Blog Journeys of a Lifelong Learner

Study globalism and tribalism.

Learn about economics.

Be a student of history.

Be careful about the sources you heed, treasuring credibility.

Refuse to make conclusions before considering ample evidence.

Recognize that you may not be qualified to examine evidence.

Discuss ideas and their implications, not candidates and their quirks.

Flee the intellectual debilitation of unchecked partisanship.

Do not confuse ecological responsibility and socialism.

Value domain knowledge by honoring the views of those who have it.

Listen to the scientists while you have the chance.

Understand that a debate between two opposing views does not constitute a quest for truth.

Resist the urge to vilify ideological opponents.

Learn from contrary perspectives.

Do not ignore uncomfortable facts that challenge your presuppositions.

Worry about being misguided, not about changing your views in light of new understanding.

Cultivate a globally aware perspective.

Seek prudence and truth, not conspiracy.

Avoid needless arguments.

Always be willing to learn.

By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race. Before the introduction of the Arabic notation, multiplication was difficult, and the division even of integers called into play the highest mathematical faculties. Probably nothing in the modern world would have more astonished a Greek mathematician than to learn that — a huge proportion of the population of Western Europe could perform the operation of division for the largest numbers. This fact would have seemed to him a sheer impossibility.— Our modern power of easy reckoning with decimal fractions is the almost miraculous result of the gradual discovery of a perfect notation.

Alfred North Whitehead, quoted in Code Complete

Loose papers are not searchable.
Loose papers are not organized.
Loose papers are easily lost.
Loose papers are not indexed.

Loose papers should be searchable.
Loose papers should be organized.
Loose papers should be findable.
Loose papers should be indexed.

Loose papers must be recycled.

Loose papers belong in Evernote.

Have the art of conversation, for it is the hallmark of the person. No human enterprise demands greater heed for so large a part of everyday life, whence its dangers or its advantages. If care is necessary to write a letter, which is conversation studied and committed to paper, how much more is necessary in everyday speech, when the intelligence must at every moment pass examination? Skilled people take the pulse of the soul at the tongue, in which knowledge the Sage of the sages said: Speak, if you would that I know you. Some hold that the art of conversation lies in its artlessness, that it should lack formality, like the clothing. This may hold between friends. But where it is to gain respect, it must have more form, to display better the substance of the person. To strike it right you must be able to adapt yourself to the mind and to the spirit of your company. Do not make yourself a carping critic of words, or you will be held the grammatical fool; nor yet the opponent of what is reasonable, or all will flee you and look doubtfully upon what you have to say. Discretion in what is said is better far than eloquence.

The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Baltasar Gracián, Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading, page 50 (#148)

Three things make the prodigy, and they are the greatest gifts of divine generosity; a fertile mind, a deep understanding, and a cultivated taste. A great advantage to have a good imagination, but a greater, to be able to think straight. To have a mind for what is good! Genius should not have its being in the spine, where it would be more steady than ready. Straight thinking is the fruit of reason. At twenty years desire rules us; at thirty, expediency; at forty, judgment. There are minds that radiate light like the eyes of the lynx, which in the greatest darkness see most clearly. Then there are those born for the occasion, who always strike upon what is most fitting. Much awaits them, and a well-blessed harvest. But good taste lends flavor to all of life.

The Art of Worldly Wisdom (Baltasar Gracián), Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading, page 101