Sriya Sridhar
@sris
Academic studying tech law and policy, seeking things that make sense and perpetual calm. Lit and poetry are my first loves
Sriya Sridhar
But busyness has a way of stealing creativity from you. Generative work, like art and writing, requires long periods of nothingness: it’s only in that wide empty space that ideas emerge. Long runs, hot showers, commutes that don’t involve harried Slack messages and listening to podcasts at 2x speed. Sitting at the edge of a dock, listening to the... See more
Jasmine Sun • the scenic route
Objectives are well and good when they are sufficiently modest, but things get a lot more complicated when they’re more ambitious. In fact, objectives actually become obstacles towards more exciting achievements, like those involving discovery, creativity, invention, or innovation—or even achieving true happiness. In other words (and here is the... See more
Joel Lehman • Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned: The Myth of the Objective
I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon
... See moreMy countervailing advice to people trying to understand something is: go slow. Read slowly, think slowly, really spend time pondering the thing. Start by thinking about the question yourself before reading a bunch of stuff about it. A week or a month of continuous pondering about a question will get you surprisingly far.
nabeelqu.co • Nabeelqu
“In the past, jobs were about muscles. Now they’re about brains, but in the future, they’ll be about the heart.”
Maria Flynn • Opinion | The A.I. Economy Will Make Jobs More Human - The New York Times
Now I’m trying really hard to slow down. Pay complete attention. Lately I’ve internalized there’s something so sacred about focus, rather than constantly deliberating between monitor screens and plans and side hustles. Depth rather than breadth. In a world that is increasingly accelerating — social media eyeballs and immediate gratification and a
... See morein praise of slowing down
René Girard wrote: "All desire is a desire for being." It's a phrase I use often because this imitated desire is powered by the wish to be the person who models our desire for us. We think that this person possesses metaphysical qualities we do not. We imagine the idolized individual has the power, charisma, cool, wisdom, equanimity. So we want... See more
On René Girard’s theory of desire, Cynthia L Haven
Maybe it’s not the achieving stuff that makes us happy, but rather the act of chasing after achievements. Most people need to feel that they are contributing to society. At least for me, when I try to picture my ideal days, it doesn’t matter if I’ve accomplished anything in the past. But my visions always involve working towards some kind of goal... See more