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The Study Newsletter #003
by Ivaylo Durmonski
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A bimonthly bookish newsletter for lifelong learners and wanderers alike. Full of timely, wise, and deliberately short assortments ranging from book recommendations and summaries, articles, introduction to thinkers, thinking concepts, and more. All shaped specifically for our morally confused and widely distracted age.
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Hello online friends,
I want to start this issue with a question. It's a simple one (or at least it appears):
How would you describe the Internet to a young child? A youngster who is yet to unravel the mystical place we all use daily to connect? Moreover, how would you advise him to use the Wi-Fi connection we so passionately cherish?
If I were to describe our cellular connection today to my son I'll say something like this: It's a place that preserves all the wisdom in the world. A place without borders where people, regardless of where they live, can connect and learn from each other. But be careful. Never enter the virtual world without a starting point. First, consider what you want to learn. What you want to further examine. And only then hop online.
Or put differently, I'll emphasize the importance of adding context. Without a point of reference. The virtual world that connects us all is just a distraction. A clever, slick, deviation from reality whose only goal is to keep us away from doing stuff that matters, the important things.
With that being said, I want to introduce my Internet Competence Guide. Plainly, this is a short manual that aims to re-design your online habits from wasteful to meaningful. Instead of spending time scrolling through filtered photos, you can use the access we all have to do, create, something interesting.
This was previously an online course that was only accessible through my site but after receiving valuable feedback from readers, I've re-designed it into an actionable downloadable handbook with a modern look.
You can get it if you become a member or purchase it independently. As you will see, the price differs.
Here's the rest of the newsletter:
(If for some reason your email client decides to clip the email, click here to see the full content).
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- [NEW] Obviously Awesome by April Dunford: Tight, to-the-point book on product positioning without unnecessary fluff or gimmicks. Obviously Awesome will make you dangerously good at framing your products and cutting through the noise. The author, April Dunford, is an expert in making complicated services easy for customers to get. In this read, she shares her field-tested approach that will show you how your products can finally be perceived by your customers as (obviously) awesome.
- The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli: A book based on the realization that we systematically fail to think clearly. After meeting Nassim Taleb, a desire to understand heuristics and biases boomed in the author’s mind and lead to a transition. From a novelist, Rolf Dobelli became a student of social and cognitive psychology.
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Support my work: My newsletter is sponsored by my dearest members. If you want to support my work and to get access to the full summaries, you can consider becoming a member yourself. This way, you'll gain access to everything on my site and help me convert more long books into short practical lessons.
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Interesting books I recently added to my reading list (and hopefully will read at some point):
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- The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler: Since its first publication more than eighty years ago, The Decline of the West has ranked as one of the most widely read and talked about books of our time. A lot of people describe it as mind-bending work of unbelievable scholarship.
- Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Todd Gilbert: This book reveals what scientists have discovered about the uniquely human ability to imagine the future, and about our capacity to predict how much we will like it when we get there.
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| To Read |
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Lost in Thought by Zena Hitz
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This book seems like a perfect read for book nerds like me. A book on the pleasure of reading, reflecting, and learning for its own sake. Zena Hitz explores the meaning and the value of learning.
From my research, this book tackles some of these topics: "the importance of thinking, specifically cultivating the philosophic side of our mind as an end in itself, thus empowering us to lead a deeper, richer life for ourselves, our loved ones, our community, and the world."
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Interesting words from books and around the web.
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- Nixtamalization: A process for the preparation of maize (corn), or other grain, in which the corn is soaked and cooked in an alkaline solution, usually limewater, washed, and then hulled.
- Satisficing: A decision-making strategy or cognitive heuristic that entails searching through the available alternatives until an acceptability threshold is met. Coined by Herbert Simon. The term "satisficing," combines the words "satisfy" and "suffice."
- Satori: A Japanese Buddhist term for awakening, "comprehension; understanding." It is derived from the Japanese verb satoru. In the Zen Buddhist tradition, satori refers to the experience of kenshō, "seeing into one's true nature". Ken means "seeing," shō means "nature" or "essence." Satori and kenshō are commonly translated as enlightenment.
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| Frida Kahlo |
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Frida Kahlo, original name Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón, (born July 6, 1907, Coyoacán, Mexico—died July 13, 1954, Coyoacán), was a Mexican painter best known for her uncompromising and brilliantly colored self-portraits that deal with such themes as identity, the human body, and death.
She often told people she was born in 1910, 3 years after her actual birth, so that people would directly associate her with the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910.
She is perhaps one of the best-known artists of the 20th century. And although Kahlo had achieved success as an artist in her lifetime, her posthumous reputation steadily grew from the 1970s and reached what some critics called “Fridamania” by the 21st century.
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| Big ideas: |
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- Self-portraits: In her career, Frida Kahlo created 143 paintings out of which 55 are self-portraits. Kahlo said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best." Her reflection fuelled an unflinching interest in identity.
- "What is Woman?": Following repeated miscarriage, she asks to what extent does motherhood or the absence of this impact on female identity. She alters the meaning of maternal subjectivity irreversibly. It becomes clear through umbilical symbolism (often shown by ribbons) that Kahlo is connected to all that surrounds her, and that she is a 'mother' without children.
- Express yourself: Women prior to Kahlo who had attempted to communicate the wildest and deepest of emotions were often labeled hysterical or condemned insane - while men were aligned with the "melancholy" character type. By remaining artistically active under the weight of sadness, Kahlo revealed that women, too, can be melancholy rather than depressed, and that these terms should not be thought of as gendered.
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From around the web:
- You’re Only As Good As Your Worst Day: "We tend to measure performance by what happens when things are going well. Yet how people, organizations, companies, leaders, and other things do on their best day isn’t all that instructive. To find the truth, we need to look at what happens on the worst day."
- You Are Not ‘Behind’: "Have you ever felt like you were behind? I used to feel that way. I would read articles about a 26-year-old entrepreneur with a billion-dollar company or a 16-year-old kid who invented a new kind of fusion reactor and a slow creep of panic would start to rise in my chest..."
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| Conspicuous consumption |
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Coined by American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen, conspicuous consumption can be described as a behavior that involves purchasing goods or services for the specific purpose of displaying one's wealth. In most cases, exclusively designed items that serve to present the buyer as a wealthy individual. Conspicuous consumption is a means to show one's social status, especially when publicly displayed goods and services are too expensive for other members of a person's class.
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"The things you learn by yourself stick; the things that are “taught” to you do not stick."
- Nabeel Qureshi
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Working from home and everything around you is just further damaging your concentration?
Open a window somewhere in the world to get a nice dose of calmness.
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If you found any of the above valuable, you can share this link with friends, colleagues, family members.
Take care for now!
Regards,
Ivaylo Durmonski
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