Codex Curiositatis (Thoreau, Progress, Feynman, Learning)

This is the first publication of my new column Codex Curiositatis (Codex of Curiosities). When I first launched my newsletter in 2020, I started sending interesting links about tech and productivity. I shifted away from links to original content around January of this year, but I’ve decided to bring it back. I really enjoyed sharing what I read as I think it’s pretty niche and something you wouldn’t have been able to find on your own. I’ll continue writing original pieces and sharing them here, so nothing is being removed, this column is just getting added. It will come once per week every Friday. I hope you enjoy :)

Henry David Thoreau shares a much-needed reminder on success: Thoreau is famed for his seminal work on solitude and living a simple life, Walden, which I suspect most people contemplate doing at least a few times per year. Thoreau painted a romantic picture of what life would have looked like in 1850s America and yes, they were much simpler times. But Thoreau was much more than a monk by a pond. He thought deeply about life, success, and love. “In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness,” Thoreau penned, “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

Why we need to seriously study progress: Imagine, for a second, all of the technological and societal progress that has happened in the last 100 years, 50 years, or even just 10 years. How did these things happen? Over the past 100 years, our living standards has drastically increased: clean water, electricity, medicine, cars, computers, and more have provided ways for us to live a life that would be incomprehensible just 150 years in the past. But did we get here on accident? Probably not. So, what happened? Well, we’re not sure. Can we increase the process going forward? …maybe? It’s time for a new science of progress.

A meeting of the minds, when Richard Feynman met Albert Einstein: “Einstein was a giant. His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground. But those of us who are not that tall have to choose!” – Feynman

What to learn, what to learn: I’m constantly asking myself (as evident through the phase changes of this newsletter) should I attempt to be a specialist in one area or a well-rounded generalist in a variety? Though David Epstein has some thoughts, maybe that’s not the right question to be asking. Rather, it might be important to ask what should I learn? If I learn the right things, theoretically they should give me a well-rounded knowledge of the world (generalist) while also providing me the opportunity to go deep in the areas I learn well (specialist). So, how does one figure out what to learn? By reading this.