This week note is of paramount importance when it comes to relationships(making friends) at work place.When you are/fall into the right environment,you won’t hesitate to make friends as much as you can,but when you find yourself in a gathering of gossips and it’s not your kind of nature,it’s better you stand on your lane than sit in the midst of mockers.In this case,your friends might not be more than one or two which will end up being beneficial.I think 🤔 this gives the greatest peace one needs.
Moreover, being at peace will be the best for one’s good health!!!🧠😊🥰
Lots of interesting stuff here Doc. I read the whole Twitter thread on the production of books, fascinating.
I'm just about to start a new job helping disabled college students, and it'll be interesting to see how I find it socially. Obviously social interaction will be involved, but it'll probably be almost exclusively with people a dozen years younger than me, so I doubt I'll make friends as such. Better than nothing though, and I do love the academic environment, always have.
Wow, all the very best with the new job! I get what you mean about maybe not having friends as such, but good interactions with your students is great too! (We get medical students and junior doctors on rotation through psychiatry from time to time and it’s always a lot of fun to have them over.)
I love the point in your essay about taking a pragmatic approach to reason that focuses function over perfect form—I feel like that captures how I’ve been thinking about it but never quite put into words the way you do. And you’re right, Taleb’s writing is great on that, and so’s Peterson, who I see you also reference. I have my reservations about taking that too literally, though, since I think ideals do matter, so maybe what I’d be aiming for is a sort of practical idealism, which is pretty much what ancients proverbs were always aiming to capture. What do you think?
Thanks a lot for sharing your essay, gotta go back and catch up on the rest of the series!
Thanks! Absolutely, and who knows, there might be some mature students or friendly faculty milling around as well. It's all uncharted territory for now.
Cheers for your thoughtful response. From the very little I've read of Taleb, he seems to me to be one of those provocative thinkers who deliberately sets out a strong counterintuitive position so he can shake things up. I'm not sure even he takes everything he says strictly literally, and even if he does, that doesn't mean we need to! But I find reading someone as radically challenging as him helps shift my perspective a few degrees over from where it was, and prevents me getting too set in my ways. This is also how I feel about Nietzsche, Marx, Jung and basically all the Big Thinkers who thought Big Thoughts before academia became afraid of its own shadow. You only get the Petersons and Talebs on the fringes of respectability now - then again, maybe they were only ever on the fringes.
I agree that practical idealism is the way to go. I'm not a card-carrying Chomskyite, but I do admire his relentlessly hard-headed method of approaching politics: (a) here's what society should look like, (b) here's what it *does* look like (almost 180 degrees removed), and (c) here are the most effective things we can do to make things better right now. You can disagree with the whole capitalist project all you like, but you've still got to vote.
This week note is of paramount importance when it comes to relationships(making friends) at work place.When you are/fall into the right environment,you won’t hesitate to make friends as much as you can,but when you find yourself in a gathering of gossips and it’s not your kind of nature,it’s better you stand on your lane than sit in the midst of mockers.In this case,your friends might not be more than one or two which will end up being beneficial.I think 🤔 this gives the greatest peace one needs.
Moreover, being at peace will be the best for one’s good health!!!🧠😊🥰
Nice write up this week.👍👏🤝
Lots of interesting stuff here Doc. I read the whole Twitter thread on the production of books, fascinating.
I'm just about to start a new job helping disabled college students, and it'll be interesting to see how I find it socially. Obviously social interaction will be involved, but it'll probably be almost exclusively with people a dozen years younger than me, so I doubt I'll make friends as such. Better than nothing though, and I do love the academic environment, always have.
I write a bit about Nassim Taleb here, in the context of paving a pragmatist middle way between the politically charged poles of "facts" (pure objectivity) and "feelings" (pure subjectivity). You may be interested! https://smalldarklight.substack.com/p/facts-and-logic-and-lived-experience?r=8z5zd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy
Wow, all the very best with the new job! I get what you mean about maybe not having friends as such, but good interactions with your students is great too! (We get medical students and junior doctors on rotation through psychiatry from time to time and it’s always a lot of fun to have them over.)
I love the point in your essay about taking a pragmatic approach to reason that focuses function over perfect form—I feel like that captures how I’ve been thinking about it but never quite put into words the way you do. And you’re right, Taleb’s writing is great on that, and so’s Peterson, who I see you also reference. I have my reservations about taking that too literally, though, since I think ideals do matter, so maybe what I’d be aiming for is a sort of practical idealism, which is pretty much what ancients proverbs were always aiming to capture. What do you think?
Thanks a lot for sharing your essay, gotta go back and catch up on the rest of the series!
Thanks! Absolutely, and who knows, there might be some mature students or friendly faculty milling around as well. It's all uncharted territory for now.
Cheers for your thoughtful response. From the very little I've read of Taleb, he seems to me to be one of those provocative thinkers who deliberately sets out a strong counterintuitive position so he can shake things up. I'm not sure even he takes everything he says strictly literally, and even if he does, that doesn't mean we need to! But I find reading someone as radically challenging as him helps shift my perspective a few degrees over from where it was, and prevents me getting too set in my ways. This is also how I feel about Nietzsche, Marx, Jung and basically all the Big Thinkers who thought Big Thoughts before academia became afraid of its own shadow. You only get the Petersons and Talebs on the fringes of respectability now - then again, maybe they were only ever on the fringes.
I agree that practical idealism is the way to go. I'm not a card-carrying Chomskyite, but I do admire his relentlessly hard-headed method of approaching politics: (a) here's what society should look like, (b) here's what it *does* look like (almost 180 degrees removed), and (c) here are the most effective things we can do to make things better right now. You can disagree with the whole capitalist project all you like, but you've still got to vote.