Michael Brooks
@mike
Michael Brooks
on writing and ideas
Ideas come from noticing gaps in what we believe is established thinking.
Good writing is meditative writing. It’s a polished and cohesive train of thought, devoid of superfluous babble. If intrusive thoughts make their way into your writing and you neglect to edit them out, your work will suffer. Quality writing does not arise from a stream of consciousness or absent-mindedness. It’s a practice of meditating on a... See more
Jen Hitze • Attention, Distraction, and Your Responsibility
A Velocity of Being: Illustrated Letters to Children about Why We Read by 121 of the Most Inspiring Humans in Our World
themarginalian.org
Indeed the Oak tree King of Limbs, in Britain is over 1,000 years old. It has been growing quietly in place since before the Norman Conquest. The King doesn’t much care about one iPhone model to the next.
Millennia long scales of engagement with the world around us are almost unimaginable when contrasted with the 2 week long Agile sprints popular... See more
Millennia long scales of engagement with the world around us are almost unimaginable when contrasted with the 2 week long Agile sprints popular... See more
The more present we are, the more we relax into ourselves, the stronger a magnet we become for what aligns with us. That’s the paradox of the self: it is most potent when we are least focused on it.
Isabel Hazan • distillation
“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
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.
