flâneur

Nancy Zuo

15 followers · 11 following · 879 views

on the atlas — 33

highlights — 73

  • If you’re receiving this, we crossed paths sometime in the last few months or years. We might not have caught up in a bit, but I’m reaching out now because you were a teacher, friend, professor, or mentor who I’d like to reconnect with and (hopefully) more purposefully keep in touch with going forward.
    A Life Update · Hello from Nathan Leung · Natecation · Natecation
  • I'm an artist’s daughter and an aspiring artist, but I'm also my own person and the chooser of what I would like to do with that knowledge in the future. And to change my future, I’ve decided to disregard the past and instead focus on the present, progressing forward one sketch at a time.
    art - by aliz - bread & butter
  • Was art my everything? It didn't take long for me to start questioning whether my desire to pursue art was a dream of my own or a byproduct of the cravings to fulfill others’ expectations of me. I began to block myself off from receiving compliments. Before anyone could even think to criticize me, I would always be a step ahead, having already bashed my drawings for all their little eccentricities that only I could see. I refused to cultivate an ego that would overtake my ability to sense the hideousness of my work. I thought of art as a marathon between me and everyone else, a marathon that I…
    art - by aliz - bread & butter
  • The solution is a painful one: Think. Only an answer to the question “what constitutes a good cake?” can allow us to judge innovation in the field of cake baking. So, too, only an answer to the question “what constitutes a good life?” can allow us to judge technological developments as attaining or failing to attain proper human flourishing. Until we personally and communally articulate and enforce the human goals that technology should serve, we will remain pawns in the history of technology, strapping on VR headsets as if by necessity, unable to explain why the world has become so gray.
    Kant Against Your Oculus Rift. Our technological age is usually… | by Marc Barnes | Medium
  • Even if it may feel delusional if you are someone who has to make sense of everything and control everything to do even one shit properly, just tell yourself that you fucking have everything you know and start seeing the world that way.
    If I have everything, why would I try to rush? | by Ikjong Choi | Medium
  • But now I’m moving on, I’m just gonna stand out. Follow my intuition and do what makes sense to me and when I say makes sense, do what makes me feel alive and feel happy that I am present. Being present also doesn’t mean throwing your body out there and pretending like you are conforming. Being present doesn’t work just by one single individual. I have to be in the right environment that supports me as well.
    If you just show up to this world as who you are and keep on giving what you feel excited about, things will all work out. | by Ikjong Choi | Medium
  • Thus, from now on, I’m just not gonna bother to fit in. I’m just gonna stand out NOT by trying to be weird forcibly and doing provocative stuff intentionally with thirst and desperation but rather just by doing what’s already comfortable to me where I feel like I’m at my best anyway and just throwing things out there to the world consistently to see if it resonates.
    If you just show up to this world as who you are and keep on giving what you feel excited about, things will all work out. | by Ikjong Choi | Medium
  • If i keep doing it, keep making things with the energy that portrays, “Hey, this is me. I was at my best while doing this. Here you go.” and observe the world around me from time to time as I throw myself out there, I’ll organically blend in and they will also organically come to understand, appreciate, and even get inspired to transform their own narratives to want something different. This is my job as a person. This is what i’m good at doing. I’m gonna own this role and just keep showing up. This world will soon adjust to my style as I am keep showing up to this world to give who I truly am…
    If you just show up to this world as who you are and keep on giving what you feel excited about, things will all work out. | by Ikjong Choi | Medium
  • Maybe leading is about making people who are not like me slowly see something new and help them buy that new vision because it somehow seems better than their own life or it somehow seems to make them feel more alive because the creator felt he was alive when he was doing his job because he was doing what he was meant to do.
    If you just show up to this world as who you are and keep on giving what you feel excited about, things will all work out. | by Ikjong Choi | Medium
  • Why did I try so hard to be polite in my past experiences? I clearly just wasted my time. To be optimistic, yes, I became a better actor which can be useful later on to accommodate the differences I might face but let’s focus on what I can do now.
