We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
— David Hume
Rationale is a means, not an end. It’s a human tool that we’ve spent a lot of time perfecting and it still is self-contained in its utility. Be aware of the psychological motives your rationale serve. Everything else is a result of that trickle-down.
For those of you who haven’t seen it yet, here’s a link for you to explore our portal, exposing a pre-trained language generation model you can play with.
If you’re curious to learn more, our next post explores the topic of language generation, GPT-3, and what this all means for the future of technology and our increasingly tech-ensnared lives.
To continue my chain of quotes that disrupt your productivity and hopefully make you go, “hmmm”, or maybe even “ughh”, I present you with a wildly insightful quote from my friend Kurt, on the dangerous surety and solipsism that comes with ignorance:
“If you only have one watch, you always know what time it is.”
Listen to one another.
I read Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas a few months ago and expected it to be a drug-fueled romp of cheap thrills and little depth. I was surprised and delighted to find it to be a poignant and scathing critique of American culture — where puritan tyranny mixes with consumerist manipulation to create a woefully disempowered mass of people utterly disconnected from themselves.
One of my favorite quotes:
I am not guilty. All I did was take your gibberish seriously. And you see where it got me? My primitive Christian instincts made me a criminal.
I recommend the book. I also recommend eschewing any internalized governing force that attempts to sever you from own soul and intuition in the name of a conceptual completion or purity that runs contrary to the actual human experience.
This is one of my favorite newsletters and websites. Louis Pereira explains complex things in simplified ways. Some people speak in a way that seems designed to impress others by pushing them away. Others speak in a way that connects with others by inviting them in. I always support the latter.
What is the difference between self-knowledge and self-obsession? One encourages a defeat of the ego, the other encourages a feeding of the ego. One, a deeper experience of connection to ourselves, which enables a more nourishing connection to others. The other, disdain for the deeper needs of the self, which leads to disdain for others.
Kae Tempest, “On Connection”
We’re seeing a lot of disdain for others these days. While opposition is always warranted in discourse, disdain is never helpful. So this point strikes me as particularly important in our age of solipsism, navel-gazing, echo chambers and the complete rule of the ego.
