Trove - July 19th 2022
https://buttondown-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/images/828b56d6-67a7-49cc-a64d-f6bf9fdfbe21.jpg
Hi everyone!
Here’s your weekly trove of recommendations. If you enjoy it, please feel free to forward this along to friends.
Quotes from A More Exciting Life: A Guide to Greater Freedom, Spontaneity and Enjoyment by The School of Life
“What would it mean finally to leave school? It would involve knowing some of the following:
There is no one way, no one set path to fulfillment laid out by authority figures. ‘They’ don’t know. No one knows.
The safe path may be dangerous to our flourishing.
Our boredom is a vital tool. It tells us what is slowly killing us, and reminds us that time is monstrously short.
Authority is not by definition benign. The teachers and their substitutes have no real plan for you except in so far as it suits their own advancement. It might look as if they want your supreme good, but in reality, they want you to play their game for their own benefit. At the end, they have no proper prize to offer you. They will give you a colorful card and send you to the golf course and the grave and you will have wasted your life.
[Tobin’s note: I’m sure there are plenty of people who feel lucky to have had true mentors as teachers. Maybe we treat that as lucky because it’s not as common s we’d hope. What do you think?]
- It doesn’t matter what the bullies think. No one is normal. You can dare to make enemies; indeed, you must do so as the price to pay for having developed a character and found something to believe in.”
“Luxury arises from the attempt to answer the question: if we didn’t have to keep costs down, what would be the nicest, kindest, and most generous possible version of something - a hotel, villa, car, restaurant, or airline seat?”
Music: Bonobo - Otomo
This has been one of my favorite study/focus songs this year, and the music video gives a dizzying tour of Cape Town.
Video: My favorite method to brew coffee, taught by the excellent YouTuber James Hoffman
If you’re curious about making tastier coffee, James has great video guides covering everything from roast level to portable grinders.
Video: A useful cooking tip from Gordon Ramsay…
An Interactive explainer of Game Theory: The Evolution of Trust by Nicky Case
I like the way Case connects game theory to the general mood of mistrust in politics we’ve seen in the last few years. She has more educational games up on Explorable Explanations, “a hub for learning through play made by a movement of artists, coders & educators who want to reunite play and learning.”
Thanks for reading. See you next week!
-Tobin