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The Marginalian
Kafka’s Creative Block and the Four Psychological Hindrances That Keep the Talented from Manifesting... The most paradoxical thing about creative work is that it is both a way in and a way out, that it...
10 months ago
65
10 months ago
The most paradoxical thing about creative work is that it is both a way in and a way out, that it plunges you into the depths of your being and at the same time takes you out of yourself. Writing is the best instrument I have for metabolizing my experience and clarifying my own...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 379.5 ...
4 months ago
The Elysian
Going from research to writing Our third "research with me" session.
6 months ago
Astral Codex Ten
"Deros And The Ur-Abduction" In Asterisk ...
5 months ago
Josh Thompson
Type. Publish. Done. Yesterday I read How the Hell do I Prioritize Work, Blog & Find Balance. The author of the letter is...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
Yesterday I read How the Hell do I Prioritize Work, Blog & Find Balance. The author of the letter is a busy, accomplished guy and still manages to write regularly.  He said, in short: I sit down, and I write. I’ve done it a lot, so I’m not bad at it. I don’t often proof read my...
The Elysian
It’s time for Thomas Jefferson's village-states His small, democratic communities would revive and defend our republic.
5 months ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Put Out Their Eyes When It Was Dark' “The man who is both happy and an optimist is an imbecile.”  Happiness has always felt like the...
a month ago
16
a month ago
“The man who is both happy and an optimist is an imbecile.”  Happiness has always felt like the byproduct of life properly lived, not a goal unto itself. If I “behave” – live up to my own standards, not exaggerate my importance, pay minute attention to my conscience, respect...
The American Scholar
“Dead Man’s Hand” The post “Dead Man’s Hand” appeared first on The American Scholar.
3 weeks ago
Anecdotal Evidence
'Poetry Is Sound Before It Is Anything Else' “A word so delicious that one wishes it had cheeks, so as to kiss them.” That’s Jules...
6 months ago
34
6 months ago
“A word so delicious that one wishes it had cheeks, so as to kiss them.” That’s Jules Renard, writing in his journal in February 1888. Perhaps only a certain sort of writer, one with a musical sense who is susceptible to the pure sound of words divorced from their meaning, can...
Astral Codex Ten
Why Should Intelligence Be Related To Neuron Count? ...
5 months ago
Josh Thompson
What I've learned from cooking in 36 kitchens in the last year Since we’ve been on the road full-time for the last year, Kristi and I have prepared meals for...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
Since we’ve been on the road full-time for the last year, Kristi and I have prepared meals for (usually) ourselves and (sometimes) others in 36 (!!!) kitchens. Sometimes we’ve used a kitchen for just one night, sometimes it’s every night for two months. Needless to say, we’ve...
Ben Borgers
The TikTok Peer Group
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
Work-Life Separation in College
over a year ago
Ben Borgers
CS 15: Data Structures
over a year ago
Josh Thompson
Whole Messages in Slack I use Slack at work. And used it in Turing. And am in a few programming-related Slack groups. (Ahoy,...
over a year ago
21
over a year ago
I use Slack at work. And used it in Turing. And am in a few programming-related Slack groups. (Ahoy, #DenverDevs). My last job, I used Slack. The job before that, I got the whole company on Slack. I’ve used it for years. Slack delivers value to me, and induces little anxiety, and...
The Elysian
Digital nomads could create network states Here's how.
4 months ago
Josh Thompson
Typing for Programmers If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I...
over a year ago
19
over a year ago
If you had to distill my ability to bring value to those around me, it would be “Josh types good”. I can press these magical little keys on this little metal box here, and make these words come out. If you’re reading these words, you don’t care how these words actually got on...
The Marginalian
Turning to Stone: A Geologist’s Love Letter to the Wisdom of Rocks Among the great salvations of my childhood were the rocks and minerals lining the bookshelves of our...
a year ago
74
a year ago
Among the great salvations of my childhood were the rocks and minerals lining the bookshelves of our next door neighbor — a geologist working for the Bulgarian Ministry of Environment and Water. I spent long hours casting amethyst refractions on the ceiling, carving words into...
This Space
39 Books: 1996 It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my...
a year ago
60
a year ago
It's a commonplace that in reading novels one can escape the ravages of time. In 1994, I borrowed my student housemate's innocent-looking hardback edition of Nicholson Baker's The Fermata in which Arno Strine writes about how he can actually stop time. The title refers to the...
The Marginalian
Orcas and the Price of Consciousness: Lessons in Love and Loss from Earth’s Most Successful Predator Marbling the waters of every ocean with their billows of black and white, orcas are Earth’s most...
a week ago
10
a week ago
Marbling the waters of every ocean with their billows of black and white, orcas are Earth’s most creative and most successful apex predator. Although they are known as killer whales, they are the largest member of the dolphin family. Older than great white sharks, they hunt...
