Substrate

A world with failing institutions may be survivable by the strong-willed, but a better world will always be one where strong institutions exist. If our surroundings are miserable, perhaps we’re better off acknowledging our malcontents. We should express our distress, and try to work together to change that environment, instead of reorganizing our inner feelings until we decide that the current (less optimal) world cannot possibly bother us. In a way this is a harder task than stoicism: It demands cooperation with others, which demands cultivating a much larger skillset than just willpower. Great empires, communities, and societies are not solo undertakings, they cannot be achieved by inner work. They require the attention of strong persons who refuse to discount the external world.

There is forever an unknown world within the known, forever more to uncover, and here is a creature dedicated to finding the cracks in reality. We would do well to learn from him, to cultivate seeing. Each script is barely consequential on its own, but in aggregate, the familiar grooves made by them pile up, and we forget how to see. and one must always be conscious when handling maps. It is easy to mistake them for all there is. All summaries are compression, and learning to see means looking for the valuable things that are lost in compression. Prosperity is found in seeking the asymmetries in a world that is forever being painted with artificial symmetry.

The lesson is simple: We must resist being too clever. Every programmer, or investor, or gardener, or urban planner, etc, must learn this lesson eventually, or else be bit in the bum by hounds of their own making. When complex systems work, they work. But when complex systems fail they fail in complex ways. Often we cannot even spot our disasters until long after we’ve boasted of success. I feel a few weeks ago as if I have had half a thought, and now I sit here waiting for the other half to arrive to me.

Sophocles once said: One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.

When the unique is created, it also creates the creator.

To travel the world visiting everywhere only once can hardly bring understanding. You must return several times before a place opens up to you. ​ The thing that familiarity affords is not having to awkwardly reach out to people, but simply existing alongside them enough until it no longer becomes weird to interact. ​ To dwell poetically is to live as if even a simple apartment was your home forever. Once you are able to cast off the feeling that wherever you are living is somehow temporary, wherever you are living will begin to feel like home. To do this requires a kind of love.

Dear friends, there is a tale: Once a country priest was so rude that when riding his horse on the narrow road, he would shout at passer-bys coming his way as soon as he could spot them: “Be gone! Go off! Out of the way! Here comes the priest!” One day he was shouting at a person quite far off, but as he rode closer it became apparent that the traveler happened to be the king himself. The priest quickly grew quiet, cast his glance downwards, and pulled on his hood to conceal his face. As the king’s horse strode past, it was the priest who moved off the road. But instead of passing, the King stopped and turned to him, saying, “Tomorrow you shall come see me at my country palace. If you cannot answer three questions, then on behalf of your pride, you shall lose your hood and gown.”

Taking at least one photo a day is a common concept among new photographers, but it’s really worthwhile for everyone. There’s an aesthetic component to this: Searching for a good photo in the every-day of life teaches us to notice our surroundings more. ​ “A camera is a device for learning how to see without a camera.” —Dorothea Lange ​ but I think often it’s the opposite. Practicing photography compels you to ponder what is meaningful and beautiful in your surroundings.

I am not convinced as Andy suggests that reading retention and note-taking are fundamental skills of knowledge work. What's more I have a suspicion that many knowledge workers over-rely on the act of collecting notes. Too much note taking is pernicious: it feels like doing something, while also giving you an excuse to endlessly delay putting forth your own thoughts until you have all the pieces. Rather than collecting and storing thoughts, the deliberate practice of knowledge, the expression of creativity that comes from play, necessitates sharing nascent and feeble ideas.

The future starts from belief, not rationalism, and belief is cultivated partly with aesthetics. Progress will come from regaining a grasp on the aesthetics that move us.