Kintsugi — How broken becomes beautiful
The logic of trauma, addiction and authenticity.
Kintsugi — How broken becomes beautiful
The logic of trauma, addiction and authenticity.
Kintsugi — How broken becomes beautiful
In movies and life, people say they wish they could go “back to how things were.” They wish not just for things to be good again, but also that they’d never been bad. It’s a sort of ploy to deceive oneself that the bad can be erased by pretending it never happened. The arrow of time is, of course, irreversible. Things can become good again but not in same ways as before. Only in new ways learned from how the old ways went wrong. As much as we might want to, there is no way around trauma. It c...
Kintsugi — How broken becomes beautiful
In movies and life, people say they wish they could go “back to how things were.” They wish not just for things to be good again, but also that they’d never been bad. It’s a sort of ploy to deceive oneself that the bad can be erased by pretending it never happened. The arrow of time is, of course, irreversible. Things can become good again but not in same ways as before. Only in new ways learned from how the old ways went wrong. As much as we might want to, there is no way around trauma. It c...
What is possible?
On the edges of potential and sincerity of ambition.
What is possible?
1. ImaginationWhat is possible? Possibility is, by definition, open-ended. It excites precisely because we don't know where our imagination might take us. Still, there are ends. I'm not sure I can swim across the English Channel, but I am sure I can't walk on water.2. PhysicsCreativity without constraints is just chaos. Imagination needs a canvas to materialise. To answer the question "what is possible" is best done in reverse: what is not possible? Here, the physicist David De...
What is possible?
1. ImaginationWhat is possible? Possibility is, by definition, open-ended. It excites precisely because we don't know where our imagination might take us. Still, there are ends. I'm not sure I can swim across the English Channel, but I am sure I can't walk on water.2. PhysicsCreativity without constraints is just chaos. Imagination needs a canvas to materialise. To answer the question "what is possible" is best done in reverse: what is not possible? Here, the physicist David De...
Reaching truths
What is true and what is not? Here's how I approach questions like this: gilles @gillesdc Truth is bound by context. Each moment has a different truth. Some truths, however, have greater reach than others; they're true in more contexts (eg. laws of physics) — making them probabilistically sound. Both "it's relative" and the reach for "objective truth" make sense. 16 2:04 PM • Sep 22, 2023 This is my way of rhyming the objective with the subjective.The modernist, scientific worldview righ...
Reaching truths
What is true and what is not? Here's how I approach questions like this: gilles @gillesdc Truth is bound by context. Each moment has a different truth. Some truths, however, have greater reach than others; they're true in more contexts (eg. laws of physics) — making them probabilistically sound. Both "it's relative" and the reach for "objective truth" make sense. 16 2:04 PM • Sep 22, 2023 This is my way of rhyming the objective with the subjective.The modernist, scientific worldview righ...
Reaching truths
Measuring the immeasurable nature of reality.
Fighting entropy
The first-principle purpose of life.
Fighting entropy
Albert Einstein was an artist before a scientist. He knew his way around numbers and formulas, of course, but his breakthroughs were a function of creativity rather than knowledge. Einstein’s genius was in asking novel questions, then playing them out in daydreams.“The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.” — Bertrand RussellEinstein daydreaming an experiment — imagined with Midjourney AI.In his epiphany Gedanken (thought) experiment, he...
Fighting entropy
Albert Einstein was an artist before a scientist. He knew his way around numbers and formulas, of course, but his breakthroughs were a function of creativity rather than knowledge. Einstein’s genius was in asking novel questions, then playing them out in daydreams.“The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.” — Bertrand RussellEinstein daydreaming an experiment — imagined with Midjourney AI.In his epiphany Gedanken (thought) experiment, he...
How your brain constructs experience — 3. Leveraging awareness
Using awareness to improve the relationship to your self, others, and goal-oriented work.
How your brain constructs experience — 3. Leveraging awareness
Using awareness to improve the relationship to your self, others, and goal-oriented work.
Liquid morality
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, protagonist Raskolnikov commits the perfect crime. Raskolnikov is a proud young man. He thinks he’s smart but feels misunderstood and belittled by others, alienated from society. To break out of the poverty he finds himself in, he decides to kill a lonely old loan shark and take her cash. He needs the money, but the actual reason goes deeper: because he thinks he can. The morale of the story is, of course, that he can’t. The crime is perfect in the...
Liquid morality
In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, protagonist Raskolnikov commits the perfect crime. Raskolnikov is a proud young man. He thinks he’s smart but feels misunderstood and belittled by others, alienated from society. To break out of the poverty he finds himself in, he decides to kill a lonely old loan shark and take her cash. He needs the money, but the actual reason goes deeper: because he thinks he can. The morale of the story is, of course, that he can’t. The crime is perfect in the...
