flâneur

Madhu Nathani

1 followers · 4 following · 548 views

on the atlas — 30

highlights — 61

  • One of the book’s arguments is that this minimalism in various manifestations represents a desire to be placeless, to divest yourself of personal entanglements. The subject that’s envisioned by these decluttering manuals, for example, or by mindfulness guide is a subject that's completely isolated, that can pick up all their belongings and move somewhere else in the world and basically find themselves in the same place again.
    The Opulence and Liberation of Maximalism
  • If you hurt yourself thoroughly enough, nobody else can do it as bad, right?
    How I Attained Persistent Self-Love, or, I Demand Deep Okayness For Everyone
  • It’s the intuitive understanding that I am merely one of the apertures through which the universe expresses itself, so why would I hate that? It’s the sense that, while I might fuck up, my basic worth is beyond question—I have no essential damage, I am not polluted, I am fine.
    How I Attained Persistent Self-Love, or, I Demand Deep Okayness For Everyone
  • Places accumulate upon us.
    Let the world dawn on you (influences pt. 2)
  • They grow their arrays of defense. This defense is not without its uses! But the rituals change you.
    Let the world dawn on you (influences pt. 2)
  • The right time and place can even change experiences
    Let the world dawn on you (influences pt. 2)
  • Everything is an atmosphere.
    Let the world dawn on you (influences pt. 2)
  • What can I attempt that will be worthwhile, serious enough that it might end in failure?
    Efforts and Goals and Joy - by Simon Sarris
  • If you really want something, then the soul must make demands of the body.
    Efforts and Goals and Joy - by Simon Sarris
  • When we are at our most vigorous, our most alive, we think and talk of our goals and aspirations. Over long time frames, the pessimist becomes an unobservant man, and the optimist creates the world.
    Efforts and Goals and Joy - by Simon Sarris
  • The challenges we face, navigating the human minefield, are of a verbal, social, interactive nature: learning to interpret our fellow human beings, to pick up on meanings behind words, to read between the lines, to push back against the many agendas pushed on us, so we’re not “led by the nose as asses are” (as Iago says of Othello), like those poor fools whose bodies litter the stage at the end of a tragedy.
    Opinion | Can Culture Be Society’s Savior? - The New York Times
  • our society desperately needs voices such as Mr. Brooks’s sounding the alarms in defense of our very souls.
    Opinion | Can Culture Be Society’s Savior? - The New York Times
  • The dopamine cartel is now aggravating our worst social problems—in education, in workplaces, and in private life.
    The State of the Culture, 2024 - by Ted Gioia
  • The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction.
    The State of the Culture, 2024 - by Ted Gioia
  • It's more like a network of small friendly neighborhoods that form a walkable web of a larger vibrant city, rather than an enormous mall you have to visit in order to meet your friends.
    Towards Small-Scale Social
  • When we think about these platforms at their best: they're about connection, meaning, friends, sparks of delight and provocations and resonance.
    Towards Small-Scale Social
  • Anything that you tend to wave off with "yeah, I probably SHOULD but" is potentially a good candidate
    Comments - How to be More Agentic - by Cate Hall
  • Beyond making more ambitious asks and meeting more people, how do you develop a way to see those edges that other people ignore? I believe Paul Graham had a roughly related concept in "schlep blindness."
    Comments - How to be More Agentic - by Cate Hall
  • This is so true that I’ve learned to identify a reduction in agency as one of the first signs of burnout, one that shows up even before I consciously realize what’s happening. A switch flips and I start looking for ways to rule out ideas and actions, to conclude they won’t work or aren’t necessary, rather than chasing better versions.
    How to be More Agentic - by Cate Hall - Useful Fictions
  • It’s possible to cross the moat quietly, by not asking questions and not collaborating, but those tradeoffs really nerf learning.
    How to be More Agentic - by Cate Hall - Useful Fictions
  • The last couple times I was looking for a project, I made a point of meeting as many people doing related work as I could, even if there was no obvious benefit to doing so.
    How to be More Agentic - by Cate Hall - Useful Fictions
  • All of my agency hacks are kind of like this, in my opinion -- big, glaring edges that people might rather ignore.
    How to be More Agentic - by Cate Hall - Useful Fictions
  • But the next 75 years aren’t going to be like that; we’re going to need to return to the basic human experience of relying on the people around you.
    The friendship problem - by Rosie Spinks
  • We are so burned out by the process of staying afloat in a globalized, connected world that we simply don’t have the energy for the kinds of in-person, easy interactions that might actually give us some energy and lifeforce back.
    The friendship problem - by Rosie Spinks
  • All of this creates a kind of “social atrophy” as Perel calls it. We are so burned out by our data-heavy, screen-based, supposedly friction-free lives that we no longer have the time or energy to engage in the kind of small, unfabulous, mundane, place-based friendships or acquaintance-ships that have nourished and sustained humans for literal centuries.
    The friendship problem - by Rosie Spinks
  • “Modern loneliness masks itself as hyper connectivity. And so people have easily 1000 virtual friends, but no one they can ask to feed their cat. That loneliness, which is really a depletion of the social capital, is extremely powerful. […]
    The friendship problem - by Rosie Spinks
  • We do not have the practice at the moment. Everything about predictive technologies is basically giving us a form of assisted living. You get it all served in uncomplicated, lack of friction, no obstacles and you no longer know how to deal with people. Because people are complex systems. Relationships, friendships are complex systems. They often demand that they hold two sides of an equation. And not that you solve little problems with technical solutions. And that is intrinsic to modern loneliness.”
