He meticulously cultivated new ideas and distilled them into words. “He walked much and contemplated,” wrote his contemporary John Aubrey. “and he had in the head of his Staffe a pen and inke-horn, carried always a Note-book in his pocket, and as soon as a notion darted, he presently entered it into his Booke, or else he should perhaps have lost it.
As read from George Dyson’s all-to-relevant book on modern times, but was published in 1997 – Darwin among the Machines.
Love a good notebook story. Don’t you?
Dyson, George. Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence. United States: Basic Books, 2012. pg5
Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections.
As read from Pride and Prejudice, chapter 37.
One of the important lessons of Pride and Prejudice is the soothing balm of a solitary walk.
Walk! Walk today!
Austen, Jane. Pride and prejudice. India, Penguin Publishing Group, 2003. pg 206
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 Wang
Learning can compound.
Dan’s letters are beyond bookmarking. They are worth printing out and reading in hand.
After 3 months, I’ve returned to Dr. Oliver Sacks’ memoir – On the Move: A Life.
Reading each page is skiing downhill. A smooth, lightning shot of a journey that slaloms through Dr. Sacks’ curious life.
It’s been a joy.
From the chapter, City Island:
Especially in our early days, I sometimes felt terrified of his directness – terrified in particular, that he would find my writings, such as they were, muzzy, dishonest, talentless, or worse. I had feared his criticisms at the beginning, but from 1971 on, when I sent him Migraine, I was eager for his reactions, depended on them, and gave more weight than those of anyone else.
Dr. Oliver Sacks
Even Dr. Sacks feared critique of his writing. Especially from his friend and correspondent the poet Thom Gunn.
But as much as Gunn’s directness terrified Dr. Sacks, he valued Gunn’s feedback of his writing more than anyone else’s.
Sacks understood Gunn’s feedback would improve his writing.
Sacks also describes Gunn in the opening of the City Island chapter as a tremendous walker:
Thom was always a tremendous walker, striding up and down the hills of San Francisco. I never saw him with a car or a bicycle; he was quintessentially a walker, a walker like Dickens, who observed everything, took it in, and used it sooner or later in what he wrote.
Throughout On The Move, Sacks introduces us to new characters as if you’d be joining them for a Friday dinner party.
Sacks’ detailed descriptions of their character quirks reveal their humanity.
Floodlights and Goalposts 