“Don’t just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents.” — Epictetus, The Art of Living
Then be willing to look like an idiot. (Claude) Shannon had courage. Who else but a man with almost infinite courage would ever think of averaging over all random codes and expect the average code would be good? He knew what he was doing was important and pursued it intensely. Courage, or confidence, is a property to develop in yourself. Look at your successes, and pay less attention to failures than you are usually advised to do in the expression, “Learn from your mistakes”....
Tim Cook’s entire commencement address to the MIT class of 2017 is lovely (with enough fluff), but this is the part that struck a nerve: Technology is capable of doing great things. But it doesn’t want to do great things. It doesn’t want anything. That part takes all of us. It takes our values and our commitment to our families and our neighbors and our communities. Our love of beauty and belief that all of our faiths are interconnected....
“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” — Charlie Munger That quote opens Shane’s post on the work required to hold an opinion, which remains one of the mental models I use most often. Which is why I had my ears and my mind open, when Shane began one of his latest posts with,...
I want this glorious verse from Mary Oliver’s poem to be my eulogy, when, you know, my death comes. When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,...
More Gaiman truisms for me. He talks about writing. Holds true for all of my endeavours though. lazynoodlepuff asked: Hi Neil, I wonder what could tell not native speaker like me. I struggle with writing anything. Words don’t flow in my native language and in English it’s even more difficult. Sonetimes I struggle with every sentence. But I really want to create things in English and be a part of English-speaking culture....
For me. For posterity. From Neil Gaiman. miriams-song asked: Hey Neil. Someone recently told me that because I’m not ethnically Jewish (I’m a conversion student set to be “official” within the next year), I shouldn’t be writing ethnically Jewish characters. What do you think? I’ve been actively involved with my Jewish community for years so accusations like that are pretty hurtful. As a writer of fiction part of your duty and obligation is to write characters who are not you....
Mothers yielding Bibles, contemplating smearing the blood of lamb chops over her doorway. Anything to keep her son alive another day. — Antonia Perdu
“Burn old logs. Drink old wine. Read old books. Keep old friends.” — El Sabio Also, travel and visit old towns and listen to the classics! — Me
“Have you also learned that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? #####That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean and in the mountains, everywhere and that the present only exists for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future....