Not So Common Sense
understanding, wisdom, context relevance
Not So Common Sense
"[This is] the key to the mystery is the old adage "a word to the wise is sufficient." Because this phrase is not only overused, but overused in an indirect way (by prepending the subject to some advice), most people who've heard it don't know what it means. What it means is that if someone is wise, all you have to do is say one word to them, and t
... See moreThe examined life
What if our worst qualities are actually our best? Recently I listened to an interview with Irish theologist and poet John O’Donohue from 2006 in which he asked what would happen if the things we hate about ourselves, the qualities we despise and can’t stand, are actually the best things about who we are. It was a powerful reframe... See more
What if our worst qualities are actually our best? Recently I listened to an interview with Irish theologist and poet John O’Donohue from 2006 in which he asked what would happen if the things we hate about ourselves, the qualities we despise and can’t stand, are actually the best things about who we are. It was a powerful reframe... See more
Good Billionaires and the Last of Silicon Valley’s Original Founders
When up is down…
Alexi Pappas on how the story you tell yourself is the most powerful one in the world.
“How you talk about your experiences will dictate how you feel about them. Reframing our goals and rewriting our stories are powerful tools. Nobody can tell us how to feel about something. We can make our shortcomings into something beautiful if we want to. How w... See more
Attention Required! | Cloudflare
Writer and designer Edith Wharton, the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, on what causes old age:
“The producer of old age is habit: the deathly process of doing the same thing in the same way at the same hour day after day, first from carelessness, then from inclination, at last from cowardice or inertia.
Habit is necessary; but it is the habit ... See more
“The producer of old age is habit: the deathly process of doing the same thing in the same way at the same hour day after day, first from carelessness, then from inclination, at last from cowardice or inertia.
Habit is necessary; but it is the habit ... See more
3-2-1 Thursday newsletter - James Clear • 3-2-1: How to Connect With Others, What Causes Old Age, and the Recipe for Success
Traveling light means high uncertainty, but also high flexibility, high opportunity. Habit is hanging on, possessed. Letting go of possession(s), become light and open to possibility.
Writer and scholar C.S. Lewis on what why small choices matter:
“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never d... See more
“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never d... See more
James Clear • 3-2-1: Two ways to grow, how to criticize, and a simple recipe for finding good opportunities
On the importance of tacit knowledge and why reality has a surprising amount of detail. Without some kind of direct experience to use as a touchstone, people don't have the context that gives them a place in their minds to put the things you are telling them.
The things you say often don't stick, and the few things that do stick are often distorted
... See moreMeanwhile, some of the most serious people I know do their serious thing gratis and make their loot somewhere else. My dad, whose photographs sit at the top of every Experimental History post, quit his job at the newspaper and went to work as a postal carrier instead. Why? As he puts it: “I could afford better lenses delivering mail than I could ta... See more
Adam Mastroianni • Surely You Can Be Serious
A man of letters… post / mail / words working hard for UBI - serving the commons, in order to facilitate personal expression. Work to live, not live to work.
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