№ 433. Experience, Observation and Imagination

"A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination — any two of which, at times any one of which — can supply the lack of the others."

--- William Faulkner

And everyone thinks he/she/they is/are a writer today. Imagination.

№ 432. Thirteen Life Learnings in 2019

1. Allow yourself the uncomfortable luxury of changing your mind.

Cultivate that capacity for “negative capability.” We live in a culture where one of the greatest social disgraces is not having an opinion, so we often form our “opinions” based on superficial impressions or the borrowed ideas of others, without investing the time and thought that cultivating true conviction necessitates. We then go around asserting these donned opinions and clinging to them as anchors to our own reality. It’s enormously disorienting to simply say, “I don’t know.” But it’s infinitely more rewarding to understand than to be right — even if that means changing your mind about a topic, an ideology, or, above all, yourself.

№ 431. Black Mirror Reality

Globalization and the internet may have made the world smaller, but now we're experiencing a counterattack, the regionalization of truth.

№ 430. Reading the Signs of the Times

Technology

The question for historians is not simply how a politician should be judged and commemorated today, but also how s/he should be understood within the context of his/her time.

№ 429. Make Your Own Kind of Music

№ 428. Tipping Points

When is an emergency really an emergency?

If you’re the captain of the Titanic, approaching a giant iceberg with the potential to sink your ship becomes an emergency only when you realise you might not have enough time to steer a safe course.

And so it is, says Prof Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, when it comes to the climate emergency.

Knowing how long societies have to react to pull the brake on the Earth’s climate and then how long it will take for the ship to slow down is the difference between a climate emergency and a manageable problem.