    If you just show up to this world as who you are and keep on giving what you feel excited about, things will all work out. | by Ikjong Choi | Medium
  • Bloom found that the average student tutored one-to-one using mastery learning techniques performed two standard deviations better than students educated in a classroom environment with one teacher to 30 students, with or without mastery learning. As quoted by Bloom: "the average tutored student was above 98% of the students in the control class".[1]: 4 Additionally, the variation of the students' achievement changed: "about 90% of the tutored students ... attained the level of summative achievement reached by only the highest 20%" of the control class.[1]:
    Bloom's 2 sigma problem
  • You yourself, once you are in, want to make it hard for the next entrant, just as those who are already in made it hard for you. Naturally. In any wholesome group of people which holds together for a good purpose, the exclusions are in a sense accidental. Three or four people who are together for the sake of some piece of work exclude others because there is work only for so many or because the others can’t in fact do it.
    CS Lewis Society of California
  • Once the first novelty is worn off, the members of this circle will be no more interesting than your old friends. Why should they be? You were not looking for virtue or kindness or loyalty or humour or learning or wit or any of the things that can really be enjoyed. You merely wanted to be “in.” And that is a pleasure that cannot last. As soon as your new associates have been staled to you by custom, you will be looking for another Ring. The rainbow’s end will still be ahead of you. The old ring will now be only the drab background for your endeavor to enter the new one.
    CS Lewis Society of California
  • You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain.
    CS Lewis Society of California
  • Of all the passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is most skillful in making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things.
    CS Lewis Society of California
  • As much as I dislike the feeling of floating around aimlessly through my whole life, it’s my goddamn life. I don’t want to give up that easily, even if it’s hard. At the end of the day, I have a lot more agency and responsibility over my life than I’d like to admit. I am capable of affecting my own happiness and sense of fulfillment, even if I can’t see it in the moment. I want to be happy. I want to feel alive and to enjoy smelling the fucking roses or whatever the hipsters do. Give me the bone broth. Sign me up for an aerial yoga class. Teach me to grill random shit.
    unrelated paragraphs on the meaning of my life
  • May I always protect my soul. I know what it’s like to live without feeling alive, and it’s one of the most difficult places to be in. I want to always feel alive. I want to always have something or someone I’m living for, even if times feel really tough. May I still be there for my friends and family. Knowing me, it’ll be super easy to not make any plans under the guise of being overworked and underrested, but that in many ways is a copout. I want to keep in contact with those I love. I want to be forced to go on boring ass hikes and be outdoors underneath scorching suns, and I want to cook s…
    please be nice to me - by Valerie Zhang - Val's Pals
  • Every interaction felt like a test. If I didn’t vibe with a person immediately, I failed. Instead of fact-checking this belief, I stubbornly clung to my quiet honor and collected citations to defend my silence. “Being ok with yourself when no one else is around is the truest test of character,” I would retort defensively.
    communication - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • It’s no wonder the game’s plot feels weak and unsatisfactory. Where’s the hero arc? The ultimate salvation? The clear metrics in the corner that tell us if we’re winning the game or not? Instead, all we get is second-hand backstory and form-filled talk tracks. “Meaningless” is how some people put it. It’s just too easy to peek under the hood and realize there’s no master plan or final destination.
    callings - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • The way I see it, modern American society is a lot like a massive multilevel video game designed by our parents, managers, and government — all without any pre-planning, principles, or plot coordination between parties.
    callings - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • The effect this has on a young person with a lot of “potential” and opportunities available to them but not a lot of pulse on what they find meaningful yet is too often paralysis.
    callings - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • here’s simply so much friction in the process of turning belief into action online — meaning that most of the time all you actually get from internet attention is internalized impossible-to-attain expectations for yourself and an extremely confused ego.
    callings - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • Generally competent people tend to have endless optionality. It’s difficult to settle on any one thing when so many other tempting opportunities keep tugging at your sleeve
    concentration - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • Most people in this position end up doubling down on the thing they receive the most praise for — mistaking external validation for internal satisfaction. But squeezing yourself into a small, easily explainable cage you know you’ll quickly outgrow just to avoid the pain of struggling to explain who you are to other people is, in my opinion, just avoidance of facing your full potential.
