory of God. That it should, in fact be thought of as a creative activity undertaken for the love of work itself; and that man, made in God’s image, should make things, as God makes them, for the sake of doing well a thing that is well worth doing.
Sayers, Dorothy. Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 2004.I think both Dorthy and Zohar would agree on the idea that work is a noble pursuit on its own. But Dorthy takes the idea a step further, proposing the argument that work shouldn’t be taken on for only the purpose of earning money, but rather as an essential part of bringing glory to God.
Challenging and encouraging throughout.
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Accepting who we are is a relief
having gone about as high up Hemingway Mountain as I could go, having realized that even at my best I could only ever hope to be an acolyte up there, resolving never again to commit the sin of being imitative, I stumbled back down into the valley and came upon a little shit-hill labeled “Saunders Mountain.”
“Hmm,” I thought. “It’s so little. And it’s a shit-hill.”
Then again, that was my name on it.
This is the big moment for any artist (this moment of combined triumph and disappointment), when we have to decide whether to accept a work of art that we have to admit we weren’t in control of as we made it and of which we’re not entirely sure we approve. It is less, less than we wanted it to be, and yet it’s more, too –it’s small and a bit pathetic, judged against the work of the great masters, but there it is, all ours.
What we have to do at that point, I think, is go over, sheepishly but boldly, and stand on our shit-hill, and hope it will grow.
And–to belabor this already questionable metaphor–what will make that shit-hill grow is our commitment to it, the extent to which we say, “Well, yes, it is a shit-hill, but it’s my shit-hill, so let me assume that if I continue to work in this mode that is mine, this hill will eventually stop being made of shit, and will grow, and from it, I will eventually be able to see (and encompass in my work) the whole world.”
Saunders, George. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life. New York: Random House, 2021. pp108-109Own your shit-hill. It frees you to make progress.
David Perell calls it a “mark of maturity”
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With JP Coovert
If you know how to write the alphabet you can draw this map.
JP CoovertTwo types of maps JP demonstrates.
- The Icon Map – a starter map. An Ed Emberley-hieroglyphs type map. If you can write the alphabet, this map is for you.
- The Tolkien Map – A Double A map. The next level up. Takes a bit more skill with the pen, but not impossible to get there. Similar in style to you guessed it – J.R.R. Tolkien
JP suggests starting with a “key” first. This will help keep all of the icons on your map consistent.
Great game for a Sunday afternoon or waiting for your food at the Olive Garden
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From his essay, How to Do Great Work.
The entire essay is noteworthy, but this small section of quotes made me look at questions in a new way.
#1 – Really good questions are partial discoveries:
One of the biggest misconceptions about new ideas is about the ratio of question to answer in their composition. People think big ideas are answers, but often the real insight was in the question.
Part of the reason we underrate questions is the way they’re used in schools. In schools they tend to exist only briefly before being answered, like unstable particles. But a really good question is a partial discovery. How do new species arise? Is the force that makes objects fall to earth the same as the one that keeps planets in their orbits? By even asking such questions you were already in excitingly novel territory.
#2 – Revisit the questions from your youth.
Do you remember yours?
People talk a lot about the importance of keeping your youthful dreams alive, but it’s just as important to keep your youthful questions alive.
#3 – After answers, more questions.
This excerpt reminds me of the Haitian proverb, after the mountain, more mountains.
It’s a great thing to be rich in unanswered questions. And this is one of those situations where the rich get richer, because the best way to acquire new questions is to try answering existing ones. Questions don’t just lead to answers, but also to more questions.
Graham, Paul. “How to Do Great Work.” Paul Graham, 2023. http://paulgraham.com/greatwork.html. Accessed 3 July 2023.
Floodlights and Goalposts 