(no subject)
I've finally found what I've been searching for in this job.
Spotify is great when I crave music. Podcasts can be entertaining, but I'm either not finding the right ones to listen to, or they just don't suit me.
I want the info and the history, the function and the education: the juicy stuff, without having to sit through the banter. Lecture me. Tell me.
But I didn't know that you can check out audiobooks from your local library with an app. This fact has changed everything.
I am flying through books. I can't think of a better way to spend my days than consuming endless amounts of literature.
I went through a few classics at first. Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, The Secret Garden. Enough Franz Kafka and Jack London to get the gist.
But lately I've moved onto more non-fiction. I read a book on a particular Japanese method of tidying up and getting rid of clutter, and I now know a way to effectively get myself to throw my shit away. Spring cleaning this year will be cleaning out decades-old cobwebs, and for myself, parting with a lot of things that have stuck around but already served their purpose. Clearing out my headspace of things to manage is going to open up a lot of space for moving forward. Tidyness and cleanliness are apparently learned skills, and since most people and families fail to pass this skill onto each other, we all tend to reinvent the practice ourselves and find our own ways to manage. I'm rather clean yet have always been cluttered, but I don't have to be anymore.
I never thought I'd get the chance to read anything by Stephen Hawking, much less finish a book of his. I will be rereading The Grand Design sometime in the near future, because although I listened to and heard everything, the downside to audiobooks is that my audio comprehension isn't nearly as good as my visual. I want to be able to quote the histories of our great philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians---the people whose building blocks we use as foundation---and I want a working mental model of how the universe exists as a framework for my studies. I want to comprehend what the greatest minds of our time are thinking, so that I by proxy might become more like them, and thus become a better person. Luckily, listening to books while working takes a small fraction of the time that reading does, although I now understand why I learn so much better from textbooks and taking notes than I do from listening to lectures. At the same time, I now also understand why people record their classes to listen to later. If I could listen to a recording of a professor's lecture multiple times, plus text and notes, I have conquered the course. I can do anything.
Today I started in on Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. This one in particular is a book that I was supposed to read in college as a part of the honors program, but skipped because that's what we all did in college. I was 19/20/21, and didn't give a fuck about much except doing only what I had to to pass, unravelling existential crises, searching for love, and partying. I had too much living and being young to do to care, and the older I get the more I think that getting older is amazing and beautiful. Anyways, I am entirely grateful that I've come back around to it, because I feel like I have just been told that I am capable of everything I ever hoped I might be. I am rarely the smartest person in a room, and because of this I always felt like if/since I wasn't the smartest even locally, it wouldn't even be worth trying to be anything ambitious at all. It would be a waste of time, because I wouldn't be capable for one reason or another, and I would fail and end up a failure. But I don't have to be the smartest; I only have to be smart enough, and willing to put in the work. And I am smart enough. People are born privileged, some (way) more or less privileged than others, but no one is born great: You put in the time and the practice, you grind away, and you keep going, and you become great. I feel like this is common sense, but it was a barrier that I needed to break through myself. I have all the tools I need to achieve what I want, and luckily, I still have the freedom to devote myself. Weirdly enough, more than I've ever had. I've unravelled my existential crises. I've found love. I'm bored of partying like I used to. And I'm tidying up. I covered my basics wants, and now I move a step up in Maslow's pyramid. It feels like I'm wrapping up a particularly juicy chapter: Tying up the loose ends, packing finished things away, making silent goodbyes to the selves that no longer serve me, taking out the trash. Making space and preparations, and gearing myself up psychologically for what's ahead.
I am studying and thinking. I am reading books. I am hashing out possibilities and taking steps.
We leave for Hawaii in four days.
This year is a year for doing.
Spotify is great when I crave music. Podcasts can be entertaining, but I'm either not finding the right ones to listen to, or they just don't suit me.
I want the info and the history, the function and the education: the juicy stuff, without having to sit through the banter. Lecture me. Tell me.
But I didn't know that you can check out audiobooks from your local library with an app. This fact has changed everything.
I am flying through books. I can't think of a better way to spend my days than consuming endless amounts of literature.
I went through a few classics at first. Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, The Secret Garden. Enough Franz Kafka and Jack London to get the gist.
But lately I've moved onto more non-fiction. I read a book on a particular Japanese method of tidying up and getting rid of clutter, and I now know a way to effectively get myself to throw my shit away. Spring cleaning this year will be cleaning out decades-old cobwebs, and for myself, parting with a lot of things that have stuck around but already served their purpose. Clearing out my headspace of things to manage is going to open up a lot of space for moving forward. Tidyness and cleanliness are apparently learned skills, and since most people and families fail to pass this skill onto each other, we all tend to reinvent the practice ourselves and find our own ways to manage. I'm rather clean yet have always been cluttered, but I don't have to be anymore.
I never thought I'd get the chance to read anything by Stephen Hawking, much less finish a book of his. I will be rereading The Grand Design sometime in the near future, because although I listened to and heard everything, the downside to audiobooks is that my audio comprehension isn't nearly as good as my visual. I want to be able to quote the histories of our great philosophers, physicists, and mathematicians---the people whose building blocks we use as foundation---and I want a working mental model of how the universe exists as a framework for my studies. I want to comprehend what the greatest minds of our time are thinking, so that I by proxy might become more like them, and thus become a better person. Luckily, listening to books while working takes a small fraction of the time that reading does, although I now understand why I learn so much better from textbooks and taking notes than I do from listening to lectures. At the same time, I now also understand why people record their classes to listen to later. If I could listen to a recording of a professor's lecture multiple times, plus text and notes, I have conquered the course. I can do anything.
Today I started in on Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers. This one in particular is a book that I was supposed to read in college as a part of the honors program, but skipped because that's what we all did in college. I was 19/20/21, and didn't give a fuck about much except doing only what I had to to pass, unravelling existential crises, searching for love, and partying. I had too much living and being young to do to care, and the older I get the more I think that getting older is amazing and beautiful. Anyways, I am entirely grateful that I've come back around to it, because I feel like I have just been told that I am capable of everything I ever hoped I might be. I am rarely the smartest person in a room, and because of this I always felt like if/since I wasn't the smartest even locally, it wouldn't even be worth trying to be anything ambitious at all. It would be a waste of time, because I wouldn't be capable for one reason or another, and I would fail and end up a failure. But I don't have to be the smartest; I only have to be smart enough, and willing to put in the work. And I am smart enough. People are born privileged, some (way) more or less privileged than others, but no one is born great: You put in the time and the practice, you grind away, and you keep going, and you become great. I feel like this is common sense, but it was a barrier that I needed to break through myself. I have all the tools I need to achieve what I want, and luckily, I still have the freedom to devote myself. Weirdly enough, more than I've ever had. I've unravelled my existential crises. I've found love. I'm bored of partying like I used to. And I'm tidying up. I covered my basics wants, and now I move a step up in Maslow's pyramid. It feels like I'm wrapping up a particularly juicy chapter: Tying up the loose ends, packing finished things away, making silent goodbyes to the selves that no longer serve me, taking out the trash. Making space and preparations, and gearing myself up psychologically for what's ahead.
I am studying and thinking. I am reading books. I am hashing out possibilities and taking steps.
We leave for Hawaii in four days.
This year is a year for doing.