Rolly May still resonates and other thoughts #1

Jet lag offers a curious remedy for adapting to a new rhythm. While most of these rhythmic adjustments are personal, I decided to add something to my weekly routine: channeling my desire for knowledge into a weekly digest of what I am reading and the corresponding thoughts that come with it.

1. This week, I revisited Rollo May. The Summer of Covid and the existential angst that came with it led me to delve into his work for the first time. Returning to India and engaging with its diverse socio-economic layers, amidst context and language shifts, made me wonder about the power of language. Especially this paragraph from him

2. "The problem you solve for customers is increasingly one they can’t even articulate for themselves"

Kevin Kelly vibes over here, when he said work on problems, for which language doesn't exist - a personal north star for me, this year.

The Books, Videos, Movies, and TV Shows That Changed Me Last Year

If you want to develop great taste, you must taste a lot of stuff

Napkin MathEvan Armstrong

3. "If Enlightenment thinkers believed that Technology can uplift the human condition, we have seen the exact opposite mentality applied to climate change. In fact, one of the greenest energy generating options, nuclear power, has been actively campaigned against by major climate organisations like Greenpeace"

The allure of doomerism has never been higher, and we are now confronting an entire generation of kids being taught that there is no hope. Optimism is a choice, and we have a moral obligation to engage in it to counter the doomer narrative. This begins with actively participating in, and ultimately creating, a culture of hope and growth.

Ideas matter: How I stopped being a Culture Incel

In which a scientist (ME) argues for the importance of culture in facilitating prosperity and scientific progress

Ruxandra’s SubstackRuxandra Teslo

4. "In his elder years, Scorsese seems to be questioning his complicity as a filmmaker. He's not renouncing his prior artistic choices – nor should he – but he's fully cognizant of how the world around him has shifted and how he's changed, too"

Add extreme self-awareness and deep humility to the already long list of things to learn from the master.

‘You talkin’ to me?′ How Scorsese’s ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ gets in your head

In his elder years, Martin Scorsese seems to be questioning his complicity as a filmmaker. He’s not renouncing his prior artistic choices but he’s cognizant of how the world around him has shifted.

NPRAisha Harris

5. "Perhaps this best represents the filmmakers’ rejection of genetic determinism, still a critical concern a quarter of a century later, as research continues to reveal how the complex synthesis of nature and nurture coalesce to make humans who we are"

Rewatched Gattaca - aka Maya Hawke's origin story. The film was way ahead of its time and is even more relevant now. With the growing murmurs of 'there is no free will', this film should be an essential watch for people drunk on determinism.

GATTACA is still pertinent 25 years later - Nature Genetics

It has been 25 years since the release of GATTACA, a film that tells the story of a credible near future in which society’s inequalities, formerly associated with race and class, have been replaced with new prejudices based on genetic determinism. Here we compare GATTACA’s fictional technologies with reality’s state of the art, assessing the legal protections afforded in today’s society against GATTACA’s dystopian future in which personal freedom and privacy rights are substantially curtailed by genomic innovations. We further discuss how GATTACA’s prescient forewarnings are still relevant today in light of the current trajectory of genomic science and technology.

NatureDov Greenbaum

6. "I believe that the rise in mental maladies in our postmodern age is a backlash against the push for radical autonomy."

This week I was typing out a sincere message to a friend and felt an inner cringe. Made me wonder what kind of society do we live in, where sarcasm is seen as sign of wit, while sincerity is cringed upon. Well in a society where temporary pleasure seeking is mistaken for happiness and narcism lauded as a virtue.

How to be Happy, Really

Why “do as you please” never brings true happiness

PluripotentSherry Ning

7. "He begins each day with two or three pages of a classic (Montaigne, Proust, Valéry, Pascal), which brings him joy and makes him able to face the day. He only works in the morning, and is finished once he’s eaten lunch"

Hustle porn YouTube Gurus could never.

Try to Imitate Others and Fail: An Afternoon with Bresson

Out of the past: in this recently unearthed interview, the master filmmaker shares his thoughts on working with actors, adapting fiction, the debatable necessity of originality, and much more

Film CommentMitchell Abidor

8. "A whopping 91 percent of professors said they were at least somewhat likely to self-censor in their speech on social media, in class, in their publications, or online."

To achieve genuine progress in true diversity and inclusion of thought, beyond mere cosmetic changes, we must reverse the trend of 'Private Truths, Public Lies.'

Universities use DEI statements to enforce groupthink

DEI statements are political litmus tests, write Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott.

Reason.comGreg Lukianoff, Rikki Schlott

9. "What you love is nothing of your own: it has been given to you for the present, not that it should not be taken from you, nor has it been given to you for all time, but as a fig is given to you or a bunch of grapes at the appointed season of the year"

I have been saying goodbye to my parents since I was 9, and even today, it hurts just as much. Reading Epictetus on how to deal with love and loss always soothes my pain, to some extent.

Epictetus on Love and Loss: The Stoic Strategy for Surviving Heartbreak

“Who is good if he knows not who he is? and who knows what he is, if he forgets that things which have been made are perishable, and that it is not possible for one human being to be with ano…

The MarginalianMaria Popova

10. This week I wondered deeply about why people ghost. Michelle with an incredible insight on it

To end with a joke. Only John Mulaney can make Nolan cackle. A king among the outrage addicted comedians of today.

Thank you and see you next week.