Pay attention to what you’re paying attention to
Something strange and wondrous begins to happen when one spends stretches of time in solitude, in the company of trees, far from the bustle of the human world with its echo chamber of judgments and opinions — a kind of rerooting in one’s deepest self-knowledge, a relearning of how to simply be oneself, one’s most authentic self. Wendell Berry knew ... See more
Maria Popova • Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself
History is not inert but contains within it a story that implicates or justifies political order... A political order is premised not just on who can vote but on what they can vote for, which is to say on what can be imagined. And our political imagination is rooted in our history, our culture, and our myths.... See more
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Politics is the art of the possible
Maria Popova • The Marginalian
Who gets to write shapes what gets to be written, which shapes what is remembered — that is the making of the collective selective memory we call history, and it is made of words. We invented words to name the world and invented power to apportion the named. It is our inventions that tell the fullest story of our nature. The range of them — the ran... See more
Maria Popova • The Marginalian
A large percentage of people’s problems in work, love and life are due to some combination of vagueness and passivity. You don’t know what you want to spend your time on; you don’t know what kind of person you really get along with; you don’t know what kind of clothing looks good to you; you don’t know what you value in a city; you don’t know how t... See more
Ava • Why You Should Write More
But this isn’t really about the software. It’s about what software promises us—that it will help us become who we want to be, living the lives we find most meaningful and fulfilling. The idea of research as leisure activity has stayed with me because it seems to describe a kind of intellectual inquiry that comes from idiosyncratic passion and inter
... See morepeople building tech products so often miss the point
the point is to help people live a good life, not an efficient life
the point is resonance, not scale
the point is to deliver comfort, not just convenience
the goal is not technology - the goal is human flourishing
the point is to help people live a good life, not an efficient life
the point is resonance, not scale
the point is to deliver comfort, not just convenience
the goal is not technology - the goal is human flourishing
sari azout • Tweet
Cognitive endurance refers to the capacity of independent engagement with a challenging problem, in the presence of accessible solutions. For example, a student’s cognitive endurance regulates how long they struggle with a math problem before looking up the solutions in the textbook’s appendix.
Like athletic endurance, cognitive endurance can be tra
... See moreThere are two modes of experience: appreciative, and evaluative.
Concrete example: let's say you're listening to a piece of music. Are you sinking into it, awash in emotions? You're in the appreciative mode.
Are you the mixing engineer, listening to the snare hits to make sure they're consistent? You're in the evaluative mode.
Much of sanity, and ha
... See morePeople who like rocks see cool rocks everywhere.
People who like birds see interesting birds everywhere. The tree on your yard could be an exceptional specimen. The world around you could be amazing and magical, but you aren't enough of a nerd to see it.
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