Go small.
Photos are more interesting when much of the landscape or subject is cropped out. (Too many people take full-body portraits, which I often find utilitarian and boring.) Songs are more interesting when instruments can be appreciated individually. Try listening to “Sailor's Tale”, but only listen to the drums, or the bass guitar, or my favorite, the mellotron.
People are package deals; you take the good with the confused. In most cases, strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin.
—Steve Jobs
It seems to me, we're more different from our friends, family, and acquaintances than we've ever been.
Two hundred years ago, if a neighbor child had caused trouble on one's farm after a storm and the victim wanted to learn how to manage their frustration from a Christian perspective, who might they turn to? Who would fully understand their situation? I don't know… everyone!? Well, almost everyone. Their friends, family, and acquaintances would be neighbors, with the same weather, religion, fellow acquaintances, and, in many cases, the same occupation.
Today, if a former Lutheran and current Buddhist accountant living in Portland has trouble getting along with their boss, an evangelical former banker living in Omaha, who might they turn to? Who would truly understand their predicament? Hardly anyone. Many people would be able to offer advice, yes, but would they really get it?
I haven't even mentioned political affiliation, with politics now less a tool for solving practical problems and more a means of self-realization.
I wonder to what extent this explains rising rates of depression, anxiety, loneliness, and other unhappiness.
These days, when someone tells me they “did their own research,” I immediately suspect they have no idea what they're talking about and have no idea how to think critically. We know that Google and practically all other search engines customize their results based on what they know about the user and what most pushes their buttons. For that reason and others, sadly, “doing one's own research” is now code for falling prey to confirmation bias and being manipulated by online platforms and filter bubbles.
The new Ghost album, Skeletá, is pretty good, even if it's not my favorite of theirs. Meliora may be at the top, and I definitely think it's their most even and refined. The lyrics on Skeletá can occasionally be cringey, not unlike Impera, but like all Ghost albums, there are some hits, and they're not all singles.
The rock ballad Guiding Lights may be my favorite song on the new album. It sounds like something that belongs on a film's soundtrack. It also contains what I consider to be genuinely useful insight. I'm embarrassed to quote Ghost, but as Seneca said, “I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.” (Not that Tobias is a bad author. He's just not who most people think of when they think of life advice.)
Anyway, the line is:
The road that leads to nowhere is long.
In other words, if you find yourself stuck, you may be on the wrong path, and continuing down it may never prove that to you. In fact, the continual belief that the reward is “just a little ways ahead” is a pretty good indication that you'll never reach it. Although it can be painful, in circumstances like those, you'd be better off turning around and trying something else. You might even find that another approach gets you to your destination more quickly than anticipated.
What if we made all advertising illegal?
[…]
The financial incentives to create addictive digital content would instantly disappear, and so would the mechanisms that allow both commercial and political actors to create personalized, reality-distorting bubbles.
Clickbait, listicles, and affiliate marketing schemes would become worthless overnight. Algorithm-driven platforms like Instagram and TikTok that harvest and monetize attention, destroying youth, would lose their economic foundation.
[…]
Removing these advanced manipulation tools would force everyone—politicians included—to snap back into reality. By outlawing advertising, the machinery of mass delusion would lose its most addictive and toxic fuel.
—Kōdō Simone in What If We Made Advertising Illegal?
I've now had COVID-19 three times. That has to be some kind of record.
Why haven't I been using Google Forms all these years? It makes data entry for spreadsheets (e.g., weight, pet's health information) so much easier.