William James on Habit
William James offers three maxims to aid the successful formation of new habits. *** In his book, Daily Rituals, Mason Currey explores William James’s thoughts on Habit. “Recollect,” …
Culture
Hemingway’s Routine
In his book, Daily Rituals, Mason Currey dug into Hemmingway’s 1958 Paris Review interview: When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. …
Daily Rituals: How Artists Work
I know it sounds strange but I love learning about how people go about creating things. So you can imagine my delight when I came across Mason Currey’s new book Daily Rituals, which describes …
America’s Food Crisis: The Omnivore’s Dilemma
As a follow up to the Michael Pollan food as culture post (on his new book Cooked), a reader passed along a link to this video on Pollan’s 2006 classic The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History …
Food As Culture
Food is so much more than a label. Food is cultural. As a culture, we’re cooking less and buying more prepared meals. Since the mid-sixties, the amount of time spent preparing meals has fallen …
James T. Mangan: 14 Ways to Acquire Knowledge
Brainpickings put me onto this timeless wisdom from famous eccentric James T. Mangan’s 1936 book You Can Do Anything! PRACTICE Consider the knowledge you already have — the things you really …
The Relativity of Wrong
“The basic trouble, you see, is that people think that “right” and “wrong” are absolute; that everything that isn’t perfectly and completely right is totally and equally …
Technology and Intermittent Reinforcement
Recent digital technologies generate a perfect storm of anti-attention, largely because they draw on the tremendous power of what B. F. Skinner called ‘intermittent reinforcement.’ We click the ‘new …
The Revenge of Geography
In The Revenge of Geography: What the Map Tells Us About Coming Conflicts and the Battle Against Fate, author Robert Kaplan offers a new way in which to view the global upheavals and to understand …
Notes From Underground
Can you be too conscious? In his short 1864 book, Notes From Underground, Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story of a man who is “too conscious.” The man, whose name we never learn is so aware of his own …
How You Can Sleep Better
You do want to sleep better, don’t you? Me too. After last weeks post, “If this is sleep research’s golden age, then why are we all so tired?” I picked up a copy of Dreamland: Adventures in the …
TED Bookstore 2013
If you missed out on attending the famous TED conference this year — you’re not alone. But now you can queue up some of the books that were available at the TED Bookstore for your spring reading …
The Paris Review Guide to Becoming a Well-Read, Cultured, and Critically Thinking Person
“I want to be an educated, well-read, cultured, critically thinking person but need some stuff to read,” is the voice of an anonymous reader in the Ask The Paris Review section. The letter …
Susan Sontag on Style and Metaphors
Susan Sontag (1933-2004) spent a lifetime on writing, art, and the commodification of wisdom. Her moving work, Against Interpretation, is regarded as a quintessential text from the 60s. In it, she …
Pride and Prejudice Turns 200
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. — Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice Today is the 200th anniversary of the …
What is the Objective of a Company?
This quote was expressed over 30 years ago by the CEO of a textile company called Indian Head Mills. The objective of our company is to increase the intrinsic value of our common stock. We are not in …