Philosophy. 2 essays and 14 notes.

This is funny

Attention is first philosophy.

I was doing some research for a post and came across the great Simone Weil. I had heard her name and that’s about it. I just started listening to a few podcast epsiodes about her and I’m already becoming a fan of the remarkable life she led and the range and density of her thinking.

YouTube · youtu.be ↗Episode #172 ... Simone Weil - AttentionPhilosophize This! on YouTube

Bang on! The lesson to take from Nietzsche is that we all may not fully understand the implications of our most cherished values, our personal beliefs, or actions, and live our entire lives in ignorance or self-denial, unconsciously undermining ourselves and others. How do we avoid this? We need to make sure that the…

I asked Claude to write me an essay about Baruch Spinoza, his philosophy, big ideas and impact: Baruch Spinoza: The Philosopher Who Saw God in Everything Baruch Spinoza stands as one of the most radical and influential philosophers in Western history, yet his ideas remain surprisingly relevant to modern concerns about…

Beautiful: Cummings should know — just four years earlier, he had fought that hardest battle himself: When he was awarded the prestigious Academy of American Poets annual fellowship — the MacArthur of poetry — Cummings had to withstand harsh criticism from traditionalists who besieged him with hate for the bravery of…

Wonderful reflection on the rewards of writing by Victor Kumar. The post is filled with other rabbit holes including links to Victor’s writing and also other philosophers writing on Substack. My kinda post 😺

What I didn’t realize was that writing a Substack would also reignite my intellect. Over the first five months, I posted an essay nearly every week. I’ve always read a lot, but before, the words passed through me—my mind a sieve. Now, I keep dozens of running files in my notes app about topics I hope to write about. Before, spare moments were taken up by mindless scrolling. Now, they’re spent writing and editing. Substack brought my mind back to life. I gained autonomy over my work instead of being yoked to journal referees or newspaper editors. My essays here have less professional currency than journal articles, less reach than op-eds, but they’re more meaningful to me. (I’d give it all up for a byline in The New Yorker.)

It might sound banal but I’m still amazed at how much good content is available for free on YouTube. Got example, here’s a list of curated channels about philosophy.

Gemini summary: Here is a summary of the video based on the transcript. Video: How Charlie Munger Survive Life’s Hardest Moments... | Final Interview with CNBC 2023 Channel: YAPSS This video features a segment from Charlie Munger’s final interview with CNBC, where he discusses resilience, personal tragedy, and the…

A few thoughts on people doing dumb shit with money.

The ease with which Maria Popova strings together words of lyrical rhythm and immense depth is striking.

I thought of Einstein, who at sixteen, lonely and introverted, began wondering about the nature of the universe by imagining himself chasing a beam of light through outer space; I thought of the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, also lonely and also dedicated to the light, who at the same time was formulating his general theory of love as “two solitudes that protect, border, and greet each other.” And I thought about how love is simply the solitary light between people, neither partitioned nor merged but shared, to light up the sliver of spacetime we have each been allotted before returning our borrowed stardust to the universe.

This is a brilliant video by Gregory Sadler. I’ve always liked the thought that philosophy began as a way of learning how to live well. A few things that stood out to me in the video: Hadot isn’t saying philosophy-as-life disappeared after antiquity and medieval times, leaving only professors in universities. He notes…

A morning coffee on the terrace becomes a meditation on what we’ve lost: the quiet spaces that allow us to think, dream, and become fully human. From Bangalore’s traffic-choked streets to LEGO-block cities that strip away wonder, this is a manifesto for defending the contemplative spaces essential to human flourishing. Why asking for silence has become a revolutionary act, and what it means for our children who may never know what it’s like to walk in peace.

I just finished watching The Theory of Everything, a biographical drama about the life of the famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking. It follows how Hawking finds love and battles adversity as he slowly becomes paralysed after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease. He was given two years to live after his…