Sunday, May 18, 2014

Fw: A Philosophy of Walking: Thoreau, Nietzsche and Kant on Walking

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From: Farnam Street Brain Food <newsletter@farnamstreetblog.com>

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Date: Sun, 18 May 2014 10:00:19 +0000

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Subject: A Philosophy of Walking: Thoreau, Nietzsche and Kant on Walking

Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out.

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If you missed last week's edition —How to remember what you read, Why Berkshire Hathaway is so successful, how you can live longer, and the one 30 second habit that will serve you well —you can catch up right here.

Start here.

The most popular article this week was A Philosophy of Walking: Thoreau, Nietzsche and Kant on Walking.

What else was interesting?

The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World — "The defining features of the human condition can all be traced to our ability to stand back from the world, from our selves and from the immediacy of experience."
The Science of Improving Your Performance at Almost Anything — I thought I'd share my "developing world class performance" file with you.
Advice to Writers: A Compendium of Quotes, Anecdotes, and Writerly Wisdom — "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." — T. S. Eliot
We're not designed to multitask and we're certainly not designed to work continuously without a break. We're designed to work in pulses, that is alternate between expending energy and recovering.

Extras

In Praise of Idleness: "If ever there was a key to ourselves it may be idleness."
Why you should avoid best-selling books — What I learned most from my year of reading surprised me because it wasn't found in any particular bit of knowledge in any of the books I read.

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What I'm reading.

The Philosophy of Chrysippus
Unlike a lot of books on Stoic philosophy, this is a tough one to read. While it delivers a solid and well-researched account of Chrysippus, someone I've been wanting to know more about, the real gold is the bibliography. This alone is worth the price of the book.

The Meaning of Stoicism
This book, from 1966, was mentioned as a source in The Philosophy of Chrysippus. The last chapter, entitled The Stoic Way of Life, was a fascinating overview of how stoicism has shaped modern life. It is believed, for example, that the Stoa were the first to recognize the equality between husband and wife. Another big idea brought about by Stoic ethics is moral character regardless of position. This fosters the ethos of work and workmanship, and is a precursor to professional ethics. Another Stoic philosophy is the belief that the rich should practice charity.

See the big list of what I've been reading.

Other Interestingness.

+ Too-big-to-fail battle between Larry Summers, Nassim Taleb — A riveting debate between "Black Swan" author Nassim Taleb and former Treasury secretary and White House adviser Larry Summers captivated the SALT hedge-fund conference in Las Vegas Thursday.

+ The Story Of How Larry Page Got Forced From The Top Of Google And Came Back A Decade Later — "One day in July 2001, Larry Page decided to fire Google's project managers. All of them."

+ As creative-writing courses and online fiction forums swell and it gets easier to self-publish, interest in writers' routines increases. — "Anyone who has attended a staged author interview will be familiar with questions from the audience like, What time do you start writing in the morning? Do you write longhand or on a computer? Do you work from a plan or make it up as you go along? ... What people really want to know is what it is that the writer does that enables her to transform ordinary words—the same ones non-writers use all day, every day—into art." (Pair with Daily Routines of Famous Creatives: Artists, Writers, Composers)

+ Why the Mona Lisa Stands Out — The mere-exposure effect — "... the most reproduced works of impressionism today tend to have been bought by five or six wealthy and influential collectors in the late 19th century. The preferences of these men bestowed prestige on certain works, which made the works more likely to be hung in galleries and printed in anthologies. The kudos cascaded down the years, gaining momentum from mere exposure as it did so. The more people were exposed to, say, "Bal du Moulin de la Galette", the more they liked it, and the more they liked it, the more it appeared in books, on posters and in big exhibitions. Meanwhile, academics and critics created sophisticated justifications for its pre-eminence. After all, it's not just the masses who tend to rate what they see more often more highly." (Pair with Susan Sontag — Against Interpretation)

+ The Inequality Puzzle — Larry Summers reviews Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century. The book is so popular it has a 2-5 month wait from Amazon Canada.

+ Your Library Book Is Overdue — How libraries decide which books to keep—and which don't stand the test of time.

+ This is awesome — I refuse to be busy. Two parts that really resonated with me. First, "But busy isn't for me. Busy leaves me with my shoulders pulled up tight to my ears, yelling about every little thing and driving too fast on a road I don't even want to be on." And then this part: "Lacrosse or hanging out with your best friend all afternoon? Lacrosse or helping to build the fence around the garden? Lacrosse or hiking out back and watching the waterfall finally melt? Lacrosse or — let's be honest — re-reading Harry Potter for the 10th time, and lying on your back on the floor throwing a ball in the air and daydreaming? You can play lacrosse. But if you do, that's three afternoons a week plus weekends, so be sure lacrosse is really what you want to do with that time." (Pair with Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time)