“Wooow! What a huge library you have! How many of these books have you read?”

Buy more books than you can read. The more unread books you have, the better.

Nassim Taleb (@nntaleb) confessed in The Black Swan he was mesmerized by Umberto Eco’s erudition.

THREAD Umberto Eco was part of a “small class of scholars who are encyclopedic, insightful, and nondull.”

His personal library boasts more than 30K books.

We have no idea how to rest & relax.

We fail to realize how degenerated most leisure activities are today.

Mircea Eliade & Emil Cioran & Nicolás Dávila & Aldous Huxley wrote about this 50-100 years ago.

Their words still hit home with great precision 🎯

THREAD When we hear the word “leisure”—we think of watching Netflix, scrolling TikTok, playing video games, or maybe going shopping.

This definition is drastically misleading.

Leisure historically meant freedom for social, creative, and intellectual activities.

One of the greatest tricks the devil has ever pulled is convincing the world that procrastination is a vice and never a virtue.

In Antifragile, @nntaleb makes the confession that he uses procrastination as a filter for his writing.

If he feels strong resistance to writing a certain section, he leaves it out as a service to his readers:

“Why should they read something that I didn’t want to write?”

The most underrated skill of the 21st century: knowing how to relax 🏖️
⁣
Prioritize rest. At all costs.⁣

Rest not in the sense of watching Netflix or scrolling TikTok but searching for stillness ☀️

THREAD 1/

“If you want to understand what a society truly worships,” Joseph Campbell wrote, “don’t examine its art or literature...simply look at its tallest buildings.”

My internet business model is simple:

I want to read, take long walks, meditate, play with my dog, and sip wine with my friends & fiancée whenever I want. I write. Seek beauty. And largely work on projects I love.

THREAD 1/

Fresh coffee. Books. Frequent laughs & naps. Nature. Art. Work which I hope may be of some use. A cozy place to call home.

Such is my idea of wealth & happiness.

There’s nothing more complex, meaningful, and difficult to build than a simple life.

One of the biggest illusions of modernity is that we can separate beauty from functionality.

(thread) 1/

Contrary to popular belief, beauty is NOT purely subjective.

It does not simply “lie in the eye of the beholder.”

Beauty (in architecture) is a sacred phenomenon, inspired by elements & patterns & colors we find in nature.

On the abuse & decline of reason (thread)

It’s not that our reason is defective; but that fetishizing it can make it so.

As a society, we are too much in the thrall of logic. 1/

“Solving problems using only rationality is like playing golf with only one club.” — @rorysutherland

The Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade warned us about this pseudo-intellectual wave...

He called its propagandists “reductionists” rather than “rationalists”

Note to Self:

To live well, don’t look for answers.

Learn to love the questions.

Life should be much more about exploration, wonder, adventure, and reflection rather than evidence, order, and direction.

Here are 12 of my favorite questions to reflect on:

(thread) 1. What am I thinking that no one is saying?

H/T @peterthiel

6 lessons you (and I) will learn too late:

(thread) 1/

Show your anger when needed.

People need to know what irritates you and what doesn’t.

But, crucially, remain internally calm.

Your anger is only a tool. Don’t become its puppet.

THREAD

I’ve been following @EdLatimore for quite a while now.

Here are some of his top & most practical tweets, ordered and curated based on wisdom and impact.

They're not to be swallowed, but slowly digested and hopefully implemented.

👇 1/

https://twitter.com/EdLatimore/status/1296489916805926912

Herculane Baths, Romania, is in dire need of renovation.

#BeautyMatters How it used to, could, and should look like.

When it comes to desserts, I only trust bees: I can never eat too much honey.

My body somehow recognizes it quickly and sends me a signal early on — “Stop, it's enough!”

If I get a cake from the supermarket, my body will only tell me to eat more. #Complexsystems: studying a bee (the unit) does not help you understand the collective (the colony). The interactions between the bees matter more than their individual nature. They cooperate in ways we cannot understand.

The tacit idea that we're making constant progress as species is dangerously flawed.

We've progressed in some areas, but also regressed in many.

We developed sophisticated engineering skills–but we use them to build soulless, hideous cities.

#Urbanism Contrary to modernist belief, this is TRULY sustainable, cosy, pleasurable, and, above all, what humans deeply need and desire.

#GoodUrbanism

Why Governments & Businesses Tend to Despise Creative Thinking?

Short Thread – from “Alchemy: The Power of Ideas that Don't Make Sense” by @rorysutherland 1. Simply put: it's safer to create an artificial model which brands a solution as logical, and to claim that the decision was driven by “facts” rather than creative opinion.

The “Outside-The-Box” Box

Many teachers and academics claim to teach us to “think outside the box” – but they usually (for our convenience) point out exactly where “outside the box” is located. These people can’t recognize uniqueness if it doesn’t fit the standard pattern for what uniqueness is supposed to look like.

Why We Should Protect #HateSpeech – A Thread by @lsanger 1/8 The essential problem about creating “hate speech” exceptions to free speech is that the phrase is irreparably vague.

We can’t define it.

A (short) Thread on #Urbanism

Premise:

#TaditionalUrbanism is far more sustainable, more graceful, cheaper, and encourages a more ethical and ecological way of living than #ModernUrbanism. The return to traditional architecture and settlement patterns is an overwhelming necessity – yet we are incentivized to focus on cosmetic solutions. We think we need veganism, we think we need “green” skyscrapers, we think we need “green” fuel.

Nonsense.

#Localism/Curated Arguments (Thread): 1/ "You understand what is going on in your neighbourhood better than what is going on in your city; which you understand better than what is going on in your state; better than what is going on in your country; better than what is going on across the globe." ~ @normonics

‘Let the Internet be free’ – that’s what they say.

What they don’t get: the Internet is already NOT free. (Thread) 1/ In cyberspace, our choice is not between ‘regulation’ and ‘no regulation.’ The internet is by definition a regulated space – but, indeed, not by the government! The coders are regulating this habitat – through codes (obviously)!

My Favorite Quotes (Top Five) by @naval (Thread) 1) We feel guilt when we no longer want to associate with old friends and colleagues who haven’t changed. The price, and marker, of growth.