Michael Brooks
@mike
Michael Brooks
“Humans don’t mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. It's time for that to end.”
Sebastian Junger • Tribe — Sebastian Junger
Earth's climate has changed throughout history. Just in the last 800,000 years, there have been eight cycles of ice ages and warmer periods, with the end of the last ice age about 11,700 years ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era — and of human civilization. Most of these climate changes are attributed to very small variations in... See more
A Velocity of Being: Illustrated Letters to Children about Why We Read by 121 of the Most Inspiring Humans in Our World
themarginalian.org
Remember The New Yorker . You subscribed because you liked it. Then it taunted you with its endless words, pages and pages demanding to be read. It reminded you of all the time you didn’t have to spend reading The New Yorker . Whenever you glimpsed the growing pile, you felt mild panic. Every time you recycled an unread issue, you felt like a... See more
Caroline Cala Donofrio • You Are a Person, Not a Pickle
“If you can see a thing whole,” he said, “it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives … But close up, a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life’s a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You need distance, interval. The way to see how beautiful earth is, is to see it from the moon. The way to see how beautiful life is, is... See more
it's my party and i'll use AI if i want to
wildbarestepf.substack.com
Why should the universe have a purpose? The question of the purpose of the universe is an invention of human minds, and has no significance, except for the way that it illuminates the psychology of scholarly pursuit and of the pursuing scholars themselves. We should not impose human-inspired attitudes and questions on material things. There is a
... See moreA good note on why maybe being observers is a worthy pursuit, and why assigning purpose might not track.
The mathematical genius Alexander Grothendieck once had a metaphor for solving problems. He suggested that instead of forcing open an impossibly hard kernel with a hammer and chisel, one should simply let it sit in water and wait. Over time, the shell softens and opens with ease. This is also true in writing; time is the only non-substitutable... See more