What were the main influences this week?
- Robert Eggers, the notion of being moer interested in ‘esoterica’ rather than popular culture. He’s also inspired me to start reading about film, as an art form. This has lead me to look at Sontag’s on photography and generally question what an art form does.
- Portrait of the artist: the notion that there’s this tapestry of thought in everyones heads that influences them profoundly. That a lot of the time it’s multiple converging incoherent (seemingly) streams that somehow converge on what we do.
- Adam Tooze and the idea of being useful, but also the idea that I am average and currently don’t have anything particular useful to offer in the sense of novelty or insight into specific areas. Humility, in knowing that what i do may not be one day important, to look forward to the craft and hopefully satisfy personal curiosity or motivation.
- Tom Holland Dominion in that ideology can construct our lives. Similarly, looking at Shenzhen and how a purpose driven growth influenced what we see today, that things don’t just randomly happen.
- Clarke, Farewell to Alms. The notion of income as just a measure of output (things we consume). The economic pie being this output. This along with time preference as part of our human nature and that interest rates are kind of a quantification of this.
- The Chip War and the rise of China, that I want to be more interested in China, that it’s important to understand it.
- The open source hardware in Shenzhen.
- Auden shakespeare lecture on Othello, the idea of the fall of man.
General thoughts
- The idea that generally, there’s no end to what we do in life. For instance, jiu-jitsu, there’s no point at which it’s completed or that it’s all done. The aim is pretty much the everyday aspects of it, just improving at it, the possible serotonin releases.
- Similarly, for work, there is no silver bullet. Some job that will solve all the issues I feel are worth tackling at once or even contribute to one of them in a major way. But the idea that 1) I’m doing something that aligns with values I have, that I believe is making things better and 2) that it’s something that I’m trying to be the best ‘me’ at. That there’s value in that journey. Not looking for this major payoff.
- Broadly, it’s painful to stomach but it has been holding me back and may continue to at times. It’s something I do have to let go of though and focus on the more narrow of here and now. My interests change really from week to week, there’s nothing that will satisfy me all the time for every ebb and flow, but once again if I feel some portion (that I’m OK with) of my values are there then thats good enough.
- This also, could be just a step, like Urban talks about in the career trajectory post, you’re not trying to excavate the complete tunnel, you’re just taking steps.
- I don’t think I fully understand how where I’m living right now, the life I have is affecting my thought (for the better). The convergence of all these things is affecting how I see the world. That’s OK though and I’m thankful for it. I don’t have the same dislike of Dublin as I once did and do hold more contempt for those parts of Dublin than before, it is shocking how much it’s a tale of two cities.
Actions
- Set aside time for review of ‘Portrait’.
- Start note taking document. notetaking