    concentration - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • I’ve always known I could do more than that. But while I wanted to be able to neatly introduce myself with a respectable title or two, none of the roles I tried on lasted long. I outgrew them just as quickly as I collected them — leaving me disoriented, confused, and concerned about my ability to commit to things.
    concentration - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • n my head, there’s a strong throughline connecting all of my work: my curiosity. I get high off the process of learning and articulating and making sense of the world around me and that high has been steady since I was small.
    concentration - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • “You’re just exploring!” “I look forward to seeing you double down on something!” “Everyone goes through this!” “Who knows, maybe you’ll stay in this space, maybe you’ll end up somewhere else!” and my worst fear: “Don’t worry, this is just the path of an artist!” I hated each and every one of these responses, for different reasons. I disliked the idea that others didn’t fully believe that my current thing was the right thing for me. I resented that they thought I was just like everyone else. But most of all — I vehemently despised being called an artist. Whether true or not, to me that meant a…
    concentration - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • Neither therapy nor the parts I played for other people granted me a sense of purpose. Instead, it came from contribution. Society’s prevailing narrative today will tell you to look inside yourself for the courage to continue. This is, in my view, utterly incomplete. I’m unconvinced any of us possess purely internally-created reasons to be brave (and if you do, plz tell me). To speak our minds, align our beliefs with our actions, and aim really, really high, we need reasons outside of ourselves. Not flimsy award or accolade-shaped reasons — but sturdy, deep-rooted, grounding reasons like relat…
    courage - by Molly Mielke - Mind Mud
  • But it’s hard, it’s so hard, because we’re not taught how to ask hard questions of both ourselves and others. We believe that social reality is more important than individual reality, that being with someone who makes you look good is better than being with someone who makes you feel good
    the agony of eros: dating - by Ava - bookbear express
  • The real thing people should be actively looking for is strong emotional connection, as in: to what degree can I share who I am with this person, do they get it, how interested are they in who I am, my feelings and thoughts, can we accommodate each other’s preferences, are we good at talking.
    the agony of eros: dating - by Ava - bookbear express
  • My dream world is one in which more people could communicate things like, I don’t want to have sex with you even though I’m attracted to you because I’m going to feel emotionally attached to you after the fact and I want to wait until I have sufficient context to understand whether you’re actually someone I want to be attached to (tactful honesty!).
    the agony of eros: dating - by Ava - bookbear express
  • But the thing that’s really hard about dating is that it tends to bring out all your attachment issues, problems you’ve inherited from your parents, primal fear of rejection, etc so it’s really, really hard (basically impossible) to fake being different than you are
    the agony of eros: dating - by Ava - bookbear express
  • I always remember that Joan Didion line about how for many years she didn’t have a thought without saying it aloud to her husband.
    closeness - by Ava - bookbear express
  • When I talked about this with a friend, he asked me, “so what are some things you did recently that you wholeheartedly enjoyed?” I couldn’t answer. For too long, I’ve established my whole happiness system and reward system on rankings, prestige, and social approval that I don’t even know when “Amy” is feeling happy, versus when “Amy’s ego” is telling Amy that she should be happy. I am so used let the world and its arbitrary standards measure my progress that I forgot what it feels like to be truly happy and content with myself.
    Kristie Huang
  • Chasing the prestige has definitely gotten me to places and helped me explore, but I wish I didn’t use “following others’ advice” as an excuse to delay finding what I am passionate about. I know that I still have a lot of time, but if I were to redo college or even high school again, I would have been more conscious about my own feelings and be more intentional about discovering what makes me happy
    Kristie Huang
  • all this illustrates one common solution to the paradigm of not noticing problems until it’s too late to solve them: just notice the problems earlier. notice which bloons your towers struggle against even during the rounds where you don’t lose lives. notice how your fingers can’t make the same motions they used to be able to well before you start missing keys entirely. notice the passage of time every year, every month, every moment of your college experience, not just when you become a senior
    by the time you notice it’s too late – A Slice of My Mind
  • if you’re trying to make a difficult decision, the realization that you have no time left is a ridiculously late signal for beginning preparations to make the decision.
    by the time you notice it’s too late – A Slice of My Mind
  • by the time you notice a problem, it is often too late to begin acting to address the problem. this is because the problem’s effects might be a very late signal for the problem’s emergence. in many cases it is such a late signal that it is barely actionable.
    by the time you notice it’s too late – A Slice of My Mind
  • It takes about 200 hours of investment in the space of a few months to move a stranger into being a good friend.
