I loved the recent article from Dan Lewis about the history of the word “curfew” and how it took the meaning that it has today. It’s fascinating how words change meaning over time as the world changes. This story is no different.
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This is one of the major obstacles to practicing mindfulness with any regularity: you need to be interested in experience in order to observe it, but how do you sustain an interest in the mundane stuff of life, when it’s mundane by definition?
Do you start your mornings with a potent dose of caffeine from a freshly brewed cup of Joe? Or do you prefer a slightly less caffeinated nudge from a warm and gentle cup of tea?
Tea, any day for me.
Unless you have skipped a lot of school, or work, or both – or you live in the USA – you have probably used an A4 sheet of paper before now. Have you ever wondered why it is the shape or size it is? Time to dust off some high-school level maths to investigate.
I write many forms of posts & enjoy them all. But as my friends would know, my love for them is not equal. So then, why do I continue to publish them? An apt metaphor from Robin Sloan made me ponder on the same today. I published a few thoughts, a healthy reminder on the same.
Can we recover a physical literature? Can we recover a literature that is not merely read but felt? The library museum gestures at just such a possibility.
Source: Ode to the Library Museum →
Go to bed when you are tired, and allow your body to wake you in the morning (no alarm clock allowed).
Source: Can You Catch Up on Lost Sleep? →
I agree with this “no alarm clock” part wholeheartedly. When you wake up consistently, without an alarm, you are sleeping well.
Against all odds, Netflix’s adaptation of The Sandman is a very good show. But why does it look like that? You know what I’m talking about—the so-called “Netflix Look.”
In 1967, the Jornal do Brasil asked Clarice Lispector to write a Saturday newspaper column on any topic she wished. For nearly seven years, she wrote weekly, covering a wide range of topics—humans and animals, bad dinner parties, the daily activities of her two sons—but the subject matter was often besides the point.
Source: The Discovery of the World →
For cord-cutters, leaving pricey cable packages behind in favor of streaming is a win for the wallet. Because we’re able to sign up for monthly plans, it’s easy to jump into a streaming service and jump out when prices increase or content dries up.
Source: This Clever Trick Can Save You Money on Streaming →
Though this is obvious, I have no idea why I still don’t do it enough.
Go outside as often as you can, ideally without devices. Work in the yard, or just walk around. Pause occasionally to take a few deep breaths. When you come back in, do not head straight for your device; instead, make a cup of tea, straighten your shelves, or pray.
Source: Another friendly reminder →
My daughter wanted to record a new video for her channel this week. She’d watched her old videos and felt she needed more. She had a few ideas in mind but wanted to tell her friends first what she had been up to. So, that’s what we recorded - a new video is out today.
A place to discover books in new and exciting ways. Read the first page without judging the cover. If you’re hooked, click the reveal button to find out more.
Source: Recommend Me a Book →
We sometimes write sentences that don’t need to exist. Hidden in a paragraph, we might not notice. Standing on their own, we notice. Delete any sentence not worthy of its own line.
You have to leverage the mind’s habitual and reflexive nature. Instead of consciously “trying to be more present,” you gently train your own attention, like you’re training a dog, to locate and be with present moment experience as a normal and natural reflex.
Source: Trying to Be More Present Isn’t Enough →
This is a list of things you’re allowed to do that you thought you couldn’t, or didn’t even know you could.
Source: Things you’re allowed to do - Milan Cvitkovic →
A fascinating list this. A few that resonated with me were saying “I don’t know” or “I don’t have an opinion” when you don’t" or “don’t drink (alcohol), even when you’re expected to”. A handy reference.
These stunning images are a major achievement for us Earthlings. And given everything absurd we’ve witnessed on Earth of late, they are more than that. If nothing else, the humongousness of the universe ought to put our problems into perspective. A little insignificance isn’t such a bad thing.
Source: What’s in the James Webb space telescope photos? We can explain. →
Read widely. Read some books more than once. Write in your books. Don’t finish every book you start. You might be able to read 2500 books in your lifetime. Maybe a few more than that. It’s still a very small number. Choose wisely.
Source: My Twelve Rules for Life →
The animators knew that Carl would need a backstory to answer those questions. They decided to tell it with a prologue that details the character’s life from his childhood to his golden years. But these early scenes reveal that Up isn’t only about Carl—it’s also about his relationship with his wife, Ellie.
Source: Inside the Brilliant, Heartbreaking First 10 Minutes of ‘Up’ →
The sense that one has become the instrument of invention is so satisfying that I find it truly stupefying that anyone would claim that artists are motivated to create primarily by the money they might get from such miracles. Not to say they shouldn’t be paid. Paying them provides them with more time and liberty to channel art. But it’s a rare artist who’s in it for the money. A real artist creates because he has no choice. He is pressed into the involuntary service of art, and thereby, humanity.
A prototype of the now halted device includes dual-cameras, a key differentiator from market leaders like the Apple Watch.
Source: Meta Halts Development of Apple Watch Rival with Two Cameras →
Cameras on a watch never made sense to me. Why would you have that?
[J]ust doing it once today is ultimately the only way to become “the kind of person” who does that sort of thing on a regular basis anyway. Otherwise (and believe me, I’ve been there) you’re merely the kind of person who spends your life drawing up plans and schemes for how you’re going to become a different kind of person at some point in the future which never quite arrives.
This whole essay hit close to home – I needed this reminder.
People almost invariably don’t want to hurt other people and feel bad when they do. The fact that we can feel a lack of respect or kindness in a given social situation is evidence that those good qualities are the water we normally swim in.
Source: Cynicism is Boring →
When writing, and also when doing research for writing, it’s important to get the details right, but that doesn’t always mean what you might think. Economy of detail is usually better than excess, which raises the critical question about which details matter most.
An insightful read this, Verisimilitude by Matt Gemmell. I found this suggestion really on the mark.
Research is a distillation. You’ll spend two hours reading, to get four paragraphs of notes, which provide eight words of story — but those eight words will take the reader into the world you’ve created, and create the impression that your character really is there, or really knows about this topic. Just make sure it’s either unremarkable that they would know those things, or that their knowledge has been explicitly accounted for.
While writing short stories that I based on some amount of research, I myself have struggled at times to know how much is enough. This was a good reminder from Matt.
To be lonely, then, is to desire an absent want. It is to feel an emptiness that remains unsatisfied — to feel isolated, in need, or abandoned, but with no one to help. Yet solitude is another thing altogether. To be solitary is to retreat into yourself, and to take great pleasure in your own company.
Source: Solitude is not loneliness. Here’s the key philosophical difference. →