How to flourish more, why writing remains essential and debt cliffs
Weekly Ink #10
A weekly newsletter with findings, practical wisdom, and interesting conversations from across the web, curated by yours truly.
Contemplations
Meditations, practical philosophy, and the occasional restless thought.
I’m agnostic when it comes to the conception of god. Based on my limited knowledge, it seems highly improbable that there is one(or many). I suspect the only afterlife is the circle of life; from dust, we come, and to dust, we return. So, it may surprise you to learn that I believe a core component of a flourishing life is faith.
But my conception of faith here is not religious. The kind of faith we need for a life well lived, does not require subordination or belief in a greater being. This Faith is not about worship but walking a path that transcends our ego. Put in a more secular terms: find a philosophy that sets you in a direction of striving beyond your meatshell’s wants and needs and have faith, that it is worth doing.
So today, I challenge you my friend, to think about what your philosophy or faith is. What do you strive for that goes beyond the self and ego? What gives you purpose, and what are you willing to commit your life to? And then practice it.
Because it is, a constant, on-going, Practice. It is challenging.
But you’ll be happier for it in the long run!
“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” - Epictetus
Insights
Curated stories and ideas.
The Surprising Reason Writing Remains Essential in an AI-Driven World: This article is sound advice, and aligns with my own experience of early (nerdy) exploration here at Cato’s Ink. LLM’s are undoubtedly a valuable and useful tool, but we do start losing something if we start letting it do all our writing for us, because in a way, that means we are also outsourcing our thinking as well, and that undermines our ability to write well (or think well, for that matter). Probably makes us less original, and distinct in writing too. Don’t be everyone else. Be you.
Writing is the process by which you realize that you do not understand what you are talking about. Importantly, writing is also the process by which you figure it out. -fs.blog
America’s fiscal outlook is disastrous, but forgotten: I’m no deficit hawk but the economist is right; American debt is not sustainable, not at current interest levels. I genuinely hope that Biden makes it a key priority of his should he win re-election. America needs to be on a sound financial path in order to successful face and thrive in the future, and that means making some hard choices, but it also means there is an opportunity to make things better, fairer and more competitive for everyone.
Plan your career around problems: I’m not as hardcore on the future of AI as Miessler is, but I think this is incredibly good career advice regardless of your industry.
Dialogue
Voices, perspectives, and conversations from our community and across the web.
Today I’m sharing a voice and perspective that influenced me directly, and that is a book called How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life. It wasn’t my first interaction with stoicism, but it was the first book on the topic I read cover to cover when i decided I wanted to make philosophy an active part of my life. It’s extremely approachable, and if you’re stoic-curious, I recommend you check it out.
What’s your life philosophy? I read every response, and if you’re reading this in your inbox and have some thoughts, just hit reply! I always enjoy hearing from you.
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