The Discoverers is just plain a better book. A tour de force. Free for unlimited borrowing on https://archive.org/details/B-001-024-356 ( I don't hate Noah Yuval Harari! He wrote an op-ed on the Gaza War that I read in the WaPo a while back and found really thoughtful and articulate. He's a capable historian. He's just been over-promoted. The achievements he's being lauded for in the popular press belong more rightfully to the authors I listed, who preceded him.)
I've learned to appreciate futurism as a way of stimulating my sense of possibility. The futurist works I listed are capable of jump-starting all sort of ideas that are...way far out. And then it's time to work your way back in toward the sense of probability. In my acquaintance with that exercise, I have to admit that there are some far-out possibilities that are more probable than I would have imagined at the outset. But there are traps, too.
Another reason for reading the list I shared- of books published decades ago- is to read them with an eye toward trying to pick up on how many of the social and technological speculations have actually become fact, in whole or in part, in the years since they were published. (But only a fool adopts a conspiratorial narrative frame on that basis. Beware of the post hoc propter hoc fallacy.)
There are also some deep ontological and psychological challenges posed in some of those writings that make for good mind-strengthening exercises to engage with. While realizing that the notion of "proving" or "disproving" the propositions is pretty much out of the question. And also admitting that by and large they aren't at the top of the list of priorities to be addressed in the course of existence, for most of us. There's such a thing as dealing too much with cosmic questions, of the sort that are of necessity a solitary and reflective quest. At least for most of us. Few of us make a concentration of it, the way desert monks and anchorites have been known to do. For most of us, discovering redeeming purpose lies elsewhere, mundane though some of those duties might be.
There's actually a case to be made that dedicated service to others leads to transcendence more quickly and directly than even very intensive regimes directed at introspective endeavors. Although a service regime can also lead to burnout. I've done some of the real nasty daily grind tasks of it, changing diapers and so forth. That's a daily thing, for some service workers. If I were a practical nurse or an LVN, I know it would wear on me after a while. I think caregiver nurses and nurse's aides deserve a few weeks off every six months or so. This helps the patients, too, because an overworked, unrelieved personal caregiver is not someone that you want working for you or anyone you care about.
I drove a MetroAccess wheelchair van for a while. That was an easy way to apply myself in a way that plainly helped other people, without demanding too much of myself. No danger of burnout, although the hours were long. I've done things in life where after a while I felt like I was wasting my time. But that job was not one of them. Do a job like that well, and it can help you get over yourself. And what a score that is.
Agh, I've digressed again...I initially intended to shift from futurist ideas to addressing the big questions attendant to pushing the envelope of self-awareness, like "How do I know I exist?", "What is Reality- and in what sense?" and associated queries. And look what happened...
Futurism, quantum physics speculation, and the like can be mind-bogglingly entertaining, to the point of pixilated intoxication--when I read The Dancing Wu Li Masters, I was giddy for weeks. But it's imperative to keep a baseline of Sobriety in order to keep ones balance. A grounded place to depart from. The more History I read, the more sober I get. It's humbling and clarifying. There's no way to prepare for the worst that human existence can throw at you, but facing historical Reality front and center counts as pre-preparation, at least. The nightmares of History also provide a wonderfully clarifying perspective. "First world problems" seem awfully trivial when you're reading about soldiers in bunkers on the Eastern Front at Stalingrad with fistfuls of lice colonizing their armpits, waiting for next artillery barrage.
Yes, big fan of Nonfiction...feel free to take these pamphlets
The last topic on that list, "Human Societies Behaving Badly Through The Ages"? It's a mutha. A bitch. A doozy. twimc: read through those histories, and recharge your existential sense of gratitude, instead of falling for whining about insignificant nonsense and clutching the dead rats of consumer gluttony, sybaritism, and social status obsession. Put yourself on bread and water one day a week, while you're reading them in your armchair or your warm dry bed. An incomparably better deal than what many of the human beings in those books ended up with.
