flâneur

Bryant W

4 followers · 4 following · 506 views

on the atlas — 65

highlights — 36

  • In 1959, the university conducted an internal study to see which of its top 79 feeder schools produced the most honors graduates per capita. It found that "not one of the 30 top institutions was an eastern boarding school" and that "[s]ome of the St. Grottlesex schools, in particular, had especially poor records."
    Saint Grottlesex
  • Hemingway alleged that Zelda sought to destroy her husband, and she purportedly taunted Fitzgerald over his penis size.[174] After examining it in a public restroom, Hemingway confirmed Fitzgerald's penis to be of average size.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The effect of all such moments is that of a culture in the process of being turned into a caricature or imitation of itself, as in Diego Velázquez’s famous “Las Meninas,” in which the king and the queen, standing next to the would-be position of the painting’s creator and across from that painter’s image within the painting, look at themselves in a mirror, one in which only the observers—ourselves—are able to stand: a reflection of a reflection.
    Literary Hub » Don Quixote: Sloppy, Inconsistent, Baffling, Perfect
  • i really enjoy that feeling where nothing else matters but the road in front of you, and the actions your body is taking to produce movement are completely out of sight, out of mind. conceptually, i like that the only barrier to running faster, pedaling harder, is the voice in my mind telling me i'm at my maximum. i like to tell it to shut up.
    Abhay Shukla · rcbi
  • i realize i never hated photography itself, just how my family members' obsession with 'taking photos' interrupts actual lived experience.
    Abhay Shukla · rcbi
  • it took many years for me to realize that people enjoy art because of relatedness rather than separateness. for instance, people don’t read this blog because i have extraordinary experiences; they read it because i have ordinary experiences and an ability to distill those experiences in helpful ways.
    integration - by vincent huang - a slice of my mind
  • A mathlete is someone who participates in math competitions. He (almost always he) uses the elegant axioms of mathematics, the underlying structure of creation, in the same way that a drunken barfly uses a grip of darts, flinging them against a wall to impress friends or strangers. The patterns they leave mean nothing at all, except that sometimes they land in this curvy bucket instead of that one, scoring five points, or a hundred. The only point is to win. On math team, we were mathletes.
    math team - by benedict - bene dictio
  • (in persian culture, when someone calls you beautiful, a common reply is “it is your eyes that are beautiful,” meaning you must hone beauty in yourself to be able to recognize it in others)
    human-human interaction - by vincent huang
  • In pursuing the aim of helping other countries to progress toward open societies, with no thought of territorial aggrandizement, we are breaking no new
    The Responsibility of Intellectuals
  • Since that period of my life, my memory of what I was like then has changed as I continually reflect on it and certain moments become more story than memory.
    Breaking up with myself - by Michael - From X to Why
  • We are hardly the first power in history to combine material interests, great technological capacity, and an utter disregard for the suffering and misery of the lower orders.
    The Responsibility of Intellectuals
  • Artists compete with each other for status so fiercely that they often run out of ways to look more upper-class. So, a favorite maneuver is to adopt patterns from the lower class. But while they might wear clothes designed for factory workers, they wouldn’t wear polo shirts or khaki pants because those are coded as middle class—too much danger that their competitors might not understand their advanced maneuver.
    Taste games
  • If we crystallize an identity (e.g. “I’m a good person”), we become its prisoners (e.g. “I need to be perceived as virtuous”).
    Authenticity is a Trap - Octopusyarn
  • Shelley intentionally opts for the angle of the beloved child plagued with hubris and blind ambition—this being Victor’s divine weakness.
    Frankenstein is Actually About Being a Woman
  • For an angel to achieve free will is to fall. It has deviated from his purpose and therefore is no longer an angel.
    Frankenstein is Actually About Being a Woman
  • It is the folly of human ego to believe that we are creating our successors in the evolutionary chain. That we are God constructing a digitized Garden of Eden, soon to be inhabited by a tin-skinned Adam and Eve.
    Frankenstein is Actually About Being a Woman
  • Part 1: Alexander Grothendieck
    Cultivating a state of mind where new ideas are born
  • It had been swallowed by the sea.
    Be patient with problems - by Henrik Karlsson
  • To paraphrase a cliche, you may have to finally give up on experiencing a better past.
    The rare people who are solid - by Sasha Chapin
  • Torbjörn has always had a tenuous relationship with the written word, that is to say, he barely reads.
    Sometimes the reason you can’t find people you resonate with is because you misread the ones you meet
  • Everything else is comfortable fiction we use to avoid sitting with the discomfort of how many people just as talented and hardworking as us will never get the chances we got for reasons that have nothing to do with their their worth. I do not know how to live with that knowledge except to try, every day, to be worthy of the luck I did not earn; to hold the door open and keep holding it open for as long as I am standing anywhere near it.
    Your life is probably a series of improbable yeses