    The friendship problem - by Rosie Spinks
  • Last year, I learned what I’m looking for in a person. I want to love the motions of their mind even when I can’t quite follow. Instead of an appeal to morality, I’m looking for an appeal to beauty.
    expansion - by Ava - bookbear express
  • we have to transfer that exciting tingle onto the not buying. Into what might feel like nothingness but really isn’t. To see the not-spending as a thing. You are investing in calm. Similarly, when we get rid of all the clutter from our homes, we are accumulating space. Space is a wealthy thing! Space is its very own designer piece of furniture! Space is a luxury item that we can create
    How to stop yourself - The Sophist
  • Some people know at 16 what sort of work they're going to do, but in most ambitious kids, ambition seems to precede anything specific to be ambitious about.
    Cities and Ambition
  • One reason that's unlikely is that someone starting a startup in New York would feel like a second class citizen. [3] There's already something else people in New York admire more.
    Cities and Ambition
  • Most people overvalue negative amounts of money: they'll work much harder to avoid losing a dollar than to gain one.
    Cities and Ambition
  • When you talk about cities in the sense we are, what you're really talking about is collections of people.
    Cities and Ambition
  • A city speaks to you mostly by accident — in things you see through windows, in conversations you overhear. It's not something you have to seek out, but something you can't turn off.
    Cities and Ambition
  • Most people who did great things were clumped together in a few places where that sort of thing was done at the time.
    Cities and Ambition
  • Great cities attract ambitious people. You can sense it when you walk around one. In a hundred subtle ways, the city sends you a message
    Cities and Ambition
  • Looking back, I can understand why that happened, but the root cause for me is that the project has been run from a place of fear, competitive fear, which I don't think leads to good things.
    Failure
  • But if you ship early and fast and learn fast, you can change fast, and you can improve fast.
    Failure
  • I think a lot of the motivation for those projects came from a place of fear. It didn't come from a place of let's make a great product for people,.let's really understand the things people struggle with when communicating with family and friends. That's really, really try and create something wonderful. It came from a place of fear.
    Failure
  • You can inflict change on people, but if you want to do it with them, really trust is the key element there.
    Failure
  • Because I think that sometimes, you need to care. That it’s beautiful to care. That in order to work on something that really, truly, makes you feel it in all of your bones you have to be utterly obsessed. To love and care for something (or someone) so deeply you’re willing to pull out all the stops. That obsession is way cooler than apathy.
    obsessive spouts - by kel - the (un)comfy corner
  • One of the best suggestions I ever got is to never go to bed without having something in mind that you need to do tomorrow — not just a chore — but something you want to do for yourself or others.
    Thoughts from Bob Griffin | If I Knew Then
  • Perhaps the most significant dimension of change with experience has been a shift in the meaning of “worth” to me. As I look back, I recognize that many of my Harvard Business School associates have accumulated more material value in the last 50 years than I have. While I am grateful that I have been provided with sufficient funds to support my family, it has been in bringing pure water to indigenous Miskito Indians in Honduras, starting a literacy school for adults, participating with my wife in her founding of two teen courts for young people, and having a positive impact on our children and…
    Thoughts from Bob Griffin | If I Knew Then
  • One of the big challenges is that we're taught to weigh all the options and consider all the trade-offs. We believe that finding the perfect solution is possible if we think hard enough and ask enough incisive questions. We want to navigate our way to that win-win solution. The antidote to this is realizing that the slide is happening, realizing that there are vastly diminishing returns with the trade-off Tetris, realizing that the analysis isn't necessarily helping, and deciding to some all-encompassing enabling constraints. The very nature of these constraints means that you typically need s…
    TBM 260: The Thoughtful HIPPO - by John Cutler
  • His shadows are some of the most saturated parts of his paintings, and that’s on the screen too.
    Design Tip: Never Use Black by Ian Storm Taylor
  • Problem is, we see dark things and assume they are black things. When, in reality, it’s very hard to find something that is pure black.
    Design Tip: Never Use Black by Ian Storm Taylor
  • Meaningful relationships are formed through commitment, not through freedom. You don’t need to search the entire country’s bars and restaurants for your perfect pals. Just pick some people, science says. Commit to them. They might not be NBA players or millionaires. But they’ll be yours. And that will be the best thing of all.
    📩 Letter #36: On friendship - Letters From Home & Away
  • Freedom is cheap. What we don’t acknowledge is the high cost of a life without commitment.
    📩 Letter #36: On friendship - Letters From Home & Away
  • I found myself reflecting on the beauty of long relationships. Our friends have seen me at my best. They’ve also seen me at my worst. There’s an implicit promise in tossing a blanket on the couch: “I’m here for you tonight. And I’ll be here for you tomorrow.”
    📩 Letter #36: On friendship - Letters From Home & Away
  • The world was open, I said. We could all go on adventures again.
    📩 Letter #36: On friendship - Letters From Home & Away