things this week

2 min read

📰 Articles

  1. How Event Scripts Structure Out Personal Memories: The interesting part here is the bit about children’s books below; commonplace scenes that children have not experienced yet (but will experience) prepare them for the real thing. Maybe we need a children’s book that auto-generates scenes for whatever is on mom’s calendar tomorrow.

    The mouse checks her suitcase, goes through security and boards the plane. Baldassano found the books “brutally boring” — but his children were riveted.

  2. A forty year career: a nice way to fit the current standard “mess of short stints” into a coherent story. Makes me jealous of the certainty and feeling of constant forward progress that older generations had. Also includes an attitude to be avoided:

    Meeting my new coworkers, they structured their jobs as lottery tickets bought with their lifeblood, trading tips on managing the symptoms of work until the pearly gates of liquidity opened.

  3. Write to escape your default setting: your can’t trust your thoughts if you don’t write them down

     Just as children ask why, why, why, you can repeat the question “why do I think/feel/believe this?” a few times.

  4. Knitting Your Parachute

    It just means placing small bets on things that interest you. Explore different skills, build relationships in other fields, and don’t be afraid to try something that might not work out.

  5. Can’t Decide? This $247 Coach Will Make the Call: Disgusted that this unironically appeals to me

    Fear of regret and fear of change account for so much of the difficulty in decision making

  6. Other cool stuff:

📽️ Movies

Solaris (1972): the ending helped me forgive the mind-numbing beginning…

A nice existential exchange:

Dr. Snow: When man is happy, the meaning of life and other eternal themes rarely interest him. These questions should be asked at the end of one’s life.

Kris Kelvin: But we don’t know when life will end. That’s why we’re in such a hurry.

Dr. Snow: Don’t rush. The happiest people are those who are not interested in these cursed questions.

💬 Quotes

Common theme for this week is semi-pretentious quotes about doing…

When you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather than your ability. Your tastes only narrow & exclude people. So create. (Why the Lucky Stiff)

What I cannot create, I do not understand (Feynman)