C.S Lewis almost died in the trench warfare of WW-I

Became best friends with Tolkien. Sold 100 million books...

On the cusp of WW-II, he gave an iconic lecture at Oxford University (1939)

His question: Does beauty matter when bombs start falling?

THIS is his profound answer👇🏻 1/ The permanent human situation is endless strife, chaos and pain

C.S. Lewis:

“Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself”

Yet culture breaks out

Disagreeableness has become the most important psychological trait. Everyday there is propaganda to ignore, psyops to reject, perversities to stay out of. The skill and speed with which you say "no" will determine how far you go You evolved for a better signal:noise ratio. You have no internal defense against breaking news, algo-driven scrolling, 24/7 entertainment on tap, marketing on full blast, nefarious psyops, etc. So you have to build a defense system and then internalize it. Become disagreeable

There is a reason your creative juices start flowing in airplanes and long road-trips

I call it the "Kinetic Stillness Paradox" and I found this principle at play in the lives of nobodies like:

- JK Rowling
- Charles Darwin
- Albert Einstein

Let's dig in: 1/ 600 million people have read Harry Potter books—where was this iconic character born? In a train, as JK Rowling sat still for 4 hours, too shy to ask someone for a pen, mentally noting all details as the idea “simply fell" into her head

Harry Potter, inception location: train

For each retweet this gets

I will post a banger from an old book...

LET'S GO 1/ "Under peaceful conditions the militant man attacks himself."

(Nietzsche, 1886)

G.K. Chesterton's best book: Orthodoxy (1908)

Here are its 10 best ideas:

1/ Love precedes lovability: "Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her." 1/ Love precedes lovability because a "primary devotion" to a place, thing, or person is the source of the creative energy that transforms it. Begin with love, not scorn. Commitment beautifies

You can do almost anything with a phone - and that's Bad, Actually

Because you can do anything, you end up doing nothing

The best tools are constrained and specific. They do you a favor by limiting you...

Thread: 1/ On a typewriter you cannot stream movies, check stock prices, or play online chess. You can only write. On a camera you cannot tweet, google trivia, or order groceries. You can only click. These older tools gave you a tunnel vision that their advanced alternatives just cannot

I never use AI to write

You shouldn't either

Here's why: 1/ One line from an 1883 philosophy book gets to the heart of the matter: "Of all that is written I love only what a man has written with his blood" (Nietzsche). Writing comes not just from your brain but from your guts, balls, sinews, feelings, blood. AI has none of that

While writing my new book, I stumbled upon an interesting pattern: many outlier success stories seem to involve...a childhood toy

Let me show you what I found

A thread: amazon.com/dp/B0DX24S1Q4 1/ Einstein fell seriously sick at 5. Bed-ridden. His father brought home a toy compass to entertain him. He was transfixed by the magnetic needle. It made him wonder—what were the "deeply hidden" forces controlling the needle...and the world? He spent his life chasing the answer

Why do old buildings and weathered objects look so much more charming than the plastic creations of our time?

Because of a Japanese concept called Koko...

Thread: 1/ Charm is a hard thing to pin down - because it is not a thing but a spirit. The Japanese have thought about it for thousands of years. In the Zen philosophy of aesthetics, there is something called "Koko" - a certain weathered but attractive vibe that old objects develop

After the French revolutionaries beheaded their king, they had another bright idea:

"Let's make the day 10 hours long"

This is NOT a joke. Left-wing "experts" actually changed the length of minutes, hours, and weeks in the name of science...

This is the story of that disaster: 1/ The French revolutionaries adopted a new calendar for three reasons:

- To eliminate religious consciousness from the French society

- To make time more “rational”

- To announce the birth of an egalitarian era

In their zeal they forgot an important factor: human nature

This Japanese Samurai:

• Never took a bath
• Never lost a fight
• Wrote one of Joe Rogan's all-time favorite books:

The Book of Five Rings (1645)

The book is 380 years old but its wisdom still holds up. A thread: 1/ Miyamoto Musashi was undefeated across 61 duels. An all-time record. He never married, never had children, and according to rumors, never combed his hair. He was a strange but profoundly wise man. Rogan says his book is "one of the most valuable things anyone has ever written"

As the world gets crazier, there is one name you will hear more often: Nicolás Gómez Dávila

He wrote 1 book. Published ONLY a 100 copies...

