Month: April 2026
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We begin with a Leo Tolstoy quote from 1897. I’ll copy it down in its entirety for reference: “The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he…
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Source: The Language of Emotions (Animated) by Amy Lyne. I’ve been watching several of Amy Lyne’s videos recently and this is a way I’ve never heard emotions dealt with before. I’m intrigued and wanted to have notes to work from in talking about what I think is a really clever and useful way of considering…
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There’s plenty of articles and free stuff for kids’ education, but what about those of us who got old and began to resemble adults, at least physically? I guess if we missed out on the top bachelor’s degree programs, master’s degree programs, and doctoral degrees, we’re minced meat, aren’t we? Well, no—but it seems that…
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The title essay stays with a great line: “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” It’s long but it shows why she went nuts at one point in the 70s. The world was an absolute mess. I’m sure it’s going to get worse than that soon enough. This essay really made me think about…
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Didion got the book title from a line of a W.B. Yeats poem. These lines really are poignant today: “Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart, the center cannot hold,Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned,The best…
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Sagan’s final section of Chapter 2 outlines four main reasons for “a concerted effort to convey science.” In other words, why do we need everybody to get into some sort of science? And this line is especially prescient in 2025, “…if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the…
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Some time in July 2025, I was working on building a new neo-Modernist philosophy. This is before I finally shifted my focus to the CRAP framework. But I’m actually a bit disappointed in myself for burying this idea. I’d come up with four pillars to build upon. Yes, I know ‘pillars’ is a common LLM…
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Right in the introduction, there’s this: “In any systematic treatise two things are essential: first, there must be some definition of the subject; second, in order of treatment but of greater importance, there must be some indication of the methods by which we may ourselves reach the desired goal.” This whole piece was a response…
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From JA Westenberg on Selfonomics, “Living Next Door to Moloch” “The content industry has stumbled into a coordination failure of brobdingnagian proportions. Everyone produces more content because everyone else produces more content, and the Nash equilibrium of this game is a world where infinite noise competes for zero attention. “We are, collectively, a grinding, screaming…
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“Elizabeth Taylor” is the second track on Taylor Swift’s “The Life of a Showgirl” record. It’s probably my fifth favorite on the album, partly because it feels a bit more generic pop than most Taylor Swift tracks of recent years. Even while I feel like all this high-gloss and the highly referential nature of this…
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“The Fate of Ophelia” is both the first track and first single released from Taylor Swift’s album Life of a Showgirl. The music video itself deserves its own deep dive, but for today, we’ll focus on the track itself. Widely considered the “earworm” of the record – although I’d say track three “Opalite” fits that…
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Excerpts From “Reflections on War and Death” by Sigmund Freud (1939), which is freely available on Apple Books here: https://books.apple.com/us/book/reflections-on-war-and-death/id494504141 “…for our conscience is not the inexorable judge that teachers of ethics say it is; it has its origin in nothing but ‘social fear.’” “Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and…
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Source: TOP 10 BOOKS FROM UNDERGRAD IN HISTORY | philosophy, journalism, political theory by Ruby Hart Ruby is an undergraduate student of history offering her top ten book recommendations. These selections include fiction, non-fiction, journalism, and philosophy. Her approach is to offer books that reflect a diverse approach to understanding history. I felt these were…
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When I first began to develop the framework for what would eventually become the CRAP framework, it was because I felt the language I was using to discuss ideas was broken somehow. I needed a better vocabulary with which to define and expand on my own disillusionment with institutional education and intellectual life. I’ve long…
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The ABCD critique framework is an extremely useful tool for feedback, and is one I use for my critiques of both my own and others’ work all the time. I learned about it through a Sublime App interview with Substack writer Anu Atluru, but the ABCD framework origin seems to be the blog of Cassidy…
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Quotes from the book: Benjamin Hoff and His Conclusion on What We Can Learn from Pooh Corner: “Within each of us there is an owl, a rabbit, an Eeyore, and a Pooh. For too long, we have chosen the way of Owl and Rabbit. Now, like Eeyore, we complain about the results. But that accomplishes…
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I’ve always liked these big idea books, suggested by RJ of the flourishing actually, because they do what they suggest. While I gave away Star Trek book, as I didn’t really get anything out of it, the movie book and Sherlock Holmes books were enjoyable though. I didn’t care for some of the film selections.…
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E.B. White Mocking Gossip Writers on Their Lazy Use of Language: “On a fetid afternoon like this, when all the nobility goes out of a writer and parts of speech lie scattered around the room among cigarette butts and crushed paper cups, we envy the gossip columnists their lot.” (From his essay “No Verbs”) E.B.…
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On Bad Feelings as Messengers: “Stress, unhappiness, anxiety, and depression are not bad things. They are not human malfunctions. Quite the opposite, they are proof that everything is working as it should. They come to us as messengers, to tap us on the shoulder and point out that our lives have slipped out of alignment.” …
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Yes, I love Taylor Swift. She is one of my absolute heroes. If you have a problem with it, well, I can’t help you… Quotes from the book Rob Sheffield on His First Impressions of Her 1989 Album: “The songs were great—they were Swift songs—but each one made it harder to comprehend why she was…