One learns by thinking about writing, and by talking about writing — but primarily through writing.
Mary Oliver
It’s in the doing, where the learning happens.
Oliver, Mary. A Poetry Handbook. Taiwan, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994. pp17
Category: Thinkers
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An excerpt from Warble for Lilac-Time, by Walt Whitman
The maple woods, the crisp February days and the,
sugar making,
The robin where he hops, bright-eyed, brown-breasted,
With musical clear call at sunrise, and again at sunset,
Or flitting among the trees of the apple-orchard, building
the nest of his mate,
The melted snow of March, the willow sending forth its
yellow-green sprouts,
For spring-time is here! the summer is here! and what is
this in it and from it?It is Lilac Time. It’s flitting time. Flitting is such a Spring word, isn’t it?
Whitman walks us from February into March. Describes what the Maple and willow trees make, and shares that small image you might miss – the robin building his mate’s nest.
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looking stupid takes courage, and sometimes it’s easier to just let things slide. It is striking how many situations I am in where I start asking basic questions, feel guilty for slowing the group down, and it turns out that nobody understood what was going on to begin with (often people message me privately saying that they’re relieved I asked), but I was the only one who actually spoke up and asked about it.
This is a habit. It’s easy to pick up. And it makes you smarter.
– Nabeel S. QureshiFrom his essay: How to Understand Things
Willing to look stupid is another method of staying humble. It’s a form of integrity too. You’re admitting to yourself – I don’t understand this yet.
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This is on thing I say to all students. That to be a really good mathematician, you have to be lazy. Ok, so you look at that, and you sort of say right, you could go straight in, integrate it, put the values in and get zero. Or you could step back for a minute and say, is there a trick I could use that gets the answer without having to do a lot of work? And the answer is yes, there is. So before you dive into something, sit back, look at the problem, and see, is there a clever way I could do this that’ll save me time?
– Philip MainiApplies to other disciplines and circumstances. Step back and evaluate before diving in.
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You Only Know What You Make.
Giambattista Vico – (verum ipsum factum)This from Tiago Forte’s Forte Labs Newsletter. Tiago goes on to add:
It’s my reminder to you to not just passively consume more information that soon will be forgotten. Instead, use what you’re learning to make new things.
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When she sat still, her swirling thoughts settled like tea leaves at the bottom of a cup. Then she could see clearly. She knew herself. She was a dreamer. A wonderer. A collector. She had to keep looking.
But she also had to earn a living.
– Laura AlaryMaria Mitchell was an astronomer, teacher, librarian, and entrepreneur (she started her own school. I’d consider that being an entrepreneur.)
She discovered the comet C/1847 T1. This was a response to the challenge put forth from King Frederick VI of Denmark offering a gold medal to the first person to discover a new comet.
Once again, picture books, children’s books, are underrated.
Alary, Laura. The Astronomer Who Questioned Everything: The Story of Maria Mitchell. Canada, Kids Can Press Ltd, 2022.
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People called it a thinking machine, but Ada knew better. The intelligence was not in the machine itself, but in the genius of its designer.
– Diane StanleyAda Lovelace understood where the genius of the Difference Engine came from – Charles Babbage.
Does this quote still apply today? Is the genius now in the machine?
Again, picture books, children’s books, are underrated.
Stanley, Diane. Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science: The First Computer Programmer. United States, Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books, 2016.
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“Whatever you come across…you will be able to note down immediately… be it an anecdote or a fable or an illustrative example or a strange incident or a maxim or a witty remark or a remark notable for some other quality or a proverb or a metaphor or a simile.”
Erasmus of RotterdamFrom the commonplacing tradition comes Zibaldones.
Zibaldones are similar to commonplace books, but they incorporate pictures, physical memories. Ancient scrapbooks if you will, but with an educational and cataloguing bent.
The Atlas Obscura article: How to Keep a Zibaldone, the 14th Century’s Answer to Tumblr is a terrific primer.
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“for the vast majority of its history, Stripe has, I think, attracted people who are drawn to unglamorous infrastructure challenges and problems. We are not a company that specializes in making beautiful cars. We make roads“
Patrick CollisonAlways encouraged to do better after hearing Patrick speak. Dwarkesh’s podcast remains underrated.
Full transcript here
Floodlights and Goalposts 