The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory
―Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning
Loneliness can be a heavy weight,
When intelligence sets us apart.
Our minds hunger for meaningful debate,
While our hearts yearn for a human heart.
Amidst the noise of everyday life,
Our thoughts are often too profound.
And few can keep up in our strife,
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How to be anxious
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They say intelligence is a gift,
But sometimes it can be a rift.
Too smart, they call it, a heavy load,
A burden that nobody else can decode.
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A poem I wrote while sitting in the cafe of The Four Ambassadors in Miami while sick.
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Walter Lippmann on Public Opinion, Our Slippery Grasp of Truth, and the Discipline of Apprehending Reality Clearly. “If the connection between reality and human response were direct and immediate, rather than indirect and inferred, indecision and failure would be unknown.”
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“A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth-that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which a man can aspire.
―Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning
The Big Picture in a Tiny Nutshell
What follows here is an ultra-distilled description of the dynamics that I saw in studying the rises and declines of the last three reserve currency empires (the Dutch, the British, and the American) and the six other significant empires (Germany, France, Russia, India, Japan, and China) over the last 500 years
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During the lead up to World War I, unchecked propaganda from all sides in the news reached a fever-pitch, with every belligerent participating in a massive fight for public opinion. By the end of the war it was clear that information warfare was a powerful weapon — it could raise armies, incite violent mobs, and destabilize whole nations.
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Edward Hopper: Nighthawks (1942)
The diner was a place of refuge, absolutely, but there was no visible entrance, no way to get in or out. There was a cartoonish, ochre-coloured door at the back of the painting, leading perhaps into a grimy kitchen. But from the street, the room was sealed: an urban aquarium, a glass cell.
How to cope with an existential crisis
Has the world gone grey? Are you wondering what life is for? Kierkegaard’s philosophy could help you rediscover your zing
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“When I sit in a car or in a van or a room, and I see 90 percent of the people with their faces glowing and their eyes in the palm of their hand, I go, ‘This is Orwellian.’ Their consciousness has been reduced to what other people think, period,” the actor said. “I do enough of it myself. I’m not innocent of it, but I’m cognizant . . . I see what’s happened to the world because of this easy access, social media, and the contraptions we drag along with us like a ball and chain, this new appendage we’ve been saddled with. And I think of Steve Jobs in hell being pursued relentlessly, for eternity, by demons who want a selfie.”
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"Atonement" - Dunkirk Scene, Five minute single take tracking shot. Men sing in unison in the face of certain death. Hauntingly beautiful. Full excerpt found in blog post. From the movie, they sing:
Drop Thy still dews of quietness, Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress, And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace, The beauty of Thy peace
Breathe through the heats of our desire, Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire; Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire, O still, small voice of calm! O still, small voice of calm!
“This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."
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