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How to live an intellectually rich life

utsavmamoria.substack.com

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Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#161

Post by bpshaver »

iandanforth wrote: post #126
crims0n wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am about a quarter of the way through Modern Library’s top 100 and it has been a worthwhile journey. It is “just” literary fiction but it is among the best humanity has produced. I have learned so much about the human condition, my ability to articulate ideas has improved tremendously, and I feel like my mind has been “freed from the tyranny of the present” (to quote Cicero). https://sites.prh.com/modern-library-to…

Anyone who puts "Ulysses" at the top of a best books list is suffering from expertitis. Ulysses has a massive user experience problem. It's hard. Dense, convoluted, absurd. If your friend asks you for a good book, you don't recommend it. The only time you do is when your college English major, or advanced highschooler, who is bored with the tropes of even very good novels wants to stretch themselves. Then you hand th…

Why are you conflating "best" with "what you would recommend a friend"?

Many of the best things in life are hard. And you wouldn't necessarily recommend them to a friend.

When you consider specific domains, often the best instances of X tend to be harder versions of X. Or, when people become familiar with many instances of X they seek out the "best" instances of X. Its natural that those best instances would be difficult for people unfamiliar with the domain.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#162

Post by aaronrobinson »

austinl wrote: post #143
WillAdams wrote: post #32

For my part, one of the most striking things which I recall from my youth was reading Dumas' _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and the Abbé Faria contending that everything a gentleman needed to make his way in life was contained in less than 100 books --- which he had memorized the content of, and could impart to the young Edmond Dantes. A naïve younger me tried to brute force this by reading one non-fiction book from eac…

"Be careful… about this reading you refer to, this reading of many different authors and books of every description. You should be extending your stay among writers whose genius is unquestionable, deriving constant nourishment from them if you wish to gain anything from your reading that will find a lasting place in your mind." - Seneca, Letters I was surprised to learn that the temptation to read too many things was…

That sounds horrific

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#163

Post by carleverett »

dogleash wrote: post #95
RajT88 wrote: post #22

> In August 2018, in the last month of my three-month sabbatical, I arrived at the Hamta village in Himachal Pradesh. I rented a one-room cottage, and my caretakers were Dolma Aunty and Kalzang Uncle, a couple well into their 70’s. I got to this part and realized: I've read this article before in some form. It's a really common trope to head out to some remote area of Asia and admire how happy people are. There's oft…

> But westerners have been doing stuff like this for ages and prattling on about it - it's kind of a cornerstone of Orientalism. This was actually a plot point in the recent White Lotus season. People rarely go to Appalachia to have these experiences, but you certainly can find people living simple happy lives there. I think you're moralizing over a pretty bland bit of psychology: people need to be shaken from their…

As someone from the US who's traveled all over the country for fun, I can assure you there are loads of delightfully unique places and rich communities that think and act quite differently from each other.

But yes I could see how work travel only could make them feel like carbon copies - both from the mindset you'd be in and from the types of places you might only go for work.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#164

Post by quantumgarbage »

iandanforth wrote: post #126
crims0n wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am about a quarter of the way through Modern Library’s top 100 and it has been a worthwhile journey. It is “just” literary fiction but it is among the best humanity has produced. I have learned so much about the human condition, my ability to articulate ideas has improved tremendously, and I feel like my mind has been “freed from the tyranny of the present” (to quote Cicero). https://sites.prh.com/modern-library-to…

Anyone who puts "Ulysses" at the top of a best books list is suffering from expertitis. Ulysses has a massive user experience problem. It's hard. Dense, convoluted, absurd. If your friend asks you for a good book, you don't recommend it. The only time you do is when your college English major, or advanced highschooler, who is bored with the tropes of even very good novels wants to stretch themselves. Then you hand th…

Yes, this list reads like one a Midwestern high schooler would go through to impress his failed literature teacher, who will write him a nice recommendation letter for the ultra-conformist university of his dreams, dooming him to 25 years of debt and a miserable life working as a consultant

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#165

Post by typon »

WillAdams wrote: post #32

For my part, one of the most striking things which I recall from my youth was reading Dumas' _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and the Abbé Faria contending that everything a gentleman needed to make his way in life was contained in less than 100 books --- which he had memorized the content of, and could impart to the young Edmond Dantes. A naïve younger me tried to brute force this by reading one non-fiction book from eac…

I wish I could experience the feeling of reading The Count of Monte Cristo again

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#166

Post by RajT88 »

carleverett wrote: post #163
dogleash wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But westerners have been doing stuff like this for ages and prattling on about it - it's kind of a cornerstone of Orientalism. This was actually a plot point in the recent White Lotus season. People rarely go to Appalachia to have these experiences, but you certainly can find people living simple happy lives there. I think you're moralizing over a pretty bland bit of psychology: people need to be shaken from their…

As someone from the US who's traveled all over the country for fun, I can assure you there are loads of delightfully unique places and rich communities that think and act quite differently from each other. But yes I could see how work travel only could make them feel like carbon copies - both from the mindset you'd be in and from the types of places you might only go for work.

