Snippets from A Gentleman in Moscow
From A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles Tiptoeing down the stairs of reason “Whatever the endeavour, if the setting is glorious and the tenor grandiose, it will have its adherents. In fact, as the locations for duels became more picturesque and the pistols more finely manufactured, the best-bred men proved willing to defend their...
Snippets from The Science of Story
The cure for the horror is story We know how this ends. You’re going to die and so will everyone you love. And then there will be heat. All the change in the universe will cease, the stars will die. And there will be nothing left of anything but infinite dead freezing void. Human life, […]
Being “nobody-but-yourself”
In the face of "a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else" and to make you a "consumer", it feels very easy to follow the crowd and feel like you are "losing yourself"
3D Education
I am finding Charles Koch’s framework for education more and more useful. If nothing else it helps me place some of the drier research on things like dual-coding and spaced retrieval in the context of a richer, more human approach and what Jeremy Barnes calls “Albert Hall Moments”. I came across Koch’s model...
Seneca On Saving Time
Not a bad thing to think about at this time of year. (From Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius. 1. Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius – set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your […]
The most important thing is insight
Another one less than enamoured with talent. William Faulkner in a Press conference, University of Virginia, May 20, 1957. (The audio is here) “At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that — the young man or the young woman must possess or teach himself, train himself, in infinite […]
Beware of Artists & Things You Want to be True
Just came across a nice quote via Euan on Facebook. It was attributed to the McCarthy era. “Beware of artists. They mix with all classes of society and are therefore the most dangerous” Alongside taking exercise and eating healthily, one of the things I keep trying to do more of, not always successfully, is check […]
Dogears from Semler’s 7 Day Weekend
Notes and quotes from Ricardo Semler’s wonderful Seven-Day Weekend “Rather than constantly talking about passion – serving customers passionately, filling in blue forms passionately – organizations should make it possible for employees to feel exhilaration every once in a while. Let them get involved to the point...