sparks ⚡️

Nature abhors a vacuum. But political opportunists thrive in vacuums.

This election was about who told a better story about the fundamentals without promising anything to fix those fundamentals. That is the sweet spot for an opportunist like Trump and his party. Sell everything, promise nothing. Keep them coming back for more.

The elevated levels of sadness and fear are, I believe, at least in part the result of our philosophically sedentary lifestyle.

Let’s expand the concept of “elite”in the way that Hughes meant it, not as the condescension of class but as the elevation of the mind and the preservation of standards.

Controlling search means controlling how most people access every other digital thing—it’s an incredible platform to gain trust and visibility, advertise, or influence public opinion.

To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, first you shape your mask(s) and thereafter, your mask(s) shape you. Just as an IRL costume or mask changes the way you carry yourself, a digital garment can transform your thought processes and habits of mind

Every year I felt more certain that to succeed in an atomized consumer culture was to fail as a human being.

In time, Bosker too started “viewing the everyday the way I looked at art,” with considered attention, openness. Elsewhere she writes:

“Beauty is that moment when your mind jumps the curb. Beauty is the instant you sit up and start paying attention. Whatever makes that happen for you can be beautiful. … But you have to be open to seeing it. Beauty d... See more

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 interest. It’s not about the formal credentials. It’s fundamentally about play. It seems to describe a life where it’s just fun to be reading, learning, writing, and collaborating on ideas... See more

Art has a social purpose [and] art belongs to the people. It’s not something that is hanging out there that has no connection with the needs of man. And art is unashamedly, unembarrassingly, if there is such a word, social. It is political; it is economic. The total life of man is reflected in his art.