The New Romantics

This is intelligence. Not in the IQ sense, but in the "I know what matters" sense. In the "I know who I am without the algorithm telling me" sense.

Trend is not inherently bad. But when you build your identity around it, you become a vessel for the algorithm—not a creator of your own world.

Simone Weil, writing in Oppression and Liberty (published posthumously in 1955):

“Never has the individual been so completely delivered up to a blind collectivity, and never have men been less capable, not only of subordinating their actions to their thoughts, but even of thinking.

This is the quiet art of living well. It does not demand that we abandon the world, but that we engage with it more mindfully. It asks that we slow down, that we look more closely, that we listen more carefully. For in doing so, we discover that much of what we seek—clarity, peace, even strength—was always within reach. It was simply waiting for us

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Don’t even mention dating or — gasp — sex when the simple act of looking into someone else’s eyes provokes anxiety. But what could they do? Give up their phones and the corporate-controlled, like-driven culture, which is all they’ve ever known? Silent scream emoji!

We live in an age of lexical abundance. More words, more access, more content than at any time in human history. And yet something essential is slipping away. Not reading itself, but the kind of reading that once shaped minds and formed character: slow, immersive, reflective, and richly human. As Harold Bloom noted: “"We read deeply for varied reas... See more

The only antidote I've found to the madness of my own brain is to talk to other people and be around other people. Somehow, through conversation and through seeing and being seen, I feel less terrible. I wouldn't say I feel great neccessarily, I just feel less bad.

Mastery is fine, but you must retain the ability to think like a beginner.