Health & Culture in Capitalist Realism
One year after coming across Mark Fisher, I finally read Capitalist Realism. It's one of those books where I felt compelled to to stop, underline, re-read...
Origins, Motherland, Look Up
Human origins are much more diverse than previously thought Stringer has called this new perspective “African multiregionalism”. East Africa is still...
Wicked Freedom
One of the interesting ideas explored early on in The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow is the high degree of...
Marginalia: Optimization, Free Money & Half of Something
The Optimization Sinkhole So what happened? Stuff got cheaper, and cheaper stuff breaks more, and planned obsolescence (of technology or couches or clothes)...
Marginalia: The Essay, Myanmar, Petrol Pump
The Age of the Essay An essay doesn't begin with a statement, but with a question. In a real essay, you don't take a position and defend it. You notice a...
Marginalia: Bounded virtues, living fuller and the beauty of chalk
Bounded virtues Our virtues themselves are not free and floating qualities over which we retain a permanent control and power of disposal; they come to be so...
Elsewhere On-Screen
I too decided to sit on one of those benches in that deserted spot in the park, trying to take stock of my life, which wasn't going well, for I too felt...
Also happening: Sudan
The first Sudanese civil war started in 1955, one year before Sudan became independent and continued till l972. The second Sudanese civil war lasted from...
Bird by Bird
There are many metaphors for breaking an overwhelming project into small steps that feel more achievable. I'm partial to one I discovered recently - bird by...
Transforming Desire
Wanting by Luke Burgis is an introduction to Rene Girard's theory of mimesis. He covers many interesting topics including an alternative, messier version of...
Un-quantifying my reading
Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life. Swann's Way I rarely thought about the number of books I'd read until I discovered and started using...
Travelling at the speed of light
Can we live for hundreds of years? Travel at the speed of light? Terraform Mars or other planets? If you read science fiction or science, you will have...
30 Yoga Nidra Sessions
I learned about Yoga Nidra from Shane Parrish's interview with Dr Andrew Huberman. Yoga Nidra is one method to get non-sleep deep rest (NSDR). It is similar...
The dangers of ChatGPT according to ChatGPT
I asked ChatGPT to explain what it was. I am ChatGPT, a large language model developed by OpenAI. I am designed to understand and generate natural language...
Resistance 02
This is a follow up to Resistance. This first part of the quote I'd shared was from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. He is a spiritual teacher. The pain...
Less Wrong 02 - Principle of Mediocrity
The Principle of Mediocrity is another idea that David Deutsch questions in The Beginning of Infinity. Again, I considered this idea to be true without...
Resistance
I will see you on the other side of these quotes. The pain that you create now is always some form of non-acceptance, some form of resistance to what is. One...
Fire Escapes
I listened to Krista Tippett's conversation with Ocean Vuong for the the fourth time this week. Ocean is an award-winning poet and novelist who teaches at...
Less Wrong - Spaceship Earth
Reading The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch has made me realize that I treat a lot of debatable and even potentially incorrect ideas as facts. I'm...
Asphalt Meadows / Gold Rush
Stumbled across a new Death Cab for Cutie album, Asphalt Meadows. It's been out for a few months. They've largely stuck to the combination of indie rock...