    Robin Dunbar Explains Humans' Circles of Friendship - The Atlantic
  • “Falling in love will cost you two friendships.”
    Robin Dunbar Explains Humans' Circles of Friendship - The Atlantic
  • I think of it almost as a desire to share consciousness. If I had to elucidate the appeal of extreme closeness, I’d probably describe it thus: I find it both thrilling and exhausting to be in my own mind, and sometimes I want to share the burden of it. I want you to know everything, to share the inexhaustible accumulation of experience with me. I think that’s why I write, quite literally.
    closeness - by Ava - bookbear express
  • This past year, I have found multiple someones who share similar qualities, and I've learned to cherish them wholeheartedly. It's extremely gratifying to meet people who I can feel this way with, people who I feel like I belong with, people who I can proudly call friends. Being around them has sparked hope in me that meaningful friendships can and do exist, and instead of foolishly chasing after unhealthy, intangible fantasies that would never come to fruition, I should always be on the search for people like my current friends, people who make me feel like I've finally discovered what lies at…
    at the end of the rainbow - by aliz - bread & butter
  • I was confounded by the concept of having a crush, and yet, I tried my utmost to make it happen. In my classes, I would autonomously scan the appearances of boys and reduce them into a list of traits, mentally checking off the ones that I felt were crush-worthy and blocking out the faces of those who were not up to my standards. I treated people like mere products, narrowing down my options until I could settle on a single target whose surface-level characteristics matched most closely with the conventional crush standards, according to popular teen media. Then I would elevate my crushes onto …
    at the end of the rainbow - by aliz - bread & butter
  • I'm turning my MIT dorm room into a free hotel service, available to anyone who is fully vaccinated! Reserve dates by filling out this form, and feel free to recommend to your friends! As of May 2022, 15 guests have stayed over with an average rating of 4.8 stars.
    Vincent Huang
  • The Metaverse is the next evolution of the Internet; nothing more, and nothing less. Keep it simple, stay focused on the goal, and the Metaverse of our dreams will become reality.
    The Seven Rules of the Metaverse. A framework for the coming immersive… | by Tony Parisi | Metaverses | Medium
  • Rule #1. There is only one Metaverse. Rule #2: The Metaverse is for everyone. Rule #3: Nobody controls the Metaverse. Rule #4: The Metaverse is open. Rule #5: The Metaverse is hardware-independent. Rule #6: The Metaverse is a Network. Rule #7: The Metaverse is the Internet.
    The Seven Rules of the Metaverse. A framework for the coming immersive… | by Tony Parisi | Metaverses | Medium
  • Make a list of a hundred or so people that seem interesting. Lean towards over-including. My list has parents, presidents, teachers, anime characters, founders, book characters, professors, writers, mentors, YouTubers, people I've only heard stories about, etc. Anyone who you know well enough to imagine a bit of their life is fair game. Now, try each person on for size and decide if you want to be them.
    An Algorithm for Choosing a Life Direction
  • The Stoics suggest that if you have something you really enjoy, you should give it up occasionally. This helps you to more fully appreciate having the thing. For example, if you have a warm winter coat, occasionally walking around without it will make you appreciate it more. This got me thinking: what don't I appreciate enough? The first thing that comes to mind is having a home: a safe, cozy place to relax and sleep at night. I feel like I should be grateful for my home, but it doesn't trigger an emotional response. In an effort to develop that emotional gratitude, I'm going to spend the next…
    Urban Camping
  • Now I wear only solid color shirts. It's not that I've finally moved away from status. It's that now, the high status thing is just to disassociate yourself from high status shirts.
    79 T-Shirts
  • But to a certain extent, the tech industry writ large depends on futurism. Selling a phone is fine, but selling the future is more profitable.
    What Is the Metaverse, Exactly? | WIRED