7Inspirations: March 14 2021
Late Bloomer, The Brain, Thomas Sowell, Craig Burgess, NOTHING, Nature
Hey, It’s Paul. Below you’ll find your 7Inspirations Newsletter: A short list of 7 things that piqued my creativity and curiosity. Enjoy!
Music
Genre: Jazz
I haven’t been listening to new music lately. Just been jamming out to Mammal Hands. I love Mammal Hands. You should love Mammal Hands, too. They’re amazing. This isn’t the first time I’ve featured their music on the newsletter, and it won’t be the last.
Book
The Master and His Emissary by Ian McGilchrist
A book about the brain. A book about how our experience of the world is shaped by how the brain shapes our experience of the world. I cannot think of anything more fascinating to read than a richly detailed and seriously researched book on the functions of the most mysterious thing in the known universe. It’s 400 some pages long and full of text. Reading it, to me, feels like downing 18 shots of caffeine.
See the quote section below for a bit about the nature of creativity.
Movie
Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World
Some see Thomas Sowell as unempathetic robot. And maybe they’re right. But is that any reason to ignore one of the 21st and 20th centuries’ sharpest thinkers? I don’t think so. I deeply believe that we need people like Thomas Sowell so that we don’t go flying off the rails into a world where ideology replaces the true nature - and beauty - of reality.
P.S: I love a good counterpoint. Disagreements excite the hell out of me. If you disagree with this view, I’d love to hear about it.
I had a brief (had other stuff to do this week) exchange with a reader about my positive regard for Jordan Peterson, and it was fun to hear their views in opposition to mine. And while we’re at it, I’ll say this: cancel culture is most toxic when it discourages people from engaging in good disagreements. It’s possible to have a disagreement with someone and walk away from it without missing any limbs. Disagreements - differences in views - are what make people interesting. Can they get out of hand? Absolutely. Can a disagreement be handled carefully as to not turn it into an all out war? Yes.
Quote
Since efforts of will focus attention and deliberately narrow its range, it may be that the cessation of the effort to ‘produce something’ - relaxation, in other words - favors creativity because it permits broadening of attention, and, with the expansion of the attentional field, engagement of the right hemisphere.
Ian McGilchrist in The Master and His Emissary
The implications of this are beyond the scope of this newsletter. In short, don’t try so hard to do whatever it is you’re trying to do. It’s what the Taoists called ‘inaction.’
Podcast
My conversation with Craig Burgess (on here soon)
Spent a stellar 2 hours with Craig Burgess to talk conversations + how repetition fuels creativity, darkness, debate, the "authenticity" dilemma, and tangents about this wonderful thing I like to call creative culture.
Good Fucking Food
NOTHING.
Because I’ve been, as the kids say, intermittently fasting. For…5 hours. All I’ve eaten today is coffee and a spinach/cheese pastry thing.
Deep Work Productivity people tell me fasting is good for focus, or something like that. I like to pretend that I, too, can be one of those Deep Work Productivity people.
Moment
[INSERT PHOTO HERE]
Other than blogging and writing this newsletter, Saturdays and Sundays are for Nature. For interfacing with that which faces us constantly: the ‘isness’ of Being itself.
I don’t know. The world is beautiful. Have you ever heard anyone say, “stop being in nature so damn much! get back on your screens!”?
The world is beautiful and so are you.
Cheers,
Paul
If you liked this thing, consider sharing it with a friend.
And drop me a line if any of these points were interesting to you.