And fate? No one alive has ever escaped it,
Neither brave man nor coward, I tell you —
It’s born with us the day that we are born.
– Hector
From the Iliad, by Homer. Hector Returns to Troy.
Translated by Robert Fagles
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What you also need to do is keep working on your judgment. Keep working on your judgment. That means—and this is something you do, but I’m not sure how many writers actually do it as rigorously as they should—that you have to read a lot. There’s no substitute for that. You have to read a lot. You have to read it with a critical mind. When you read a great piece, reverse engineer it. Read it again with that specific eye where you’re looking at the craft.
When you read a piece by someone you like but this particular piece hasn’t worked, do the same thing. Read it with a critical eye. Figure out why didn’t it work this time. What went wrong? Why did it feel off? You have to hone the reader in yourself, which will automatically make your judgment better, which will automatically lift your ability with it because then you’ll have to work that much harder to please the critic in you.
Rajagopalan, Shruti (2023, June 8). The Creator Economy (No. 81) Ideas of India. https://www.discoursemagazine.com/culture-and-society/2023/06/08/ideas-of-india-the-creator-economy/Creative judgement. For those of us without editors, it’s an essential skill to hone.
Listen to Shruti’s interview with Amit in its entirety below:
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Tim Hunkin is a professional tinkerer. His YouTube videos series The Secret Life of Components are excellent primers to the hidden lives of machines – their components.
A few notes on chains:
For us engineering noobs, the chain is associated with the bicycle. But oh it’s so much more. Tim Hunkin demonstrates the variety of their uses. Old fashioned arcades. Pulleys. And even a giant metal clock.
Belleville washers are “dished” spring washers. They look a bit like Satellite dishes. These help with torque.
The advent of the “Bush” chain was revolutionary. Bush chains are the modern chain. Their pins are able to slot all the way through the bush. This allows the chain handle greater loads.
They were invented by Hans Renold who founded the Renold Chain Company in 1880. The Renold Chain Company is still in operation.
H/T Kevin Kelly
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In an age when AI can write songs and poems for you, the human edge will come not in what we generate, but in what we save, what we collect, and how we arrange the data. We find this idea in Walter Benjamin, who praises the collector as one who redeems objects, by bringing them into constellation with one another. We find it in the work of Mallarmé, for whom chance is the great anthologist. We find it in Nietzsche’s revisionist philosophy of history, according to which the task of the historian is less to remember the past as it was than to use it, recontextualize it. We find it in the art of Joseph Cornell, for whom art is fundamentally arrangement.
Atkins, Zohar. Curation Over Creation: In Praise of the Anthologist. June 6, 2023, What is Called Thinking newsletterCuration has merit. With an AI abundant world on the horizon, curation could rise in value.
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Ned Plimpton: I can’t believe I asked if I could call you “Dad.” Of course you said no.
Steve Zissou: I let you call me Stevesie. It sounds better.
Ned Plimpton: It doesn’t mean the same thing.
Anderson, Wes. 2004. The Life Aquatic with Steve ZissouIt doesn’t mean the same thing.
Happy Father’s Day.
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Maintenance is absolutely necessary and maintenance is optional. It it easy to put off, and yet it has to be done. Defer now, regret later.
Neglect kills.
What to do?
Here’s a suggestion: Soften the paradox and the misbehavior it encourages by expanding the term “maintenance” beyond referring only to preventive maintenance to stave off the trauma of repair–brushing the damn teeth, etc. Let “maintenance” mean the whole grand process of keeping a thing going. In that perspective, occasional repair is part of the process. Close monitoring is part of the process. Changing the oil is part of the process. Eventually replacing the thing is part of the process.
This from Stewart’s upcoming book Maintenance: Of Everything. Stewart is taking a brave approach to draft this book. He’s using Books in Progress, a public drafting tool where he collaborates with readers draft by draft.
Innovation gets all the love. Maintence is overlooked. Even in terms of status, innovators are celebrated. Maintainers are hidden. This book seeks to change that.
You can follow his progress here: https://books.worksinprogress.co/
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“We can always become more human”
– Zena Hitz
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“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.“
From L.P. Hartley’s The Go-Between“The past is never dead; it’s not even past.“
William FaulknerAnd from Breaking Bread with the Dead:
The decisions of our ancestors, however strange those people may be to us, touch us and our world; and our decisions will touch the lives of those who come after us. By understanding what moved them and what they hope for, we give ourselves a better chance of acting wisely-in some cases, as those ancestors did; in others, they didn’t. By understanding what moved them and what they hoped for, we give ourselves a better chance of acting wisely–in some cases, as those ancestors did; in others, as they didn’t. We judge them, as we should, as we must; but if we judge them fairly and proportionately, as we ourselves hope someday to be judged, then we may use them well with an eye toward the future.
Jacobs, Alan. Breaking bread with the dead: a reader’s guide to a more tranquil mind. New York: Penguin Press, 2020. (see page 143)You often hear “Forget it! The past is in the past.” sure, but the consequences of our decisions can reverberate longer into the future than we expect.
Social movements like Effective Altruism and organizations like The Long Now Foundation recognize this. The better choices we make today, paired with long-term preparation can give our decendants a chance to flourish.
Too deep for a Sunday morning?
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- What type of poem is it?
- What is its mode? Lyric, narrative, dramatic?
- What is the form?
- Does it have meter? Does it have rhyme? Is it in free verse?
- What is the diction or vocabulary of the poem?
- Who is the speaker of the poem?
- Is there a story line or action?
- What is the setting?
- What are the images?
- Are there figures of speech?
- Are there any allusions in the poem?
- What’s the tone?
- Does the poem have any symbols?
- What type of poem is it?