Nonfiction to get up to speed about our common conditions of present-day existence:
( I'm toying with the idea of charging for my Substack page next year. But anyone who might happen to subscribe should understand that they'll learn more from bypassing my middleman song and dance show and diving right into the books on my lists. They're where I cop most of my material. )
The Discoverers is just plain a better book. A tour de force. Free for unlimited borrowing on https://archive.org/details/B-001-024-356 ( I don't hate Noah Yuval Harari! He wrote an op-ed on the Gaza War that I read in the WaPo a while back and found really thoughtful and articulate. He's a capable historian. He's just been over-promoted. The achievements he's being lauded for in the popular press belong more rightfully to the authors I listed, who preceded him.)
I've learned to appreciate futurism as a way of stimulating my sense of possibility. The futurist works I listed are capable of jump-starting all sort of ideas that are...way far out. And then it's time to work your way back in toward the sense of probability. In my acquaintance with that exercise, I have to admit that there are some far-out possibilities that are more probable than I would have imagined at the outset. But there are traps, too.
Another reason for reading the list I shared- of books published decades ago- is to read them with an eye toward trying to pick up on how many of the social and technological speculations have actually become fact, in whole or in part, in the years since they were published. (But only a fool adopts a conspiratorial narrative frame on that basis. Beware of the post hoc propter hoc fallacy.)
There are also some deep ontological and psychological challenges posed in some of those writings that make for good mind-strengthening exercises to engage with. While realizing that the notion of "proving" or "disproving" the propositions is pretty much out of the question. And also admitting that by and large they aren't at the top of the list of priorities to be addressed in the course of existence, for most of us. There's such a thing as dealing too much with cosmic questions, of the sort that are of necessity a solitary and reflective quest. At least for most of us. Few of us make a concentration of it, the way desert monks and anchorites have been known to do. For most of us, discovering redeeming purpose lies elsewhere, mundane though some of those duties might be.
There's actually a case to be made that dedicated service to others leads to transcendence more quickly and directly than even very intensive regimes directed at introspective endeavors. Although a service regime can also lead to burnout. I've done some of the real nasty daily grind tasks of it, changing diapers and so forth. That's a daily thing, for some service workers. If I were a practical nurse or an LVN, I know it would wear on me after a while. I think caregiver nurses and nurse's aides deserve a few weeks off every six months or so. This helps the patients, too, because an overworked, unrelieved personal caregiver is not someone that you want working for you or anyone you care about.
I drove a MetroAccess wheelchair van for a while. That was an easy way to apply myself in a way that plainly helped other people, without demanding too much of myself. No danger of burnout, although the hours were long. I've done things in life where after a while I felt like I was wasting my time. But that job was not one of them. Do a job like that well, and it can help you get over yourself. And what a score that is.
Agh, I've digressed again...I initially intended to shift from futurist ideas to addressing the big questions attendant to pushing the envelope of self-awareness, like "How do I know I exist?", "What is Reality- and in what sense?" and associated queries. And look what happened...
Futurism, quantum physics speculation, and the like can be mind-bogglingly entertaining, to the point of pixilated intoxication--when I read The Dancing Wu Li Masters, I was giddy for weeks. But it's imperative to keep a baseline of Sobriety in order to keep ones balance. A grounded place to depart from. The more History I read, the more sober I get. It's humbling and clarifying. There's no way to prepare for the worst that human existence can throw at you, but facing historical Reality front and center counts as pre-preparation, at least. The nightmares of History also provide a wonderfully clarifying perspective. "First world problems" seem awfully trivial when you're reading about soldiers in bunkers on the Eastern Front at Stalingrad with fistfuls of lice colonizing their armpits, waiting for next artillery barrage.
Yes, big fan of Nonfiction...feel free to take these pamphlets
https://substack.com/@adwjeditor/p-137502109
The last topic on that list, "Human Societies Behaving Badly Through The Ages"? It's a mutha. A bitch. A doozy. twimc: read through those histories, and recharge your existential sense of gratitude, instead of falling for whining about insignificant nonsense and clutching the dead rats of consumer gluttony, sybaritism, and social status obsession. Put yourself on bread and water one day a week, while you're reading them in your armchair or your warm dry bed. An incomparably better deal than what many of the human beings in those books ended up with.
Nonfiction to get up to speed about our common conditions of present-day existence:
https://substack.com/@adwjeditor/p-137316072
( I'm toying with the idea of charging for my Substack page next year. But anyone who might happen to subscribe should understand that they'll learn more from bypassing my middleman song and dance show and diving right into the books on my lists. They're where I cop most of my material. )