The antidote to doom scrolling and the resultant suppression of your soul and creativity is intentional action.
Get in the habit of thinking up projects and activities to do and then following through. Take control. Be free.
“I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.” -Xunzi
Short form media seems to pass out of consciousness and memory just as soon as you move on to the next clip.
If you ever feel like your life is becoming one continuous scroll, DO REAL THINGS.
Best known for his contributions to mathematics, Pythagoras also founded several philosophical communities in Ancient Greece whose inhabitants subscribed not only to the pursuit of knowledge but also implemented myriad lifestyle changes, from what they ate to how they worshipped.
Regression to the mean: a simple concept describing the tendency of extreme values to, upon repeated measurement, gradually approach the average.
Don’t fall victim to passive reversion to normalcy. Be exceptional. Fighting the gradient is the most worthwhile pursuit.
In an age of mass consumption and hedonism, critical thought and imagination are our only recourse.
Don’t be a passive vessel of your surroundings. Stand out through original interpretation and carve your own path.
What’s on your mind today?
Cephalus’ explanation of what he opines to be wealth’s greatest advantage
“Wealth contributes very greatly to one’s ability to avoid both unintentional cheating or lying and the fear that one has left some sacrifice to God unmade or some to debt to man unpaid before one dies.”
“For if men are sensible and good tempered, old age is easy enough to bear: if not, youth as well as age is a burden,” responds Cephalus to Socrates’ question of the difficulties of old age.
Old or young, you control your attitude and it deeply shapes the quality of your life.
Of Heaven’s angel, Virgil says to Dante, “He does for us what men in the world’s uses do only for themselves; for who sees need and waits a plea, already half refuses” (Canto 17, Purgatorio).
Recognize need in the world and don’t wait to address it.
Midway through his ascent through Purgatory, Dante Alighieri meets Marco Lombardo amidst the stinging smoke meant to purify the wrathful. Lombardo tells Dante, “The Shepherd who now leads mankind can chew the cud, but lacks the cloven hoof.” (Canto 16, Purg.)
(1/2)
He continues, “The people, then, seeing their guide devour those worldly things to which their hunger turns graze where he grazes and ask nothing more. The bad state of the modern world is due—as you may see, then—to bad leadership; and not to natural corruption in you.”
(2/2)
In an early moment of Plato’s Republic, Adeimantus and Glaucon turn from their discussion of the unjust man to the just man who, “wants ‘to be and not to seem good.’” To isolate and test his moral goodness, they say he must be stripped of all rewards. (Bk 2, 361b-d).
(1/2)
They say that this just man, “must have the worst of reputations for wrongdoing even though he has done no wrong,” so that his fortitude of character can be measured against his unpopularity.
Watch video clip. Does Musk resonate with you as an appearancist or truly just?
(2/2)