Natalie Audelo

I also think a lot about the old, iconic structures around the world that have stood the test of time and, in many cases, where we aren’t quite sure of all the details of how they were constructed. Marvels like the Colosseum, Roman aqueducts, or the Great Wall. Incredible architectural feats that were, by necessity, built to last and built slowly –... See more

“ There’s also this other thing (above right) which is functional: My favorite candleholder ever. It’s beautiful, and no one else can ever buy it, because it was made by an old Italian man in Cetara on the Amalfi coast . I want so many things in my life to look like this, and nothing does.”

We all love the training montage in movies—those brisk two-minute sequences where the protagonist transforms from novice to expert while upbeat music plays. One minute they're struggling to do a single push-up; the next, they're ready for the championship fight.

Real life doesn't work like that. The actual training—the part where you build the found... See more

This reorientation toward meaning over materialism is beginning to take root elsewhere, too.

It’s not hard to see where the pervasive numbness comes in from here, as a sort of sinister phase two. The opposite of love is not hate, but apathy. I hope it’s obvious why this is a problem, but maybe you’re still thinking so what. To put it succinctly: when you take an ironic, negative, or numb attitude to everything, you are by definition not on... See more

Things like music, books, art, family, friends, the inner life, etc. will increasingly play a larger role in quality of life (and hence progress) than gadgets and devices.

Over the next decade, the epicenter for meaningful progress will be the private lives of individuals and small communities. It will be driven by their wisdom, their core values, a... See more

There’s nothing more magical than watching someone do things they didn’t know they were capable of.

As defined by Photoplay, It was a “sort of invisible aura that surrounds your being and bathes you in its effulgence” — and anyone with It is “always utterly un-self-conscious and perfectly indifferent and unaware of anyone’s interest in her. The moment self-consciousness enters into the affair, ‘It’ departs.”