Ben Borgers
Make sure your university events are actually interesting
6 months ago
The Marginalian
A Stone Is a Story: An Illustrated Love Letter to Deep Time and Earth’s Memory We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet...
a year ago
59
a year ago
We are denizens of an enormous pebble drifting through the cosmic ocean of pure spacetime — a planet made a world largely by its rockiness. Rock gave us mountains and beaches, bridges and kitchen countertops, gave us the first Promethean fire that sparked civilization. A rock is...
Astral Codex Ten
Hidden Open Thread 374.5 ...
5 months ago
Josh Thompson
Two Critical Books and Two Critical Articles (For 'Software People') I speak with many persons who are considering becoming software developers (usually by way of a...
over a year ago
18
over a year ago
I speak with many persons who are considering becoming software developers (usually by way of a program like the Flatiron School or the Turing School). I’m a graduate of the Turing School, and have written a lot about the program, like: My reflections on Turing an 8-part guide to...
The American Scholar
Lift Off The post Lift Off appeared first on The American Scholar.
a year ago
The American Scholar
The Root Cause Padraic X. Scanlan tells the real history of the Irish Potato Famine The post The Root Cause...
5 months ago
44
5 months ago
Padraic X. Scanlan tells the real history of the Irish Potato Famine The post The Root Cause appeared first on The American Scholar.
Ben Borgers
Fancy Quotation Marks
over a year ago
The Marginalian
Making Space: An Illustrated Ode to the Art of Welcoming the Unknown It is the silence between the notes that distinguishes music from noise, the stillness of the soil...
11 months ago
43
11 months ago
It is the silence between the notes that distinguishes music from noise, the stillness of the soil that germinates the seeds to burst into bloom. It is in the gap of absence that we learn trust, in the gap between knowledge and mystery that we discover wonder. Every act of making...
This Space
39 Books: 1989 Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on...
a year ago
60
a year ago
Nowadays I would be put off reading a book labelled controversial and exciting gossipy attention on TV and in newspapers, but in 1989 I read Alexander Stuart's The War Zone that did exactly that. It was later made into a controversial film. The only thing I remember of the...
Naz Hamid — Journal...
✏️ Tag, you're it Tagged by Scott and Luke and in thoughtful return, I’m answering the Blog Questions Challenge here....
7 months ago
61
7 months ago
Tagged by Scott and Luke and in thoughtful return, I’m answering the Blog Questions Challenge here. Some of these answers may overlap with the answers I gave Manu for his People & Blogs series, so I’ll do my best to do something a bit different. Please visit Manu’s P&B site...
Escaping Flatland
Collaborative writing A common phenomenon in the history of literature is couples writing together.
3 days ago
The Marginalian
Consciousness, Artificial Intelligence, and Our Search for Meaning: Oliver Sacks on ChatGPT, 30... "We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually...
over a year ago
80
over a year ago
"We are not incoherent, a bundle of sensations, but a self, rising from experience, continually growing and revised... Through experience, education, art, and life, we teach our brains to become unique. We learn to be individuals. This is a neurological learning as well as a...
Josh Thompson
Success is not support We did a high-level “Customer Success” overview yesterday. Today, lets contrast customer support and...
over a year ago
26
over a year ago
We did a high-level “Customer Success” overview yesterday. Today, lets contrast customer support and customer success. Support vs. Success First, what’s the difference between “customer support” and “customer success”? Lincoln Murphey says: Customer Success is proactively working...
The Marginalian
Comets, Orbits, and the Mystery We Are: The Enchanted Celestial Mechanics of Australian Artist Shane... “We are bathing in mystery and confusion,” Carl Sagan told his best interviewer. “That will always...
5 months ago
54
5 months ago
“We are bathing in mystery and confusion,” Carl Sagan told his best interviewer. “That will always be our destiny. The universe will always be much richer than our ability to understand it.” We have wielded our tools of reason at the mystery — theorems and telescopes, postulates...
Wuthering...
Reading The Peony Pavilion with the teens in The Story of the Stone - That garden is a vast and... The teens living in the garden in the YA romantasy The Story of the Stone spend a lot of time...
7 months ago
52
7 months ago
The teens living in the garden in the YA romantasy The Story of the Stone spend a lot of time reading forbidden books, much older YA romantasys.  These books are all famous classical Chinese plays.  Cao Xueqin gives a couple of chapters early on to their reading, including a list...
The American Scholar
Rage, Muse The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or...
a year ago
79
a year ago
The novels that revisit Greek myths, giving voice to the women who were scorned, wronged, or forgotten The post Rage, Muse appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
A Small Goal is Better than a Grand Plan We all have grand plans. Who’s future projection of themselves goes something like this: “One day,...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
We all have grand plans. Who’s future projection of themselves goes something like this: “One day, when I’m rich (goal one), location independent (goal two), and married to a fabulous woman (goal three), I will travel the world (goal four) while exploring my hobby of ___ (goal...