But he's the best teacher on why societies need MYTHS to live

Without myths, collapse is inevitable

A thread👇🏻 1/ A culture that ignores its distinct DNA, and embraces homogenization, is signing its own death warrant

Dávila:

"Violence is not necessary to destroy a civilization. Each civilization dies from indifference toward the unique values which created it."

Hot take: too much humility is a sin. Sometimes you need to over-estimate your abilities so you take bigger leaps. The humble take negative feedback seriously and fold; the arrogant maintain a bull-headed stubbornness in the face of repeat failures. Guess who ultimately wins Schopenhauer: "For what is modesty but hypocritical humility, by means of which...a man seeks to beg pardon for his excellences from those who have none? Whoever attributes no merit to himself because he really has none is not modest, but merely honest.”

https://x.com/PaqWilly/status/1882438861378445610

John Fowles explains in "The Aristos" (1964) how high IQ can subvert your will to act: "High intelligence leads to multiplicity of interest and a sharpened capacity to foresee the consequences of any action. Will is lost in a labyrinth of hypothesis." Rule 1: Do not lose the will Carlyle in 1841: "A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things."

Chesterton on how an open mind is no more a virtue than an open mouth: "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid”

This is Joe Overton

The famous "Overton Window" is named after him

It's the best mental model for understanding how political change ACTUALLY happens

A thread... 1/ Overton was a libertarian political scientist. In the 1990s, while raising funds for rightwing thinktank Mackinac Center, he kept meeting donors who didn't understand what thinktanks actually do. He coined a new concept to solve this problem: Window of Political Possibilities

11 Paradoxes of Modern Dating

1/ People are reaching sexual maturity sooner than ever before while having kids later than ever before. Puberty has significantly moved up and parenthood has significantly moved down—creating a gulf of meaningless hookups in-between. 2/ The internet has exposed you to more people than ever before, thereby significantly increasing your odds of meeting “the one” in theory. But you’re more alone than ever before.

New JP Morgan HQ? Art Deco

New Tesla van? Art Deco

New Orient Express train? Art Deco

Why is this dead 1920s movement making a comeback? And who killed it in the first place?

A thread with all the answers... 1/ Art Deco began with a breakup. Now called the "Vienna Secession," a group of rebels resigned from the "Association of Austrian Artists" in 1897 to chart new territory. The hero's journey begins. Their first project - the "Secession Building" in Vienna (still standing)

C.S Lewis almost died in the trench warfare of WW-I

Became best friends with Tolkien. Sold 100 million books...

On the cusp of WW-II, he gave an iconic lecture at Oxford University (1939)

His question: Does beauty matter when bombs start falling?

THIS is his profound answer👇🏻 1/ The permanent human situation is endless strife, chaos and pain

C.S. Lewis:

“Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself”

Yet culture breaks out

G.K. Chesterton's best book: Orthodoxy (1908)

Here are its 10 best ideas:

1/ Love precedes lovability: "Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her." 1/ Love precedes lovability because a "primary devotion" to a place, thing, or person is the source of the creative energy that transforms it. Begin with love, not scorn. Commitment beautifies

Reject stoicism. Reject Buddhism. Even the room lizard is "tranquil." Get ATTACHED. Everything great is downstream of (strong) desires. Latin root for desire is "de sidere," which translates to "from the stars." An intense desire is a gift from the Gods above. A gift of direction REJECTING stoicism is a pre requisite for great achievement

John Fowles explains in "The Aristos" (1964) how high IQ can subvert your will to act: "High intelligence leads to multiplicity of interest and a sharpened capacity to foresee the consequences of any action. Will is lost in a labyrinth of hypothesis." Rule 1: Do not lose the will Carlyle in 1841: "A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things."

Chesterton on how an open mind is no more a virtue than an open mouth: "The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid”