this is true for most of us

myself included!

my book progress has been rather slow as i find myself reading every other material other than my books throughout the year

will look to finish at least 5 more books by EOY to accomplish my NYR

that said, to me finishing =/= reading all pages/whole book

finishing is simply when the key ideas have been extracted from chapters of interest (it can be the whole book or selective chapters)

i fell for the stalling trap once again as i usually do, so i will remind myself once again of my old message: https://news.1rj.ru/str/humblespace/29

not all books are meant to be finished

personally feel like i have experienced this before as well

https://x.com/BonesawMD/status/1990398249845293531?s=20

[cc]

in the name of protecting our peace, we’ve built curated lives filled with people who never challenge our edges

we mistake emotional intelligence for emotional convenience

lookism and the incel blackpill/redpill theory is actually pretty scientific and realistic, but not pragmatic wisdom to use. best case is like in trading; use general principles as a heuristic but dont overindex on stuff like that (oh i look like XX so i cant get laid, or i need to be in XX percentile for this)

"nobody ever asks you how you have so much time to scroll through instagram and tiktok, but they will ask you how you have so much time to read"

because the former is easy, while the latter requires discipline and focus, making it harder for most and hence it becomes more of an achievement that wows the next person

making people uncomfortable is a sign of a secure human being

you cannot please everyone

but this doesn’t justify being an asshole and refusal to change ways or reflect

- you’re not in trouble all the time
- no one has power over you

the second half of life begins

love must not beg nor demand. love must have the force to be absolutely certain of itself.

[BR]

finished up Demian today, 4 more books to go!

my intepretation is mostly the attractive forces in the universe (think manifestation) coupled with the internal morality battle between good and evil

fav quotes:

When we hate a man, we hate in him something which resides in us ourselves. What is not in us does not move us.

Whoever is too lazy to think for himself and to constitute himself his own judge simply conforms to the taboos, whatever they happen to be.

3.5/5

People often say that in your 20s, you have much less to lose than you think if you fail.

But they don't tell you that you also have much more to lose than you think if you don't try.

https://x.com/mrjasonchoi/status/1987576896960569726?s=46&t=nluSw7cwYGx8zFxfoYi5Iw

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a little peek into Niel Bohr's cognitive abilities from George Gamow's Memoir

would be surprising to most since his thinking and behaviour does not fit the conventional one of a high IQ individual

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Universe 25

Eventually, several factors combined to doom the experiment. The beautiful ones’ chaste behavior lowered the birth rate. Meanwhile, out in the overcrowded common areas, the few remaining parents’ neglect increased infant mortality. These factors sent the mice society over a demographic cliff. Just over a month after population peaked, around day 600, according to Distillations magazine’s Sam Kean, no baby mice were surviving more than a few days. The society plummeted toward extinction as the remaining adult mice were just “hiding like hermits or grooming all day” before dying out, writes Kean.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/this-old-experiment-with-mice-led-to-bleak-predictions-for-humanitys-future-180954423/

an interesting read

lots of parallels can be drawn to society, albeit not 1:1

it probably is a hyper-accelerated version if we keep trodding down this path

Now, interpretations of Calhoun’s work have changed. Inglis-Arkell explains that the main problem of the habitats he created wasn’t really a lack of space. Rather, it seems likely that Universe 25’s design enabled aggressive mice to stake out prime territory and guard the pens for a limited number of mice, leading to overcrowding in the rest of the world.

Toward Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch (1795)
by Immanuel Kant

Kant argues that although war and conflict are deeply ingrained in human and state behaviour, perpetual peace is a rational ideal we ought to strive for. It cannot be assured by sheer force or chance, but requires the right institutional structures and moral will.

feels idealistic, but its nice to think that eventually humanity will be able to achieve perpetual peace, instead of cyclical war and peace times

https://www2.hawaii.edu/~freeman/courses/phil320/21.%20Perpetual%20Peace.pdf

don't think we should live in binaries ie. take life seriously or don't

it is always good to have a balance and such extreme takes are usually to generate some form of virality

a balance is always necessary (物极必反)

the jester can also take his life and craft seriously