Welcome to Issue #77 of ThinkSpace Thursday
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📚 Light Reading
Learning to be a loser: A philosopher’s case for doing nothing
Doing nothing in a world where everybody seemed busy doing something—anything—struck Emil Cioran as the only lifestyle worth pursuing and defending. A life devoid of action and practical ambitions, of distractions and busyness, is a life in which room has been made for meaning.
Why you believe the things you do
Here’s a universal reality: What you believe to be true is influenced by how much you want it to be true. The more something helps you deal with uncertainty, the lower the bar is for you to believe it’s true. A lot of times we’re not interested in truth; we’re interested in the elimination of uncertainty, and that fact alone causes us to believe things that have little relation to reality.
Chesterton’s Fence: How to enact change
There’s an unwritten rule in the remote Australian Outback. When traversing vast cattle farms on endless gravel roads, every once in a while, you might come across a seemingly random gate. The rule is to leave the gate as you found it. If it’s open, keep it that way. If it’s closed, shut it behind you. The reason is simple: You shouldn’t make assumptions about the gate’s purpose. That’s essentially the idea behind Chesterton’s Fence, a principle everyone in the business of enacting change should know.
🔎 Study of the Week
Psychologists have identified a pervasive illusion that has existed for at least 70 years
A series of studies has found that people tend to believe morality has declined over time, regardless of the decade or country they were in, and that they tend to think the decline started around the time they were born.
📺 Video of the Week
Being is found in the present, for the moment of consciousness is all there is. Or so Zen Buddhist philosophy teaches. Does only the present exist, and is embracing the present the path to truth and fulfillment? Or is this a dangerous fantasy and the present an illusion, a distraction from the real task of creating the future? (12 mins.)
🎙 Podcast Episode
I enjoyed this chat with Peter Arnott. We riffed on the ideas of some of the philosophers we’ve covered as part of our ThinkSpace membership, not least the notion of daring to be inconsistent and being proud of changing your mind.
🗣 Quote of the Week
“Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.”
— Epicurus
👀 Perception Watch
Is it me, or are the peas upside down?
😲 WTF
Imagine you’re with a group of friends, and one of them suggests you go for a hike in the mountains. That’s not really how you want to spend your Sunday, but the group seems happy with it. So you go along. When you return, one of your friends casually mentions that hiking is really not for her. Suddenly, the truth comes to light. One by one, your friends admit they didn’t enjoy it either. Paradoxically, nobody wanted to go hiking, but everyone thought this was what the group wanted. This is The Abilene Paradox.
😁 In the Memetime
Don’t tell the psychologists!
📖 Book Club
In this book, Kieran Setiya asks if there could be solace—and even hope—in acknowledging the hardships of the human condition. Might doing so free us from the tyranny of striving for our "best lives" and help us find warmth, humanity, and humour in the lives we actually have? He thinks the power of philosophy can help us weather the storms of being human.
🤔 Contemplation Corner
🎧 The Song of the Week
Brian Eno and John Cale - Spinning Away
Listen to the ThinkSpace Thursday playlist on Spotify.
🧠 Go Deeper with ThinkSpace
Join a vibrant community of thinkers who share a passion for mastering the art of living well. Every month, we explore the wisdom of a different philosopher and deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world. Click here to learn more.
July Masterclass:
👍 Thanks for Reading
As always, if you enjoy ThinkSpace Thursday, I’d love it if you shared it with a friend or two. If you’re not finding it valuable, please consider unsubscribing—no hard feelings!
Live well, and I’ll see you next week.
John