Timeless Ideas | May 23, 2021
Here’s your weekly dose of timeless ideas to sharpen your mind, make smarter decisions, and live better.
Quotes
I.
Life is not always a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.
— Jack London
II.
In a world where information is abundant and easy to access, the real advantage is knowing where to focus.
— James Clear
III.
Simplicity is the end result of long, hard work; not the starting point.
— Frederick Maitland
Ideas
I.
You cannot wait for the smoke to clear: once you can see things clearly it is already too late. You can’t outrun an epidemic: by the time you start to run it is already upon you. Identify what is important and drop everything that is not. Figure out the equivalent of an escape fire.
Michael Lewis in The Premonition: A Pandemic Story
II.
The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
Richard Dawkins in River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
III.
There's a myth that learning is for young people. But as the proverb says, 'It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.' The middle years are great, great learning years. Even the years past the middle years. I took on a new job after my 77th birthday – and I'm still learning. Learn all your life. Learn from your failures. Learn from your successes, When you hit a spell of trouble, ask 'What is it trying to teach me?' The lessons aren't always happy ones, but they keep coming.
John Gardner, a politician and a recipient of the 1964 Presidential Medal of Freedom
Articles Worth Reading
I.
Burnout: Modern Affliction or Human Condition
Jill Lepore | The NewYorker
To be burned out is to be used up, like a battery so depleted that it can’t be recharged. In people, unlike batteries, it is said to produce the defining symptoms of “burnout syndrome”: exhaustion, cynicism, and loss of efficacy. If burnout is universal and eternal, it’s meaningless. If everyone is burned out, and always has been, burnout is just . . . the hell of life. But if burnout is a problem of fairly recent vintage—if it began when it was named, in the early nineteen-seventies—then it raises a historical question. What started it?
II.
Why Grounding Rituals May Be the Key to Navigating Post-COVID Anxiety
Sadaf Siddiqi | Cupcakes and Cashmere
"Grounding" is becoming a bit of a buzzword in the wellness world and you may have heard your favorite health or fitness instructor talk about it on social media. Simply put, grounding rituals are practices that you intentionally incorporate into daily life to help you be present and feel a sense of control. They can be almost anything: sitting quietly with a cup of coffee before you start your day, journaling, or even engaging in nature, like gardening or laying in the grass. When performed with regularity and intention, these little moments can bring balance and comfort that you start to look forward to.
III.
Derek Thompson | The Atlantic
When the governor lifted the state’s mandate, liberals predicted disaster. But it never came. Across the country, people’s pandemic behavior appears to be disconnected from local policy, which complicates any effort to know which COVID-19 policies actually work. Governors don’t reopen or close economies. The CDC doesn’t put masks on or take them off citizens’ faces. A small number of elites don’t decide when everyone else feels safe enough to shop, eat inside, or get on a plane. People seem to make these decisions for themselves, based on some combination of local norms, political orientation, and personal risk tolerance that resists quick reversals, no matter what public health elites say.
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