  • The thing no one tells you about elite institutions is that they come with opportunities but also gift you with a new set of desires, and those desires don’t announce themselves, saying, “Hello, I am a socially constructed want that you have absorbed through ambient pressure.” You just wake up wanting things you can’t trace back to any memory of your own. The machine doesn’t break you. It just builds a smaller room around you until you forget there were other rooms.
    What Harvard (almost) stole from me - Julia Alvarenga
  • I want to remember why I applied to university in the first place, as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed youth from North Carolina — it was with the hope of building up a skillset to help fix the most broken parts of our society. I dreamed so big; I should only continue to dream bigger, despite the existential pressures we now face as young adults. We all should.
    existential musings from a new grad - Megan Mou
  • rather than waiting to become better, so that other people may see a better side of me than they currently would, i should put myself out there right now, and seize the magic of right now before it fades away. if i wait until i’m ready, then i’ll be waiting forever. there is no better time than now.
    there is no better time than now - by Vivian Loh - circles
  • It’s so natural these days to think that we live in a problematic, pessimistic, performative world, we’re doomed to live hard lives, we’ll never be good enough, and the world is terrible but we’ll just deal with it — chasing the small highs every day that give us bursts of joy.
    An anchor to wholesomeness - by Vivian Loh - circles
  • In fact, it feels a bit off when someone feels like they are on a lower rung than me. If this is ever the case, (which it rarely is), I often try to artificially lower my rung by appearing especially unintimidating, like it is ridiculous that they see me in the way they do. Being on a lower rung allows for genuine connection with more people, for people can open up to you if they think you are one of them.
    Dichotomy - by Vivian Loh - circles
  • I don’t know how I could get across to people who are so different from me without actually experiencing what they’ve been through. (Or maybe this is the only way?) The first step would be to look outside the bubble of educated, middle+upper class, young people -- or at least be very very conscious that I am in such a bubble. It would take empathy, and so much more.
    Being smart isn’t enough, because the world revolves around people
  • I think the distinction is that money runs out, while we have the illusion that time doesn’t; new days keep arriving one after another. My fear of becoming lifestyle crept and becoming used to a higher cost, higher level lifestyle is because I don’t want to become dependent upon something that might suddenly cease to exist. However, as I grow older I might see much more correspondence between time and money
    To act broke without being broke - by Vivian Loh - circles
  • this is the same death that dfw addressed in his commencement speech this is water (which you should read if you haven’t! it’s one of my favorites):
    mode collapse - by vincent huang - a slice of my mind
  • Because yes, sometimes friends witness you in such a moment and they walk away. But the right people will see you in your weakness and they’ll come and sit next to you. They will hold your hand and they’ll tell you, not with their words but with their actions: This is the moment at which I could abandon you. And I won’t.
    Give your friends a chance to abandon you - by Kasra
  • So now you have an AI that can do almost anything a human with a access to your machine can do. It can read all your files and create new ones (PowerPoint and Word are just code, in the end, and Claude knows how to write code), access the web using your browser, write and execute programs for you, and more.
    Claude Code and What Comes Next - by Ethan Mollick
  • I’m slowly starting to learn that while it’s definitely possible to opportunity-max my experiences these next few years, I might find more value and more of myself in doing things for the true sake of wanting to do them rather than for the sake of collecting as many experience badges as I can – as fast as I can.
    Wanting to Do Everything | MIT Admissions
  • And while I do enjoy the wide variety of things I’m able to learn and experience, I’ve come to realize that my obsession with trying to do more doesn’t always equate to being the most fulfilling.
    Wanting to Do Everything | MIT Admissions
  • over the past few years, i’ve found it increasingly hard to accept the end of things. two years ago, it seemed as if high school would be eternal, and that i would attend six classes a day with the same group of friends for perpetuity, until it all just ended one day. it seemed as if i would live in the same small corner of los angeles for eternity, surrounded by palm trees and parched grassy hills and contrail-streaked cerulean skies, until it all just ended one day.
    tick tock tick tock | MIT Admissions
  • the gasping embers of the class simply simmered out over the course of a protracted month; there were too many individual lasts, too many ends for the final end to feel like much.
    tick tock tick tock | MIT Admissions
  • along the way i’ve realized that some of the reasons i became such a good discriminator are rooted in: fear of the unknown, fear of embracing something different, fear of finding new things i love so much that they uproot my entire life. part of me is excited about all the unknown unknowns i’ve yet to encounter, but another part of me feels threatened by them. of course all this fear is silly and i need all the great ideas i can get my hands on and i should love the world harder and be less critical!! i am trying my best
    you have all these rules, and you think they'll save you