How to think
“There is no knowing for a fact. The only dependable things are humility and looking.”
― Richard Powers, The Overstory
― Richard Powers, The Overstory
The Overstory Quotes by Richard Powers
I remember a McKinsey women’s event where fifteen or twenty young consultants from the San Francisco office sat around a glossy oval table listening to a junior partner speak about her successful ascent. The topic turned to work-life balance, as it always did at such events, and she advised us as follows: If there is a household task where it... See more
A biographer of the novelist E. M. Forster wrote, “To speak to him was to be seduced by an inverse charisma, a sense of being listened to with such intensity that you had to be your most honest, sharpest, and best self.” Imagine how good it would be to be that guy.
David Brooks • How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
Looking closely is valuable at every scale. From looking closely at a sentence, a photograph, a building, a government. It scales and it cascades — one cognizant detail begets another and then another. Suddenly you’ve traveled very far from that first little: Huh.
I’d say that that huh is the foundational block of curiosity. To get good at the huh... See more
I’d say that that huh is the foundational block of curiosity. To get good at the huh... See more
Craig Mod • Looking Closely Is Everything
People who have not experienced the thing are unlikely to be generating truth. More likely, they’re resurfacing cached thoughts and narratives. Reading popular science books or news articles is not a substitute for understanding, and may make you stupider, by filling your mind with narratives and stories that don’t represent your own synthesis.
nabeelqu.co • Nabeelqu
Don’t be afraid to be confused. Try to remain permanently confused. Anything is possible. Stay open, forever, so open it hurts, and then open up some more, until the day you die, world without end, amen.