Welcome to the weekend,
We are officially in the holiday season, which is my favorite time of year. These weeks between Halloween and New Year’s Day take on a enchanting quality. Crisp air, golden trees and leaves adorning the landscape, shorter days, and longer cozy evenings curled up with mugs of warm goodness next to a crackling fire (or candle). Simply magical.
Here is what I’d like to share this week:
On our Obsession with Reading. This piece demonstrates the need for both book learning and active experience out in the world. Buffett’s work habits over the course of his decades-long career exemplify parts of Emerson’s “American Scholar” address, namely the need to compliment learning of history with active movement in the world of today.
“The reality is that many universities no longer have an incentive to create an environment where intellectual dissent is protected and fashionable opinions are scrutinized.” – A statement from the University of Austin’s founding president, Pano Kanelos. I’m very excited to see a new option emerge in the liberal arts world of education.
A more convincing theory about marketing and how ads actually work. In many ways, this “cultural imprinting” theory lines up with the theory behind Veblen goods; the product itself is a signal and the buyer decides what kind of signal they want to send to their peers.
Secrets of the Great Families. Scott Alexander discusses remarkable members of prominent families, some of whom I’d never heard of before. The list includes Nobel Prize winners, politicians, doctors, mathematicians, and Olympians, who curiously, made high levels of success the family business. What can possibly account for these continued levels of achievement within such a small number of people?
“It’s not that unprestigious types of work are good per se. But when you find yourself drawn to some kind of work despite its current lack of prestige, it’s a sign both that there’s something real to be discovered there, and that you have the right kind of motives. Impure motives are a big danger for the ambitious. If anything is going to lead you astray, it will be the desire to impress people. So while working on things that aren’t prestigious doesn’t guarantee you’re on the right track, it at least guarantees you’re not on the most common type of wrong one.” – Paul Graham’s advice on What to Work On.
Currently reading: Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillian
Have a lovely weekend.
