Assorted weekly notes 2/16/22
It’s now been over five months since I started newslettering. I’ve really enjoyed writing and thank you all for reading!
Unfortunately lately I haven’t had as much time to write longer pieces as I’d like. I keep coming up with various topics but between work, kids and various other hobbies, I can’t develop them fully. With that in mind, I’m going to try to intersperse the newsletter more with notes on things that I’ve come upon that week. They will be much more diverse and hopefully you find them interesting. If they make you think of anything new, let me know by replying to the emails!
So without further ado, here are some quotes, books and articles of note from this week:
Soil isn’t Silent: it turns out if you listen to the ground really carefully it’s actually full of sound from everything going on down there: the sound of roots growing, worms burrowing, mammals digging, and more. I love this idea… Basically people hadn’t really thought to listen to soil until very recently and scientists are now doing so to really capture what is happening: “it’s a relatively new field known as soil bioacoustics… They’ve found that something as simple as a metal nail pushed into the dirt can become a sort of upside-down antenna if equipped with the right sensors. And the more researchers listen, the more it becomes apparent how much the ground below us is thrumming with life.”
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars I started this book this last week and it’s pretty fun. It’s the first book by Cristopher Paolini I’ve ever read and he has a pretty fast-paced style. It’s a sci-fi future with humans, faster than light travel and various alien encounters. It’s a 700-page sci-fi beach read (so to speak). If that sounds like something you’d enjoy, happy reading!
The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively - This book just came out and I wish I’d read it when I was younger and was way less artful about such things. The book lays out all the techniques you should use if you’re going to defy the status quo - the thesis is that most people just try to be insubordinate without having a strategy and thus fail. There is an art to defying the rules and it involves allies, emotional fortitude, strategic thinking, proper communication, curiosity mindset, etc. If you’re someone that is often fighting the rules (and not succeeding), I highly recommend this one.
Concepts & frameworks make you smarter: In “What did Alan Kay mean by, "Lisp is the greatest single programming language ever designed" Alan Kay drops this idea that new models of thinking provide you with more IQ. “A person who has learned calculus fluently can in many areas out-think the greatest geniuses in history. Scientists after Newton were qualitatively more able than before, etc. My slogan for this is “Point of view is worth 80 IQ points” (you can use “context” or “perspective” etc.). A poor one might subtract 80 IQ points!… A new more powerful one makes some thinking possible that was too difficult before.”
The Tick-tock technique - This is a framework for processing negative thoughts. I’ve recently been using the technique as a method to talk with myself in in a disciplined way vs. just looping. There’s a bunch more details on the web but I highly recommend it as a method for anytime you are going through negative thought cycles or are stressed. The basic way it works is you make two columns: in the first you write a tick (e.g., “I’m going to fail this test”) and in the next column you write tocks (e.g., “You’ve never failed a test before. You’ve been studying as much as the average student. You know this subject well”, etc.). And then you continue down the columns with the tick-tocks as you think of more arguments and counterarguments. Ultimately it helps you de-catastrophize while helping you be more specific about what the actual things you should do or should worry about are.
Tree Hunting - my final note is somewhat more specific to California and anywhere that unseasonably warm weather is leading to flowering trees. It was 78° this weekend. It smelled like flower blossoms everywhere around me - white and pink cherry tree blossoms are coming out. Magnolias are in full bloom! And so inspired by momijigari (maple tree hunting in the fall) I’ve started going tree hunting on all of my walks. It works like this: go outside and try to spot a tree that catches your eye. When you see it you have to exclaim out loud “wow - you’re beautiful. Look at you!” And then really stop and connect with it. Even a few seconds pause makes a difference. You’ll sound and look totally crazy (and you can subvocalize if you’re more shy) but it’s really fun and it helps you fully see the tree. “Look at you you gorgeous and crazy cherry tree!!” (For more on this see my post on mono no aware).
And with that I hit send. Hopefully some of these notes are of interest to you all. Until next time!