The Marginalian
Against Death: Nobel Laureate Elias Canetti on Grieving a Parent, Grieving the World, and What Makes... The year is 1937. Elias Canetti (July 25, 1905–August 14, 1994) — Bulgarian, Jewish, living in...
2 months ago
29
2 months ago
The year is 1937. Elias Canetti (July 25, 1905–August 14, 1994) — Bulgarian, Jewish, living in Austria as the Nazis are rising to power — has just lost his mother; his mother, whose bottomless love had nurtured the talent that would win him the Nobel Prize in his seventies; his...
Josh Thompson
Limitations of My Own Thinking I sometimes make recommendations, or at least recount a story that has “actionable insights”....
over a year ago
16
over a year ago
I sometimes make recommendations, or at least recount a story that has “actionable insights”. Anytime this happens, I start tripping over myself with warnings and qualifying statements. Here’s what would happen: I would make a recommendation (“start a side project to help get a...
The Marginalian
What It’s Like to Be a Falcon: The Peregrine as a Portal to a Way of Seeing and a State of Being "You cannot know what freedom means till you have seen a peregrine loosed into the warm spring sky...
a year ago
103
a year ago
"You cannot know what freedom means till you have seen a peregrine loosed into the warm spring sky to roam at will through all the far provinces of light."
This Space
A modern heretic Literature can be defined by the sense of the imminence of a revelation which does not in fact...
over a year ago
74
over a year ago
Literature can be defined by the sense of the imminence of a revelation which does not in fact occur. I used this line, apparently from Borges, as an epigram to an essay in the early days of online writing. I can't remember what book it came from and after searching I found a...
The American Scholar
“The Dream” by Theodore Roethke Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Dream” by Theodore Roethke appeared first on The...
5 months ago
62
5 months ago
Poems read aloud, beautifully The post “The Dream” by Theodore Roethke appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Acting Out One tortuous journey from stage to screen The post Acting Out appeared first on The American...
a year ago
59
a year ago
One tortuous journey from stage to screen The post Acting Out appeared first on The American Scholar.
The American Scholar
Song for the Earth Finding a message for today in the music of Gustav Mahler The post Song for the Earth appeared first...
5 months ago
47
5 months ago
Finding a message for today in the music of Gustav Mahler The post Song for the Earth appeared first on The American Scholar.
Josh Thompson
Mentors and Attitude Having a mentor is equal parts “having a mentor” and “being one who can be mentored”. If I am too...
over a year ago
20
over a year ago
Having a mentor is equal parts “having a mentor” and “being one who can be mentored”. If I am too thick-headed to evaluate things that someone tells me and figure out how to apply that to my life, both of us are wasting our time. Having a mentor is life-changing because you have...
Wuthering...
Books finished in April 2023 I continue the practice of posting a list as a substitute for real writing. Coming soon: a long...
over a year ago
94
over a year ago
I continue the practice of posting a list as a substitute for real writing. Coming soon: a long overdue loot at Seneca's plays, a glance at Gide's Counterfeiters, and some messing around with Plato's Republic. If I did not write in April, I at least read: GREEK PHILOSOPHY The...
Ploum.net
N’attendez pas, changez vos paradigmes ! N’attendez pas, changez vos paradigmes ! Il faut se passer de voiture pendant un certain temps pour...
5 months ago
40
5 months ago
N’attendez pas, changez vos paradigmes ! Il faut se passer de voiture pendant un certain temps pour réellement comprendre au plus profond de soi que la solution à beaucoup de nos problèmes sociétaux n’est pas une voiture électrique, mais une ville cyclable. Nous ne devons pas...
Anecdotal Evidence
'Yes, I'm Perfectly All Right' Had I been more clever or alert I might have heard and recorded my brother’s last words before he...
4 months ago
157
4 months ago
Had I been more clever or alert I might have heard and recorded my brother’s last words before he died last August in hospice. A reader asks about this, and I admit I blew it. For the last week or so of his life, Ken was unconscious, occasionally moaning when the nurses shifted...
The American Scholar
The Resistance Fighter as Philosopher Remembering Vladimir Jankélévitch The post The Resistance Fighter as Philosopher appeared first on...
6 months ago
36
6 months ago
Remembering Vladimir Jankélévitch The post The Resistance Fighter as Philosopher appeared first on The American Scholar.
Anecdotal Evidence
'Essays in Flesh and Bone' One of my friends is reliably cheerful. We should all have friends like him. His emails and...
a month ago
94
a month ago
One of my friends is reliably cheerful. We should all have friends like him. His emails and telephone calls are never annoyingly cloying, in the sense that they knock me out of whatever self-centered snit I’m nursing. Without ever saying so, he reminds me that I have it pretty...