Benji
@benji
Benji
Frank Chimero · Selling Lemons
frankchimero.com
![Cover of In Search of Lost Time [volumes 1 to 7]](https://d1l054mla94ehg.cloudfront.net/media/images/thumbnails/curation/6124cdcf/thumbnail.jpg?width=50&dpr=2)
Maybe in this world of supremacy of “taste,” this is helpful to keep in mind.
I will not serve that in which I no longer believe, whether it call itself my home, my fatherland, or my church: and I will try to express myself in some mode of life or art as freely as I can and as wholly as I can, using for my defence the only arms I allow myself to use, silence, exile, and cunning.—
James Joyce • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (AmazonClassics Edition)
Rehearsing possible lives
Tina He • Rehearsing possible lives
Method acting your options as a means to decision making
Crucially, how you look at running, how you pay attention to it, shapes how you relate to the world in that moment. If you view it as a vapid simulacrum of walking, you will find yourself overwhelmed by the sheer stupidity of it all every time you chance upon someone out for a jog. If you view it as a way for a human to focus his mind and body... See more
Packy • Means and Meaning
🎙️ PODCAST
Philosophize This! - Episode #089 ... Simone De Beauvoir - The Second Sex
💭 MOMENT
This is what is called objectifying a person. Simone de Beauvoir would say that when you look at the history of the world, anytime, whether it was a ruthless dictator, an imperialistic regime, anytime people have been enslaved, the party responsible for... See more
Philosophize This! - Episode #089 ... Simone De Beauvoir - The Second Sex
💭 MOMENT
This is what is called objectifying a person. Simone de Beauvoir would say that when you look at the history of the world, anytime, whether it was a ruthless dictator, an imperialistic regime, anytime people have been enslaved, the party responsible for... See more
• As Peter Thiel observed in his famous Stanford lecture, founders occupy a peculiar place in the Valley's collective psyche, simultaneously worshipped and vulnerable to sacrifice.
• The Valley's founding stories often follow ancient mythological patterns: the outcast-turned-hero (Jobs), the boy-king (Zuckerberg), the Prometheus figure bringing divine fire to mortals (Musk).
• As Thiel observes, the evolution of founders into sacred figures follows a consistent trajectory: the initial blessing (funding), a period of adversity (the "valley of death"), and eventual triumph or failure.
• When founders succeed at scale, their companies can transcend mere business to become something approaching cosmic centers.
• True sacredness is rooted in forms of value that cannot be bought or sold.
• The crypto space serves as a concentrated laboratory for understanding how sacred narratives can be corrupted into sophisticated fraud.
• The attention economy has created a new priesthood, where the sacred rite of "founding" requires no actual founding, only the ability to perform the outward signs of “founding.”
• When a critical mass of sacred narratives is exposed as cynical manipulations, the ability to discern genuine visionaries diminishes.
• This essay is less a prescription than a reckoning, a meditation on what we stand to lose.