Musings
A weekly collection of interesting
Here are some things I’ve been musing on this week…
Rarely in life are we able to make a decision with ALL of the relevant information. For some perspective on decisions, I like this article by a champion poker player, who also happens to have a PhD in cognitive linguistics.
http://nautil.us/issue/55/trust/the-resulting-fallacy-is-ruining-your-decisions
Have you ever heard of the Roman general Belisarius? He’s one of the most remarkable unknown figures in history, and as the extraordinary Ryan Holliday explains, he’s also an amazing lesson in how to handle getting punished for your brilliance and success, rather than rewarded. I’m not sure I would have been able to handle it like he did, but I sure wish I could.
https://medium.com/personal-growth/how-to-stop-letting-others-dictate-your-worth-470d90eee4e2
At last some scientific evidence; being a good story teller is an evolutionary advantageous trait
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/12/the-origins-of-storytelling/547502/
I have to agree with Autsin Kleon — I liked it better when devices were dumber. One of my pet peeves is how Word thinks it’s smarter than you, and changes your writing or formatting to what it thinks you want, and it can be difficult to convince it that it’s wrong. That same perspective is now creeping into too many other apps, software and devices. “Smart” devices and apps should leave the thinking to the humans.
https://austinkleon.com/2017/12/19/the-search-box/
I wrote a short story a couple weeks ago based on a prompt for a weekly writing contest. I didn’t win the contest, but I had fun writing the story about a man who wants to quit his job, but finds it much harder than he expected. Here it is, for your enjoyment.
https://medium.com/mugging-the-muse/quitting-time-c7b9021c2d52
What I’m reading:
Fiction:
A Song Called Youth trilogy by John Shirley (Book one, Book two, Book three, Omnibus edition)
I picked up the omnibus edition of this trilogy from a library book sale because it looked kind of interesting. Then I read the introduction by Bruce Stirling saying that if William Gibson is the father of cyberpunk, John Shirley is the grandfather, the person writing cyberpunk before cyberpunk was a thing, and the guy who convinced William Gibson to write science fiction. Then I read the first couple of books and discovered that Stirling was right; these are intense, engaging books that are remarkably relevant to our times — especially considering that they were written more than twenty years ago. I haven’t read any John Shirley before this, but I’m glad I found him, and I plan to go looking for more of his work.
Non-fiction:
Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
If you’re like the majority of Westerners and consistently get less than 7 hours of sleep per night, you should really read this book. Walker describes, clearly and with a sense of humor, the latest research on the role of sleep and dreams in health, learning and creativity, and describes with chilling clarity all the many things that go wrong when we don’t get enough sleep. Enough being consistently less than seven hours per night… which is exactly how the majority of us operate every day. A key book about a very important topic, I highly recommend reading it.
Thanks for reading! I wish you all a healthy, productive and creative new year, and I’m looking forward to many interesting conversations with you.
Speaking of which… if you have 17.5 seconds, drop me a return email with any comments, questions or book recommendations you might have. And while you’re at it, feel free to mash the “clap” button a bunch of times.
