Ben Cuan

an American daydream

these days, I feel like I’m always being houndedby the urgency of the present. I am happy, but I could be happier. My life is rich, but it could be richer. My weeks have gotten increasingly regimented, each day a tightly packed grid of rainbow-colored calendar blocks. I want to have and do it all. If I don’t spend my days well, what will become of... See more

In other words, writing as identity. And identity formation is hard! It requires a great deal of invisible labor and discipline. In fact, the common thread among friends I admire for their precise and elegant writing is their absurdly dogged work ethic.

The third and deepest kinds of friendship, according to Aristotle, are friendships of virtue . That is, you like a person because of their character. They might be fun, they might be useful, but even if they aren’t, you like them anyway.

To avoid knowledge shields the US military, when it does accelerated training programs, avoids sequential curriculums and instead exposes soldiers to complex simulations and case studies that overwhelm them. The unpredictable, messy nature of the input makes it hard for the soldiers to form stable and coherent mental models, so they filter less... See more