oBlog

Though this be madness, yet there is method in't

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Two thoughts

I wish I had more time to read.

How exhausting to be an individual. I wonder if more communal and collective societies are as exhausting.

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Albert Camus, Discours de Suède

“L'art n'est pas à mes yeux une réjouissance solitaire. Il est un moyen d'émouvoir le plus grand nombre d'hommes en leur offrant une image privilégiée des souffrances et des joies communes. Il oblige donc l'artiste à ne pas s'isoler ; il le soumet à la vérité la plus humble et la plus universelle. Et celui qui, souvent, a choisi son destin d'artiste parce qu'il se sentait différent, apprend bien vite qu'il ne nourrira son art, et sa différence, qu'en avouant sa ressemblance avec tous. L'artiste se forge dans cet aller retour perpétuel de lui aux autres, à mi-chemin de la beauté dont il ne peut se passer et de la communauté à laquelle il ne peut s'arracher. C'est pourquoi les vrais artistes ne méprisent rien ; ils s'obligent à comprendre au lieu de juger.”

“Chaque génération, sans doute, se croit vouée à refaire le monde. La mienne sait pourtant qu'elle ne le refera pas. Mais sa tâche est peut-être plus grande. Elle consiste à empêcher que le monde se défasse. Héritière d'une histoire corrompue où se mêlent les révolutions déchues, les techniques devenues folles, les dieux morts et les idéologies exténuées, où de médiocres pouvoirs peuvent aujourd'hui tout détruire mais ne savent plus convaincre, où l'intelligence s'est abaissée jusqu'à se faire la servante de la haine et de l'oppression, cette génération a dû, en elle-même et autour d'elle, restaurer, à partir de ses seules négations, un peu de ce qui fait la dignité de vivre et de mourir. Devant un monde menacé de désintégration, où nos grands inquisiteurs risquent d'établir pour toujours les royaumes de la mort, elle sait qu'elle devrait, dans une sorte de course folle contre la montre, restaurer entre les nations une paix qui ne soit pas celle de la servitude, réconcilier à nouveau travail et culture, et refaire avec tous les hommes une arche d'alliance.”

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“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

— Elie Wiesel (September 30, 1928–July 2, 2016)  (via explore-blog)

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We are always pursued by those we don't pursue.

Often loved by those we don't love.

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Music

My understanding and memory of music is ordinal not cardinal. I often know the sequence of a symphony or song without knowing its name or who it is by.

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“Knowledge … is not the search for certainty. To err is human. All human knowledge is fallible and therefore uncertain. It follows that we must distinguish sharply between truth and certainty. That to err is human means not only that we must constantly struggle against error, but also that, even when we have taken the greatest care, we cannot be completely certain that we have not made a mistake… To combat the mistake, the error, means therefore to search for objective truth and to do everything possible to discover and eliminate falsehoods. This is the task of scientific activity. Hence we can say: our aim as scientists is objective truth; more truth, more interesting truth, more intelligible truth. We cannot reasonably aim at certainty.”

— Karl Popper, 1982

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Wisdom from a thesis writer

Find a routine. You’ll never be as productive as you want to be, but you will do ‘enough’ every day to get you to your destination.

People that make you feel comfortable and safe can go a long way.

See and listen to your good friends. Surround yourself with people who believe in you, people who make you laugh and people who you can talk to about things that have nothing to do with your thesis, but also listen to your thesis drama.

Move your body, run, do yoga.

Go see nature.

Take some weekends off.

Take some down time every day and do something unrelated to your thesis.

Eat with others when you can.

Avoid Twitter.

Avoid comparison.

Trust in the process, you are learning new things, you are becoming a new you. What matters is not so much recognition or praise but growth.

Just be you, dare to make mistakes and be authentic.

There will be many iterations, accept that, try your best and then use judgment to improve drafts.

Avoid speaking to supervisors if it makes you feel down.

Do something that will make you feel proud. What matters is not the degree, the accolades or the praise from supervisors, it is how you will feel about the end product.

Don’t listen to people who tell you to not be ambitious, if you want to be ambitious.

