Aakriti M

We have become fluent in the dialect of capital, but illiterate in the language of meaning. We spend our youth chasing wealth, only to spend our wealth chasing back the years we lost to that pursuit. And when someone dares to opt out, to live slowly, modestly, unbranded, we call them naïve.

If this strategy is good enough for Žižek, it’s good enough for me. Writing: it’s simply notetaking! It’s simply reading, and being interested and invested in your reading, and accumulating reflections and reactions to the reading, and then synthesizing that into a work.

Friendship, Aristotle says, is ‘one of the most indispensable requirements of life’: to flourish in this life, we must have excellent friends. He offered a set of precise definitions alongside a rich spectrum of nuances. There are three forms of friendship: utility, pleasure, and virtue. The first is a relationship between two people who are useful... See more

I don’t read for career advancement. I don’t read for skill building. I don’t even read for fun—at least that’s not my main priority.

I read in search of wisdom. I’m sure that sounds goofy to some people. Or naive or old-fashioned. But you don’t pursue these lifelong goals without sufficient motivation—and the pursuit of wisdom is that for me.

So I ... See more

And this is where patronage matters. This is where we remember that while money may be tangled in systems of power, it can also be a conduit for possibility. Historically, the greatest works of art, literature, and music were not birthed in a vacuum of self-sufficiency. They were financed, supported, and protected by those with means – Medici famil... See more