Saved by Erikc Perez-Perez and
There Are No More Hedgehogs
The age of social media and the 24 hour news cycle is completely dominated by curiositas, by distracting knowledge, and that’s why the virtue of studiositas [a virtue of the mind which helps a person order their constant, never-ending desire to know into the things that truly matter, and tempers the mind from wandering off
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Isaiah Berlin, drawing on the Greek poet Archilochus, wrote, "The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing," to illustrate a fundamental distinction in human thinking and behavior. Berlin used this metaphor to categorize writers and thinkers into two groups: foxes, who pursue a wide variety of interests and perspectives, adapting to comple
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We are finite creatures, and our time on this earth is limited; the knowledge we choose to pursue matters. Of the knowledge available to us for consumption, nearly all of which calls to us to believe that is important, far less than 1% of it will be critical in the development of our lives. Probably far less than .1% of it.
Those travelers
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The consequence of our content-addicted culture is non-stop diversion from having to come to grips with the big questions of reality, of life. The American social scientist Herbert Simon wrote: “The wealth of information means a dearth of something else—a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvi... See more
Luke Burgis • The Case for Silence
sari added
Curiositas generates its own frenetic anxiety, because now I have to “keep up” and stay in the know, striving to be the person who knows before everybody else (Google “Portlandia OVER”). It’s the exhaustion of being perpetually “in the know.” Which explains why this sort of pursuit of “truth” doesn’t ever feel like the beata vita, the happy life.
James K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
I too have tussled with, a decade later, in contemplating the challenge of cultivating wisdom in the age of information, particularly in a media landscape driven by commercial interest whose very business model is predicated on conditioning us to confuse information with meaning. (Why think about what constitutes a great work of art — how it moves ... See more
Maria Popova • Susan Sontag on Storytelling, What It Means to Be a Good Human Being, and Her Advice to Writers
Rishita Chaudhary added
Alex Wittenberg and added