Use this time as a replenishing moment, a moment to question who you are, to become who you want to become, to find the sources, to question the norms, to redraw the lines.

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I want to promise to myself that I’ll be someone that ponders every word, that makes every sentence rich and meaning full. Saying that every word counts is saying ‘ I take responsibility for every word’. Art isn’t just expression, it is communication, and communication takes time, effort, empathy, commitment. Art takes a toll. I want to be the kind of person and author that takes responsibility but my body doesn’t.

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jeux d’eau

Ieri ascoltavo Ravel. mi ha veramente scossa. ricordi come fiumi torrenziali. una senzazione d’infanzia, Parigina. triste ma vera, come il tempo che non torna. ho pensato che la vita passa, la musica invece e’ qualcosa di piu’ eterno. ho pianto come se molte altre cose avessero avuto bisogno di uscire insieme a quelle lacrime.

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architecture

I first had this feeling in Naples. The monumental Piazza del Plebiscito, symbol of richness past, impoverished, full of tourists, chinese plastic goods everywhere - tiny airplanes, bouncy balls or bracelets. Hugeness and majesty in decay. Now the feeling is also here in London, New York. Majestic sky scrapers seem almost haunted, ghosts of the financial centers and funds that made them possible and which are hiding away, the money in off-shore bank accounts, while shops all around them are closing, barbers emptied and sandwich shops no longer in operation. Local stores with exorbitant prices and low supplies, women masked and angry. And what’s left is a handful of loud children screaming in the nearby playground.

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Silos

We tend to think in herds, in silos, in pre-boxed boxes. How to open them up? How to unfollow the crowd?

The best thing I have seen is the combination of difference, and excellence. People who are excellent and extremely passionate about different things always find a way to dialogue with one another. Passion is a form of resourcefulness that bridges difference

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Eri il pieno, ora c’è il tuo vuoto, ma si sente solo a tratti, come il canto degli uccelli, o le cicale. Ma è un dolore, quel vuoto, un’amputazione.

io nel frattempo oscillo. come sempre, come le onde. mi chiedo chi sono, che ci faccio qui, sempre a girare, incapace di trovare la mia gente. così traballante. ma forse c’è luce, basta solo sapere che di luce si tratta, e cercarla, e darle spazio, e volerla, e mettersi in gioco per averla.

“leader” - che significa? Significa trancinare, motivare. Non basta la passione, ci vuole capacità di stabilire contatto e empatia. E io mi sento poco così, poco trascinante. mi hanno detto che ero più bella da lontano che da vicino. mi hanno detto che ho carisma, mi hanno detto che sono troppo negativa, che sono troppo insicura. tutte cose vere. 

La verità è che la vita la capisco poco, capisco solo la sensazione instabile dell’oscillare, e poi capisco il dolore che mi fa la tua mancanza.

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Luck

Being an imposter.

So many people out there are talented, thoughtful, tactful.

And me - a will - no manners - no memory - raw passion without talent. Blood and fear. Ice and fire. Doubt, ambiguity, self-doubt. Eternal self-doubt. A conqueress, yet clumsy. I fall from my horse, then stand, I descend, then reascend, and most of the time I shake.

Why me, then? Why am I so lucky?

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Reminders

Don’t be afraid of those who appear knowledgeable or talented, they probably simply believe in themselves. Believe in yourself and do the work that takes you where you want to be.

Don’t be afraid of those who are arrogant and act successful. Ground yourself.

Cultivate passion, nourish curiosity, reach the ground, the bottom, the depths and even deeper, that’s where you find the most powerful ideas.

Dig: it will be painful, there will be dirt, it will bring some despair, but it is the only way to find gold.

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Humans are conformists: you put a bunch of people on Twitter, you make them follow one another, they’ll all start tweeting about the same things

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Normative worldviews, narratives, have a gravitational pull: if I think a story is true or beautiful or poignant then I want to fit everything within that story.

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Bravery is always more intelligent than fear, since it is built on the foundation of what one knows about oneself: the knowledge of one’s strength and capacity, of one’s passion.

Nicole Krauss