I really liked your honest reflection on essay writing. As someone who has been trying to write more to refine my thinking, I too have felt the gulf between the written word and my own actions.
You may like to check out the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, if you haven't already. I am sure you will like it. He used to practice rewriting passages from books that he had read, and compare his articulation to that of the og authors. Also, he had designed an excellent scheduler for practicing virtues. I have written a bit about him here on my substack, you can check it out or read his biography in full (highly recommended).
While reading this enjoyable essay, I couldn't quite get stultia out of my head, as it sounded strange. So I went and read the Foucault essay you linked, and learned that it was the more familiar stultitia that was the form, and that a -ti- had fallen out. So I got to read two interestings essays instead of just one.
Incidentally, repetitions are also what is most easily omitted by scribes, much to the chagrin of the modern editor.
This is exactly the problem that I have thought about for a couple weeks. I also noticed that the info-sphere around me (especially x.com) has a lot of references to it. Very curious if this is a kind of confirmation bias - as we're conscious about it we see it more - or that it's because of the proliferation of great content everywhere that we're starting to see 'great ideas' aren't that great.
Adjacent to this is the idea Why books donʼt work (https://andymatuschak.org/books/) - which suggests our brains need some form of repetition/active mental activity to translate an external idea into a pattern in our brain.
P/S: speaking of Nabeel's Principles, the 53th one has a beautiful analogy to this: "The difference between a Turing machine and a finite state machine is the tape."
I have a black book where ive written by hand. Its full. Mostly stuff from spiritual teachers that felt insightful and what helped me to structure the mess that is life. I rarely read it but its there when the moment comes. Now ive started to write down more concise thoughts i myself come up with onto my ecoprints.. in the spirit of after years and years of reading others ive started to have my own true feeling ideas whats it about. I wasnt planning on writing on ecoprints but started by chance and found out somehow theyre perfect for it since my thoughts mostly circle around natural life.
I do exactly this (tracking my core ‘principles’ (in Notion btw) and reviewing them) and have done for years. Loved reading this article. Interestingly I have found that having kids has helped me to embed them more than anything, because it has subconsciously become a self-fulfilling prophecy that as I have had a desire to remember these things they have emerged as a form of mentorship to my kids. This has not only hopefully started to instill in my kids the type of character I hope they can have, but it has helped me to become more of who I want to be too.
Apologies for scribbled comment but thanks for the article!
repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends
because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain
repeat great words repeat them stubbornly
like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand
and they will reward you with what they have at hand
with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap
go because only in this way will you be admitted to the company of cold skulls
to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes
Be faithful Go
- Zbigniew Herbert
I really liked your honest reflection on essay writing. As someone who has been trying to write more to refine my thinking, I too have felt the gulf between the written word and my own actions.
You may like to check out the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, if you haven't already. I am sure you will like it. He used to practice rewriting passages from books that he had read, and compare his articulation to that of the og authors. Also, he had designed an excellent scheduler for practicing virtues. I have written a bit about him here on my substack, you can check it out or read his biography in full (highly recommended).
While reading this enjoyable essay, I couldn't quite get stultia out of my head, as it sounded strange. So I went and read the Foucault essay you linked, and learned that it was the more familiar stultitia that was the form, and that a -ti- had fallen out. So I got to read two interestings essays instead of just one.
Incidentally, repetitions are also what is most easily omitted by scribes, much to the chagrin of the modern editor.
I’m just going to say that my hodgepodge of quotes I like and love in my disorganized notes app is an aspirational hypomnēmata…
This is exactly the problem that I have thought about for a couple weeks. I also noticed that the info-sphere around me (especially x.com) has a lot of references to it. Very curious if this is a kind of confirmation bias - as we're conscious about it we see it more - or that it's because of the proliferation of great content everywhere that we're starting to see 'great ideas' aren't that great.
Adjacent to this is the idea Why books donʼt work (https://andymatuschak.org/books/) - which suggests our brains need some form of repetition/active mental activity to translate an external idea into a pattern in our brain.
P/S: speaking of Nabeel's Principles, the 53th one has a beautiful analogy to this: "The difference between a Turing machine and a finite state machine is the tape."
I have a black book where ive written by hand. Its full. Mostly stuff from spiritual teachers that felt insightful and what helped me to structure the mess that is life. I rarely read it but its there when the moment comes. Now ive started to write down more concise thoughts i myself come up with onto my ecoprints.. in the spirit of after years and years of reading others ive started to have my own true feeling ideas whats it about. I wasnt planning on writing on ecoprints but started by chance and found out somehow theyre perfect for it since my thoughts mostly circle around natural life.
And i did first try to read them, the ecoprint-scripts that is, every morning but needless to say its usually now once a week maybe.
I do exactly this (tracking my core ‘principles’ (in Notion btw) and reviewing them) and have done for years. Loved reading this article. Interestingly I have found that having kids has helped me to embed them more than anything, because it has subconsciously become a self-fulfilling prophecy that as I have had a desire to remember these things they have emerged as a form of mentorship to my kids. This has not only hopefully started to instill in my kids the type of character I hope they can have, but it has helped me to become more of who I want to be too.
Apologies for scribbled comment but thanks for the article!
I started to make notes on this essay
And eventually just started to copy and paste whole paragraphs and parts
I think it would be easier to copy and paste all of that. It is a good read and I love it.