Writer exploring culture, technology, life design, and the human experience. Writing at BarryFralick.com
Sunday Notes 2024 Review
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Greetings friends. As promised, this is the 2024 roundup edition of Sunday Notes. A review of the most popular finds I have shared throughout the year. I hope you enjoy it. From me: Something to consider as the new year approaches Published in Sunday Notes 5/19/24 Papert's Principle Many of the most vital steps in cognitive growth are based not on learning new things, but on finding new ways to use what we already know. This has been on my mind. Not necessarily mental growth, but the pattern of looking for new information. It's almost default behavior to look for new solutions to existing problems, but in most cases, we already have the knowledge we need. For example, if we want to lose weight, we know we need to eat less and move more. Listening to a two-hour podcast with our favorite health guru isn't going to change that. There's no 'new information' to be had. Instead, we can take the information we have and use it differently. Instead of exercising and focusing on eating less, we could buy fewer groceries and park farther away from the store. Both would promote weight loss. The idea is, most problem-solving tools are already at our disposal. We simply need to find a better way to use them. -- Interesting: 100 Little Ideas
Pollyanna Principle: It’s easier to remember happy memories than bad ones.
Declinism: Perpetually viewing society as in decline, because you’re afflicted by the Pollyanna Principle and you forget how much things sucked in the past. -- Quote of the year: Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.
― Gore Vidal And the runner-up The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.
― Søren Kierkegaard -- Life Design: From Brain Food, thoughts on keeping a Small Surface Area via Shane Parrish is an excellent read and one I highly recommend checking out. The thing about surface area is that the more you have, the more you have to defend and maintain. The larger your surface area, the more you are burdened with mentally and physically. If you think in terms of surface area, it's easy to see why we are so anxious, stressed, and constantly behind. Your surface area becomes part of your identity. She's the 'busy person' with her hand in every project. He's the guy with four houses. The way to maximize your enjoyment in life is to keep your surface area small. It's a lot of work but if the happiest people I know are any indication, it's a lot less work to keep it small than to maintain it when it's large. -- ??: On the passage of time via Ali Montag Too much structure and we lose meaning, too much freedom and we tip into floundering.
But in the middle—somewhere between the two—we find purpose.
-- From Reddit: A doctor asked, How do you automate your life to have more free time? -- Consumerism: Taste Games People with mostly economic capital play the Expensive Cars game. People with mostly cultural capital play the Glass Bead Game. We all play the game we think we can do better at. -- ??: What Id tell her is a beautifully written piece by Lisa Olivera. 8. Being lost feels scary sometimes, but only from unfamiliar places can we truly let ourselves step into new ways of being. Lost is a doorway, a portal. 23. You don’t need to be embarrassed by your quirks. You don’t need to hide your silliness or your weirdness. Those things don’t discredit you. -- Oldie: Paul Graham on Stuff once you've accumulated a certain amount of stuff, it starts to own you rather than the other way around. I know of one couple who couldn't retire to the town they preferred because they couldn't afford a place there big enough for all their stuff. Their house isn't theirs; it's their stuff's. -- Lastly: 7 times Edward Hopper encapsulated the loneliness of modern life
-- Life Design: Careful technology is a good piece examining the tradeoffs of gadgetry and whether we are truly getting more for less. -- Lol: 40 Things I Dislike is an amusing list. I hate the mention of coffee and seafood. I love that she mentions her iPhone, pet hair, and winter, not once, but three separate times. -- Life Learnings: Writer Meghan Palmer on friendship: It takes time to get to know people. Those people who aren’t immediately trying to integrate you into their life, or be instantly immersed in yours, are the healthiest people. And uncertainty Plans will keep changing. Don’t take it as a personal affront to every choice you’ve ever made; resist the urge to narrativize it. Take a deep breath and pivot. -- Life Design: An Emersonian Guide to Taking Control of Your Life Based on ideas from Ralph Waldo Emerson. TL;DR 1. Be a private person; never share details of your life with total strangers.
2. Don't conform to any conventional wisdom; question everything.
3. Make independence your goal; walk alone when necessary.
4. Don't take the easiest path; choose to do hard things.
5. Get the cultural garbage out of your life; focus only on what edifies you.
6. Change your mind as you see fit; make no apologies for doing so.
7. Commit to complete honesty; this includes with yourself.
8. Do not count on external forces for your happiness; look within.
-- For fun: Take the Multiphasic Personality Test -- Interesting: Paintings of Paris: Capturing the City of Lights on Camera
-- Life Design: 12 Areas of Life to Embrace "Outside the Box" Thinking Work in an industry you actually want to work in. Don’t worry if it doesn’t fit in with most people’s ideas of what you “should” be doing. Have a portfolio career. You don’t have to have just one job. Normalise answering the question “are you busy” with “not really.” Give a fuck about far fewer things, especially things that don’t matter. -- On YouTube: The story of the 1977 America's Cup and Courageous, the sailboat skippered by Ted Turner, who would go on to become a billionaire media mogul, philanthropist, and conservationist is not only a poignant documentary but a lesson in leadership. Courageous: Ted Turner's quest for America's Cup glory is a highly recommended 46-minute video. -- Leisure: Walking as Inactivity The vital thing to understand- and the point that I want to stress the most- is that walking is not an activity. Or rather, it should not be conceptualised as and reduced to being a mere activity. It is much more than that because it is much less than that. Walking is one of the great forms of inactivity and in a world of striving and consumerism and grasping and impatience it is one of only very few potential forms of inactivity left. -- Self Care: How To Stay Calm via Greg Isenberg on Instagram
-- Well said: Matthew McConaughey on good times and bad: Days of prosperity make us forget adversity. Good times seems out of reach during the bad ones. Both can seem like final destinations, the summation of our days. Then the cosmic joker plays with our ways. Yesterday's condition no longer remains. All commas, no periods, all stops, no stays, the pleasure's for rent, but so is the pain. And on living well: Life is our résumé. It is our story to tell, and the choices we make write the chapters. Can we live in a way where we look forward to looking back? -- Interesting: Hemingway: A How-To Guide To Living The Life Of Literature's Manly Man -- LOL: Snarky captions highlighting the ridiculousness of stock photos and adverts related to parenting. It's Like They Know Us is the most amusing thing I have stumbled upon in quite some time. -- Lastly, a thank you: Thanks to the many of you who reached out this year and thanks for your ongoing support. I wish you and your family a joyous and prosperous new year. See you in 2025 Barry |
Barry Fralick
Writer exploring culture, technology, life design, and the human experience. Writing at BarryFralick.com
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