Places you go for work are mostly corporate parks in the suburbs. Of course they all feel the same. I had the same experience and that was why - rarely did I get to visit the big cities. I went to places which had Chili's and Target and Outback Steakhouse.

On the odd times I visited DC or SF or Toronto - really amazing and different experiences.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#167

Post by throwup238 »

munksbeer wrote: post #66
throwup238 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Philosophy is just one of the liberal arts. This idea has declined in popularity in recent years but I still think there's a lot to be said for possessing a liberal arts education. If you have a good one your understanding of the world around you gets broader and deeper. Look no further than all the AI debates on HN: from the perspective of someone with a couple of college classes on philosophy (not even a minor),…

Yes, people are going to be ignorant of things they haven't studied previously. So, people exploring the ideas and debating them for the first time might look amateur to you, but why is that a bad thing?

This is a social media site; people can shoot the shit about whatever they want and there’s nothing wrong with that.

But… what’s the point? It’s like going into a thread about modern chemistry and debating about the four basic elements of ancient Greece. Sure you can have fun shooting the shit about what is essentially a historical novelty, but if you really want to debate about chemistry you need to open a high school textbook and get up to speed on at least the first few chapters.

The only difference is that nerds look down at philosophy and not chemistry; and the former is rarely taught in high school after which the arrested development seems to set in. No one blinks an eye telling flat earthers that they don’t know what they’re talking about.

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#169

Post by CGMthrowaway »

WillAdams wrote: post #32

For my part, one of the most striking things which I recall from my youth was reading Dumas' _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and the Abbé Faria contending that everything a gentleman needed to make his way in life was contained in less than 100 books --- which he had memorized the content of, and could impart to the young Edmond Dantes. A naïve younger me tried to brute force this by reading one non-fiction book from eac…

Dumas himself had a personal library of about 6,000 books at its peak. If you don't already have them on your list, historians have mentioned several books that were known to have strongly influenced him:

Walter Scott's historical novels, particularly "Ivanhoe" and "Waverley," which inspired Dumas' approach to historical fiction

James Fenimore Cooper's frontier adventures, which influenced his action narratives

Lord Byron's romantic poetry and persona, which shaped Dumas' conception of the romantic hero

Schiller's play "The Conspiracy of Fiesco at Genoa," which Dumas translated and adapted early in his career

Shakespeare's dramatic works

Memoirs of historical figures, particularly those from the 17th and 18th centuries, including Courtilz de Sandras' "Mémoires de M. d'Artagnan," which became the foundation for "The Three Musketeers"

Plutarch's "Lives," which informed his understanding of classical historical figures

Works by Abbé Prévost and other French novelists of the 18th century

The Bible and classical mythology

Re: How to live an intellectually rich life

#170

Post by FlyingSnake »

alephnerd wrote: post #159
FlyingSnake wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for adding extra context. I wasn’t aware of Hamta. My experience is in rural central and South India but I’ve travelled extensively in Garhwal. How different would you say rural JK/HP/LA/UK is? Your last para rings true. Goa, Kerala, CG and Odisha have better rural administration than MH, TL or KA because of the absence of heavyweight cities.

> How different would you say rural JK/HP/LA/UK is? Rural UK is much poorer than rural HP and JK. The administrative structure of UK is very top heavy (everything is decided in Dehradun), and Dehradun+Haridwar have caused tourism and real estate induced Dutch Disease to arise. JK and HP also have a tourism economy, but also have a strong industrial base (pharma in HP, heavy industry in JK) plus more investment in hig…

Great comment, thank you for sharing it. I’ve seen some of it in Garhwal where villages didn’t get proper attention by the Govt. We keep forgetting that states in India are akin to states in Europe.

A modern version of Gram Swaraj combined with Switzerland type canton system might work well but there are no incentives for the administration for that.

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